Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part I)

Seven: Lieutenant A. H. Smith, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

1914-15 Star (Lieut., R.N.V.R.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut., R.N.V.R.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45, mounted as worn, generally very fine and better (7) £120-150

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the collection of Angela and the late Douglas Bertram.

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Alexander Hardwick Smith commenced his wartime service aboard the cruiser H.M.S. Shannon in September 1914, being borne on her books as an Interpreter. His subsequent appointments included the Zaria in October 1915, as ‘additional for Examination Service, Lerwick’, and the Brilliant, to which latter ship’s books he was transferred later in the same year. Then in January 1918 he was transferred to the books of Ambitious, and, that June, to a special duties appointment in the Intelligence Department in President. In January 1919, however, he was assessed as ‘permanently unfit’ by a medical board at Cambridge Hospital, Aldershot.

In the 1939-45 War Smith was re-appointed a Lieutenant, R.N.V.R. in April 1941 and would appear to have served on the Staff of the naval base Bysra, which moved to Naples from Bougie in Algeria in late 1943.