Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

British War Medal 1914-20 (5) (3102 Pte. H. A. Fish. 5-Lond. R.; 3266 Pte. R. F. Steward. 5-Lond. R.; 1730 Pte. G. W. Gullock 6-Lond. R.; 1945 Sjt. W. E. Rattee. 6-Lond. R.; 4938 Pte. R. W. Bridewell. 8-Lond. R.) suspension broken on Gullock’s medal; attempted erasure of last, therefore good fine or better (5) £70-£90

Harold Arthur Fish, of Highbury, London, originally attested for the 5th Battalion London Regiment (London Rifle Brigade), before transferring to the 2/16th Battalion (Queen’s Westminster Rifles) with numbers 8548 and 554442. He was killed in action whilst serving with this latter unit in Greece on 18 March 1917, and is buried in the Karasouli Military Cemetery, Greece.

Reginald Frank Steward, of Herne Hill, London, attested for the 5th Battalion London Regiment (London Rifle Brigade), and served with them during the Great War on the Western Front. He died of wounds on 23 August 1917 and is buried in Wimereux Communal Cemetery, France.

George W. Gullock attested for the 6th Battalion London Regiment (City of London Rifles) and served with them during the Great War on the Western Front from 18 March 1915. He would have served with them at Loos, on the Vimy Ridge, and on the Somme. It was on the Ypres Salient on 20 February 1917 that the battalion, along with sappers from the 520 Company Royal Engineers and the 2nd Australian Tunnelling Company, mounted a large trench. The raid was, by and large, a great success: it secured a record number of prisoners and numerous dugouts and emplacements were destroyed. Gullock, however, never made it back and he was listed as ‘presumed dead’. His body was never recovered and, having no known grave, he is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Belgium.

Walter Edward Rattee attested for the 1/6th Battalion London Regiment (City of London Rifles) and served with them during the Great War on the Western Front from 18 March 1915. He was killed in action on the Somme, whilst with the 47th Division attacking High Wood during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, on 15 September 1916. On that day the 1/6th attacked at 8.20am in the third wave, they were tasked with taking the Flers line; however, the failure of the previous waves to clear High Wood meant that a German machine gun was able to rake across the 1/6th and ‘whole waves of men were mown down in line’. Although a few men reached the Flers Line it could not be held, with the survivors (just two officers and 100 men, half of whom had come up from the transport lines) had to consolidate a position known as the Cough Drop, a group of German trenches in a valley west of Flers. Rattee was amongst those killed in action; he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, France.

Robert William Bridewell, from Devizes, Wiltshire, attested for the 8th Battalion, London Regiment (Post Office Rifles), and served with them during the Great War on the Western Front. He was killed in action on 15 September 1916, on which date the Post Office Rifles were with the 47th Division and in the second wave of the attack on High Wood during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette; whilst they did manage to reach the German lines they were met with heavy machine gun fire and suffered significant casualties. Bridewell has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, France.