A Great War ‘Battle of the Somme’ M.C. awarded to Captain H. J. Smith, Royal Army Medical Corps, attached 21st (County of London) Battalion (First Surrey Rifles), London Regiment, for his gallantry at Warlencourt on 8 October 1916

Military Cross, G.V.R., the reverse contemporarily engraved ‘Capt. H. J. Smith 21st. London 8th. 10th. 1916.’, good very fine £500-£700

M.C. London Gazette 16 August 1917:
‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He followed his battalion in the attack, and attended to the wounded all day and night under very heavy fire of every description. It was due to his courage and splendid devotion that so many of the wounded were brought in.’

Henry Joste Smith, a native of Heckington, Lincoln, was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps (Territorial Force) and served with the 1/2 East Anglian Field Ambulance during the Great War in the Egyptian theatre of War from 31 December 1915 (therefore just qualifying for a 1914-15 Star). Proceeding to the Western Front in 1916, he was attached to the 21st Battalion (First Surrey Rifles), London Regiment on the Somme, and was awarded the Military Cross for his gallantry at Warlencourt on 8 October 1916, the Battalion’s final action of the Battle of the Somme.

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