CORPORAL D. MEESE, 8TH BATTALION YORK & LANCASTER REGIMENT. British War Medal, officially

CORPORAL D. MEESE, 8TH BATTALION YORK & LANCASTER REGIMENT. British War Medal, officially impressed (14251 Corporal, York & Lancaster Regiment). Original silk ribbon, attractively toned, Good Very Fine to Almost Extremely Fine.

Medal accompanied by copied 1911 census extract, Medal Index Card, Silver War Badge Roll and 6 pages of copied WW1 service papers.

Denis Meese is recorded in the 1911 census as a 16 year old colliery worker employed as an underground pony driver. He was the son of ElI Meese, a coalminer. In 1911 the family lived at 5 Wragby Row, Wath Road, Mexboro, near Rotherham, Yorkshire. Denis Meese enlisted into the York and Lancaster Regiment at Mexboro on 2/9/1914 (the 8th Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment was raised at Pontefract in September 1914) . At the time of enlistment he was 20 years of age and gave his trade as that of miner. Meese was promoted Lance Corporal, 13/11/1914, Corporal, 10/3/1915, Lance Sergeant, 9/6/1915 and Sergeant, 7/12/1915. Medal Index Card states Meese first saw active service in France, entering that theater of operations on 27/8/1915 (the 8th York & Lancasters landed at Boulogne as a unit on 27/8/1915). Meese was wounded in action, on 28/9/1915 at Armentieres, severe gunshot wound to right thigh, and was subsequently discharged “no longer physically fit for war service”, on 16/5/1916.