Auction Catalogue

2 April 2004

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

Lot

№ 243

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2 April 2004

Hammer Price:
£850

Three: Captain W. H. Bull, Bedfordshire Regiment, who was severely wounded on the Somme on 1 July 1916 and killed in action at Cerisy on 3 May 1917, just one day after rejoining his unit

1914-15 Star
(Capt., Bedf. R.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.), with related Memorial Plaque (Wilfred Herbert Bull), the whole contained within an old glazed leather display frame, extremely fine (4) £800-1000

Wilfred Herbert Bull, who was from Elstree, Hertfordshire, was commissioned from the Inns of Court O.T.C. into the 7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, and first went to France in August 1915.

Subsequently present with the Battalion on the Somme on 1 July 1916, when he commanded ‘B’ Company, he was commended by his C.O. in the following terms:

‘Captain Bull led the right attack with conspicuous gallantry until severely wounded at Maple Trench.’

Wounded, it would seem, by heavy shrapnel fire. Bull, who had ‘done splendid work ... had to retire.’

In this same official report, his C.O. describes the extraordinary coolness displayed by all ranks under withering enemy machine-gun fire, so withering that not one officer reached the objective, the burden of command falling on the Battalion’s N.C.Os:

‘ ... As the machine-gun fire - even on cessation of extreme bombardment - was still very galling, the waves hurried through the gaps in the wire and
doubled down the slope. It was on the gaps and the top of the slope that the machine-gun fire was principally directed - there was practically none at the foot of the slope. Here the right attack formed up in deliberate fashion making absolutely certain of its line of advance. It then advanced [under Bull’s command] as if on parade. The waves were perfectly dressed intervals and distances as it seemed to me from our trenches - kept extraordinarily well. The machine-gun fire still continued - very active and casualties were seen to occur before Austrian Trench was reached, but the waves still continued on their way, seemingly without check ...’

His C.O. also quotes from a letter that he had received from Captain Bull in hospital, in which the latter wrote that ‘half hour outside that trench will be a nightmare for years to come, and this was our most expensive time - there were about 20 Berkshires and about the same numbers of my lot. They were splendid in the way they cut the wire just as if there was nothing doing ...’

The gallant - yet unrewarded Bull - was killed in action at Cerisy on the Arras front on 3 May 1917, his comrades greatly lamenting his loss:

‘ ... It was the same old story of uncut wire and enemy machine-gun fire. Among the many who died on the wire, Cousins particularly remembered Captain Bull, who was trying to rally the men; he had only returned to duty the day before, after recovering from serious wounds received on the Somme ... ‘

Bull was interred in the Cerisy-Gailly French National Cemetery on the Somme; photographs of his headstone are included.