Special Collections
Create new list‘World War One veteran, Stanley Mansfield, was presented with the Legion D’Honneur on Tuesday at the Astoria Nursing Home, Colwyn Bay. It was conferred on him by the French Government for his services during the Great War. Mr. Mansfield, who will be 100 on April 27, enlisted in 1917 in the Leicestershire Regiment, before being transferred to the North Staffordshire Regiment. He was involved in operations at Messines Ridge, Zannvorde, Sveveghem and Courtrai - an action for which he was awarded the Military Medal for bravery, he had been ordered on a secret mission to the enemy front line, to plant weapons which would cause chaos in the German trenches. Originally from the Derbyshire village of South Normanton, Mr. Mansfield moved to North Wales 14 years ago.’
The Weekly News, 14 January 1999, refers.
An emotive Great War M.M. group of four awarded to Private G. S. Mansfield, North Staffordshire Regiment, late Leicestershire Regiment, who was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 1999, aged 99 years
Military Medal, G.V.R. (42599 Pte. G. S. Mansfield, 4/N. Staff. R.); British War and Victory Medals (24241 Pte. G. S. Mansfield, Leic. R.); France, Legion of Honour, Chevalier’s breast badge, silvered metal, gilt and enamel, in its case of issue, minor contact wear, good very fine (4) £800-1000
This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the North Staffordshire Regiment.
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M.M. London Gazette 17 June 1919.
Gladstone Stanley Mansfield enlisted in the Leicestershire Regiment in May 1917 but, as cited above, transferred to the North Staffordshire Regiment after seeing action on Messines Ridge. Posted to the 4th Battalion, he won his M.M. for gallant deeds at Cambrai on 20 October 1918, when the Battalion came under fire from machine-guns, field guns, trench mortars and ‘two 5.9 howitzers firing at point blank range’. The action raged all day, the unit’s war diarist noting that ‘all ranks of the Battalion displayed the greatest gallantry, determination and endurance.’
Mansfield was discharged in February 1919 and, some eighty years later, was awarded the French Legion of Honour; sold with copied research.
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