Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Major A. W. MacDermott, Royal Dublin Fusiliers

1914-15 Star (Lieut., R. Dub. Fus.); British War Medal 1914-20 (Major); together with an erased Victory Medal 1914-19, M.I.D. oak leaf, mounted as worn, some edge bruising, fine (3) £120-160

Alfred William MacDermott, was appointed to a temporary commission as Lieutenant in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers on 10 September 1914. With the 7th battalion, he went to Gallipoli, promoted Captain on 8 August 1915, he was wounded in the abortive attack of 21 August 1915 on the steep hill of ‘Ismail Oglu Tepe’. The medical board reported that he had received some small fragments of shrapnel to his face and suffered concussion from a shell burst causing partial deafness to his left ear; he further showed ‘signs of depression and a general nervous breakdown of moderate severity’. As a result of his wounds MacDermott was evacuated to England aboard the Orcadian, arriving there on 9 September 1915. After convalescing at home in Blessington, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, he returned to active duty in April / May 1916, serving in Salonika, Egypt, Palestine and France. He was appointed Acting Major, 9 April - 26 May 1917 and was mentioned in despatches for ‘Salonika’ (London Gazette 21 July 1917). In October 1918 he was transferred to the 52nd Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment and was later part of the ‘Army of Occupation’ in Germany. Sold with 14 sheets of copied service papers. Interestingly, one copied letter, to Captain MacDermott at ‘Richmond, Whitworth & Hardwicke Hospitals, N. Brunswick Street, Dublin’,dated December 1938, was written to inform him that his Victory Medal had been found and was currently in the Chief Engineers Office, Great Northern Railway, Amiens Street Station, Dublin.