MAJOR G.H. DAVIES, 1ST BATTALION HONORABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY, 9TH (RESERVE) BATTALION OXFO

MAJOR G.H. DAVIES, 1ST BATTALION HONORABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY, 9TH (RESERVE) BATTALION OXFORDSHIRE AND BUCKINGHAMSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY, AND MACHINE GUN CORPS. Three: 1914 Star and bar (1710 Private, Honorable Artillery Company) British War and Victory Medals (Major), M.I.D. oak leaf on Victory Medal. BWM attractively toned, original sew-on clasp on 1914 Star (this gilt), generally Good Very Fine to Almost Extremely Fine.

Group accompanied by 15 pages of photocopied documents from Major Davies’s Officer’s Papers file. Gwyn Howard Davies, born Oswestry, Shropshire, enlisted into the Honorable Artillery Company immediately after the outbreak of WW1 at Armoury House, Finsbury, 31/08/1914. At the time of enlistment he was 33 years and 9 months of age, gave his trade as solicitor (in partnership), his home address as 101 Piccadilly, London, and stated that he had previously seen service with the 2nd Volunteer Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers from circa May 1899 to circa November 1903. Davies embarked with the 1st Battalion H.A.C. from Southampton for France on 17/9/1914 (the 1st Battalion Honorable Artillery Company landed as a unit at St Nazaire on 20/9/1914). In France Davis saw service as 1710 Private, No. 4 Company, 1st Battalion Honorable Artillery Company, and was a casualty of the harsh winter of 1914, being invalided on Christmas Eve, 24/12/1914, suffering from frostbite, entering the 8th Clearing Hospital at Bailleul on the same day, transferring to the 7th Field Ambulance at Locre on 26/12/1914, and to the 10th General Hospital at Rouen on 19/1/1915, and evacuated to England on 20/1/1915.

After recovering from frostbite, Davies was commissioned into the 9th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, a Home Service battalion, being appointed Lieutenant, 18/3/191. However, Davis transferred to the Machine Gun Corps on 22/11/1915, and saw service with that unit in France. Davies was wounded in action at Armentiers on 26/4/1916 and subsequently evacuated, embarking from Boulogne on 31/03/1916 for England, where an operation was performed to remove shrapnel. Although the operation was successful, the healing process was delayed by infection to his wound, a medical board on 16/05/1916 finding “that a shrapnel bullet entered the outer side of lower third of left thigh and lodged 10 inches higher up inner side of thigh .. .. Whence it was removed by operation. The lower wound is still suppurating. The operation wound has healed, but wound is still painful and the limb stiff, he cannot walk without crutches. No injury to nerve or bone.” By 11/7/1916 Davies wounds had healed completely. A Dr Howell, the Senior Residential Medical Officer of the Metropolitan Hospital, London, writing “This is to certify that I have today examined Lieut. G.H. Davies of the Machine Gun Corps and find that the shrapnel wound to the thigh has completely healed”. Davies was passed as unfit for general work but “capable of performing light duties”. He subsequently returned to active service in France and was promoted Captain, 9/11/1917 and Major, 26/6/1918. Major Davies was disembodied on 27/06/1919.

Davies gave his next of kin when enlisting as his brother, the Reverend A.W. Davies, of Radley College, Abingdon, Oxford (papers with group also include a touching, though somewhat optimistic letter dated 2/11/1914 from his sister, Miss H. Davies, asking “when you receive any special news concerning Private Gwyn Howard Davies .. .. will you kindly forward it to me”.