Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part III)

A fine Great War Somme 1916 operations M.M. and Bar group of four awarded to 2nd Lieutenant E. A. Brownhill, Royal Air Force, late Royal Army Medical Corps and Royal Flying Corps: having been twice decorated for his gallant deeds as a stretcher bearer, he was commissioned into the R.F.C. as a pilot and killed in action on a raid to Germany in August 1918

Military Medal, G.V.R., with Second Award Bar (903 Sjt. E. A. Brownhill, 1/3 W. Rid. F.A. R.A.M.C. - T.F.); 1914-15 Star (903 Sjt., R.A.M.C.); British War and Victory Medals (2/Lieut., R.A.F.), together with embroidered / bullion R.A.F. officer’s cap badge, by J. R. Gaunt & Son, surname officially corrected on the third, extremely fine (5) £1500-2000

M.M. London Gazette 9 December 1916. The following information was taken from Regimental Routine Orders dated 25 October 1916:

‘For gallant conduct on 5 September 1916 in going out several times from a sap in Thiepval Wood to collect casualties from No Man’s Land who had been lying out for 36 hours. The Divisional Commander warmly congratulates the recipient and the unit to which he belongs.’

Bar to M.M. London Gazette 19 February 1917. The following information was taken from Regimental Routine Orders dated 9 December 1916:

‘For gallantry on the evening of 19 November 1916 in attending to wounded men under heavy shell fire. The Divisional Commander warmly congratulates Sergeant Brownhill and the 1/3rd (W.R.) Field Ambulance.’

Ernest Albert Brownhill, a native of Sheffield, Yorkshire, was born in June 1893, and joined the R.A.M.C. (Territorial Force) in May 1910. A Lance-Corporal in the 1/3rd (West Riding) Field Ambulance on the outbreak of hostilites, he went out to France in April 1915, where he was advanced to Sergeant in October of the same year, and was twice decorated for his bravery as a stretcher bearer on the Somme.

Described by his C.O. as ‘exceptionally brilliant’, with a ‘very good power of command’, and ‘at his best when in charge of a party of bearers, working under fire’, Brownhill was a natural candidate for a commission.

In late 1917, therefore, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and qualified for his “Wings” in June 1918. Initially posted to No. 52 Squadron, and he was shortly afterwards transferred to No. 55 Squadron out in France, a component of 41st Wing, Independent Force. Tragically, however, when his squadron was briefed to attack a target inside Germany on 16 August 1918, his D.H. 4 was one of four to be shot down by a superior enemy force that intercepted No. 55’s pilots over Mannheim. His observer, 2nd Lieutenant W. T. Madge, was also killed. Both men were buried at Niederzwehren Cemetery in Germany. Of this costly raid Trevor Henshaw states in his The Sky Their Battlefield:

‘These very heavy casualties for 55 Squadron occurred on a morning raid which bombed the railway at Darmstadt. The original target had been Koln, but low cloud made the leader choose the alternative target of Mannheim instead and, as conditions improved, they pressed on a little further and hit Darmstadt. Throughout August, enemy opposition on these raids was increasing daily, and on their way home, near Mannheim, they were attacked by twenty fighters who shot four D.H. 4s down and wounded other crew.’

Brownhill, who was 25 years of age, left a widow, Annie Lucy (nee Tanner), whom he had married at St. Barnabas Church, Ecclesall, Sheffield on 23 December 1917.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including Great War period “carbons” of the citations for both of the recipient’s M.Ms; certified copy of his marriage certificate, dated 15 September 1918; Buckingham Palace (Privy Purse Office) letter of condolence, dated 20 September 1920, with related envelope; and three portrait photographs, one of him as a pre-war scout, another of him in uniform with his bride and the last of him relaxing in a deck chair on an airfield.