Russia, Medal of Zeal, silver, contemporary engraved naming, ‘No. 25 P.O. R. H. Ash, British Armoured Cars, Russia, 1915’, n.r., very fine £200-250

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection.

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Robert Henry Ash, who was born in June 1895, enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914 and served as a Petty Officer attached to 12 and 15 Squadrons out in Belgium and France before the year’s end.

Subsequently transferring to the Armoured Car Section, he was embarked for Russia in December 1915, where he served at Shonga in the early part of 1916 before being detached for service on the Caucasian Front at Mozak that September. Having also served in a similar capacity in Dobrudsha and Hirsova, he was posted to Braila in Roumania at the end of the year, his service record noting at this point the award of his ‘Silver Breast Medal with St. Stanislaus Ribbon’ (T.N.A. ADM 171/74 refers). Ash remained actively employed in Roumania until returning to Tiraspol for service in Galicia in May-June 1917, and was embarked for England that November, after also serving at Proskurov and Brovary bases, in addition to Kursk.

Transferring to the Royal Flying Corps in February 1918, Ash was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the newly established Royal Air Force in April 1918 and ended the War as a pilot in No. 185 Squadron, a torpedo-bomber unit equipped with Sopwith Cuckoo aircraft at East Fortune in East Lothian. He was transferred to the Unemployed List in March 1919.