Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Second Lieutenant H. P. Pearce, Hampshire Regiment and Royal Flying Corps

1914-15 Star (4-2186 Pte. H. Pearce. Hamps. R.); British War and Victory Medals (2.Lieut. H. Pearce.) mounted for wear, good very fine (3) £100-£140

Herbert Parmenter Pearce was born at Palling, Norfolk, and enlisted for the 4th Hampshire Regiment at Winchester on 16 September 1913. He served in India with 1/4th Hampshire Regiment from 9 October 1914, and with the Indian Expeditionary Force “D” from 13 March to 29 October 1915. He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on 2 January 1916, and posted to 11th Hampshires, later attached to No. 9 Reserve Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, for flying training. Whilst flying at Norwich on 5 January 1917, he was injured when ‘due to error of judgement in landing machine struck hedge & turned over.’ He was ‘badly shaken’ and admitted to hospital with a broken collar bone. A subsequent medical report noted that ‘He should never have been accepted in the R.F.C. for in August 1916, after he had been partly buried by a shell explosion in France, he found he was nervous, depressed, frightened and unable to carry on his work.’ He was declared to be permanently unfit as a Pilot or Observer and it was recommended that he should be ‘returned to his Unit when passed fit for some duty.’