Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Private L. Clay, Lincolnshire Regiment

British War and Victory Medals (25162 Pte. L. Clay, Linc. R.); Defence Medal 1939-45, good very fine (3) £80-100

Leslie Clay left an evocative record of much of his Great War career, namely his pocket diary - photocopied extracts from which are included, with related typescript. Of the occasion his Battalion went into action at Trones Wood on the Somme in late September 1916, he wrote:

‘At last the barrage started and we climbed out of the trench by means of steps we had previously cut in the side. Once we started moving, it seemed to me there weren’t enough men to cover all the front, and we soon lost touch with the left. On the right I saw our Sergeant (Codd was his name) hit in the leg, but he knelt down and went on firing. I had several pots at a Jerry I saw in the distance firing away on our left, but I didn’t seem to have any luck. We couldn’t get on as the machine-gun fire was too hot for us, and so we dug-in in a shell hole until dark, and then crawled back to the line. Here we found a trench packed with wounded on stretchers, and I shall not forget my journey down the trench called “Needle Trench”. Passing along a sunken road with another chap, I suddenly heard him give a cry, and he told me he had been hit in the legs. Shells were falling all around us at intervals, and after I had seen this wounded man being looked after at a First Aid Post, I dug a hole in a trench, pulled my waterproof over me and went to sleep ... ’

Clay was subsequently wounded in the Ypres salient on 16 August 1917, and was evacuated home via the 3rd Australian General Hospital. Treated at several establishments, among them Ampton Hall, Suffolk, and Plumpton House, he was granted furlough in January 1918.

Sold with a quantity of original Great War period photographs and postcards, in addition to the above mentioned photocopied extracts from the recipient’s diary, with related typescript; together with original forwarding card for his Defence Medal riband, addressed to ‘Mr. L. Clay, 1 Ruskin Street, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire.’