Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Private H. W. Bradley, 1st Battalion, Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), who was killed in action at Wasmes during the retreat from Mons on 24 August 1914

1914 Star (L-8123 Pte. H. W. Bradley. 1/R. W. Kent R.); Victory Medal 1914-19 (L-8123 Pte. W. H. Bradley. R. W. Kent. R.) good very fine (2) £140-£180

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Barry Hobbs Collection of Great War Medals.

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Henry William Bradley (later known as William Henry) was born in 1886 at Stone, near Dartford, Kent and attested for the Royal West Kent Regiment at Maidstone on 8 September 1905. He served with the 1st Battalion as part of the 13th Infantry Brigade, 5th Division, II Corps during the Great War on the Western Front from 15 August 1914 and was killed in action during the retreat from Mons on 24 August 1914.

On 24 August at 2:00 a.m., II Corps were ordered to retreat into France to a defensible position along the Valenciennes to Maubege road, fighting a number of sharp rearguard actions against the pursuing Germans as they did so. At Wasmes, units of the 5th Division came under a heavy assault from German Artillery which began bombarding the village at dawn, followed a few hours later by an infantry assault by German III Corps who advanced in columns and were ‘mown down like grass’ by British rifle and machine gun fire. Soldiers of the 1st West Kents, 2nd King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, 2nd Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, and 1st Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment held off repeated German assaults on the village, and then, despite taking heavy casualties, retreated in good order to St. Vaast at midday.

Note: The Army Registers of Soldiers Effects; UK Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919; WW1 Pension Ledgers and Index Cards; De Ruvigny’s Roll; and the 1914 Star Medal Roll all state Bradley’s date of death to be 24 August 1914 whereas the Commonwealth War Graves Commission alone gives his date of death as 28 August 1914.