Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War M.M. group of four awarded to Acting Company Sergeant-Major E. J. Vout, 20th Canadian Infantry, who was severely wounded on the occasion of winning his decoration at St. Eloi in April 1916

Military Medal, G.V.R. (57777 Sjt. E. J. Vout, 35/Can. I.B.); 1914-15 Star (57777 L. Sjt. E. J. Vout, 20 Can. Inf.); British War and Victory Medals (57777 A.C.S. Mjr. E. J. Vout, 20-Can. Inf.), contact marks, especially to first, very fine and better (4) £300-350

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the Canadian Expeditonary Force 1914-1918.

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M.M. London Gazette 11 October 1916:

‘For distinguished conduct and devotion to duty in the face of the enemy. In attacking the craters at St. Eloi on 10 April 1916, after the dispersion of his section by artillery fire, and although wounded himself, he faithfully and devotedly assembled a party of bombers and tenaciously succeeded in reaching the objective ordered.’

Ernest Joseph Vout, who was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, in January 1886, enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force at Toronto in November 1914. Embarked for France as a Lance-Sergeant in September 1915, where he joined the 20th Battalion, Canadian Infantry, he remained actively employed in that theatre of war until being severely wounded in the face on the occasion of winning his M.M. at St. Eloi in April 1916. Thereafter employed in the U.K., including a brief appointment in the 35th (Reserve) Battalion, Vout was discharged back in Canada in early 1919 and died in Ottawa in December 1966; sold with copied service record.