Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

British War Medal 1914-20 (Lieut. W. M. Mason) very fine £50-£70

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Medals to the South Wales Borderers.

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William Miles Mason was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion, South Wales Borderers in October 1914. He advanced to Lieutenant in April 1915, and served with the Battalion in Gallipoli from 24 September 1915.

Mason served with the Battalion as part of the 87th Brigade, 29th Division on the Somme, July - November 1916. He was wounded in action during the First Day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, when the Battalion was engaged in the attack on Beaumont-Hamel, ‘Objective Y Ravine - left start positions as zero - soon cut down by machine gun bullets, most in leaving waves would not get much further than their own wire. Those that did reach German line were quickly killed. Casualties - 372.’ (British Battalions on the Somme by R. Westlake refers).

The Regimental History gives:

‘The 2nd S.W.B. had not been the heaviest hit battalion in the Division, yet its casualty list included 15 of the 21 officers and 384 of the 578 men engaged in the attack, 235 of them killed and missing. There was little chance that any “missing” might later be reported as prisoners; scarce one had reached the enemy’s lines, and “missing” merely meant that a man had fallen too far out for his body to be recovered. Of the officers, Captains Blake, Hughes and McLaren, Lieutenant H. P. Evans, Second Lieutenants Bowyer, Don, Karran, Murray, Rice, Robinson and Wells had been killed. Captain Somerville and Lieutenant Fowkes, Kelly and Mason could be reckoned fortunate in being merely wounded.’