Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Lieutenant A. A. Hill, Machine Gun Corps, late Sherwood Foresters and 28th (County of London) Battalion (Artists Rifles), London Regiment, who was severely wounded in action whilst attempting to capture Le Cateau and force a German retreat to the Sambre-Oise Canal

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. A. A. Hill.) nearly extremely fine (2) £80-£100

Alexander Augustus Hill was born in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1882. Educated at Derby Grammar School and Denstone College, Staffordshire, he attested at Dukes Road, Bloomsbury, for the 28th (County of London) Battalion (Artists Rifles), London Regiment on 15 February 1916, and was appointed to a commission with the 3rd Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), on 19 December 1916. Transferred to the Machine Gun Corps, Hill joined the Base Depot at Camiers on 7 July 1918, and was posted to the 25th Battalion, Machine Gun Corps, on 11 July 1918. 

On 17 October 1918, the British Fourth Army launched a major attack across the River Selle designed to destroy the German defences, capture Le Cateau, and liberate almost 40 towns and villages that had been occupied since August 1914. Infantry and tanks, preceded by a creeping barrage, moved forward on a 10-mile front and met strong enemy resistance, exacerbated by large swathes of uncut wire. Fighting was particularly fierce along the line of the Le Cateau-Wassigny railway. The following day, Hill’s war came to a sudden halt when he suffered a severe gunshot wound. Removed to the 8th General Hospital at Rouen and then evacuated to England per H.S. Panama, the loss of tissue from his left buttock proved a painful and troublesome injury. He was released from service on account of this wound on 21 March 1919.