Auction Catalogue

1 December 2004

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

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

Lot

№ 1189

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1 December 2004

Hammer Price:
Withdrawn

Pair: Lieutenant L. Williams, South Wales Borderers

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut.) extremely fine (2) £100-130

Leonard Williams, the youngest son of Mr Alfred Williams of Caerlon, Monmouthshire, was educated at Ampleforth College and New College, Oxford. A Gentleman Cadet at the Royal Military College, he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers on 11 November 1914 and promoted Lieutenant on 6 May 1915. He died in No.22 Field Ambulance, Vermelles on 11 September 1915, aged 20 years, from wounds received in action whilst in charge of a platoon making an advanced trench. The Rev. Francis Gleeson wrote, ‘The party was digging a new communication trench and Willie (as I called him) was in charge. It is dangerous work as, bullets constantly whizz about, coming from the German parapets. Your son having to supervise the work and men, had necessarily to get out of the trench and walk from one portion to another. It was while thus walking in the open that a stray bullet caught him. It penetrated his left jaw and emerged at the left side of his skull. It then continued its course and entered the body of a private near by. The private was not killed and the wound is not very serious, but the bullet lodged in his flesh. Poor Willie was at once placed on a stretcher and borne to the advanced Ambulance Station-No.22 Field Ambulance. This was a journey entailing about half an hour or 40 minutes. It was about midnight (Saturday-Sunday 11-12th). Having been placed in the Field Hospital, a motor ambulance arrived. Whilst being placed therein the poor lad died ... He was intensely loved by his battalion, and the men of his platoon are in deepest sorrow after him’. Lieutenant Williams was buried in the Vermelles British Cemetery and his name is commemorated in St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Stow Hill and in the Chapel of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Sold with copied research.

Withdrawn