Three: Sergeant C. W. Hall, Monmouthshire Regiment

1914 Star (140 Sjt., 1/2 Mon. R.); British War and Victory Medals (140 Sjt., Monmouth. R.), contact marks and one or two edge bruises, otherwise generally very fine (3) £120-150

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to the Monmouthshire Regiment formed by Lt. Col. P. A. Blagojevic, O. St. J., T.D..

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Charles William Hall first entered the French theatre of war as a Sergeant in No. 1 Company, 2nd Battalion, Monmouthshire Regiment in early November 1914 but was honourably discharged in April 1916, aged 41 years, and awarded the Silver War Badge. In the interim, judging by the following extracts taken from a letter of his sent to friends in Pontypool, and published in The Free Press of Monmouthshire on 22 January 1915, he certainly saw his fair share of the action:

‘My platoon, which is about 40 strong, had rather an exciting time the other night. We had to make a barricade, and the stuff required to make it had to be carried about 800 yards. We had to go across fields right in front of the enemy’s trenches, which were, in some places, only 60 yards from us. They kept up an incessant fire on us, so we had to crawl along on the ground and drag our loads with us. And yet I only lost three men. It was a moonlit night; in fact, like day, so that does not say much for their marksmanship ... Another day I had been sniping all day, when suddenly they turned a machine-gun on the spot where I was firing. They peppered away for about twenty minutes. I must have annoyed them a lot, or they would not have replied with a machine-gun. There is scarcely one building left standing around us. Whole farms have been demolished ... ’

Hall also appeared in another article in the same newspaper on 12 February 1915, in a feature entitled ‘The Seven Sergeants of No. 1 Company 2nd Monmouthshires - All Doing Their Little Bit For Dear Home Land’, and which includes him in a group photograph of said Sergeants.