Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War M.M. group of five awarded to Driver Mary O’Connell-Bianconi, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry Corps, who rendered important service on the Western Front conveying wounded men from places of extreme danger to hospital

Military Medal, G.V.R. (Miss M. O’Connell-Bianconi. F.A.N.Y.); British War and Victory Medals (M. Bianconi. F.A.N.Y.C.); Defence and War Medals 1939-45; together with a Great War First Aid Nursing Yeomanry Medal, bronze, nearly extremely fine (6) £2,000-£2,400

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Norman Gooding Collection.

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M.M. London Gazette 30 July 1918: A joint citation to seven members of the F.A.N.Y.:
‘For conspicuous devotion to duty during a hostile air raid. All these lady drivers were out with their cars during the raid, picking up and in every way assisting the wounded and injured. They showed great bravery and coolness, and were an example to all ranks.’

Mary ‘Mollie’ O’Connell-Bianconi was born at Killadysert, Co. Clare, Ireland, on 22 December 1896. Educated at Laurel Hill Convent in Limerick and finishing schools in Paris and Belgium, she attested for the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and served in France from August 1917. Sent to the Western Front near Amiens, O’Connell-Bianconi joined a select band of women driving motor ambulances to wherever they were needed - often under extremely dangerous and hostile conditions. Trained in the administration of treatment to both man and machine, the lady ambulance drivers soon proved their competence when taking over from the men, impressing even the most hardened top brass including Surgeon General Sir T. P. Woodhouse: ‘They’re neither fish nor fowl, but damned fine red herring.’

Deployed to St. Omer at the start of the German Spring Offensive, O’Connell-Bianconi was present in her ambulance as waves of enemy storm troopers attempted to smash through the Allied lines. Reeling from the assault, it fell to the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry to advance ever closer to the front to rescue the wounded, the pencilled battle lines on their maps rendered obsolete overnight. Decorated with the Military Medal whilst serving with the St. Omer Ambulance Convoy, O’Connell-Bianconi survived the war and married Captain Arthur Stanley Watson at the London Oratory, Kensington, on 18 December 1919. A renowned beauty of her time, she made her stage debut in 1923 at the London Palladium in the former Broadway musical revue ‘The Whirl of the World’, before retiring to Surrey and raising a family.

Sold with a fine portrait photograph of the recipient in uniform; a group shot of F.A.N.Y. Unit 6 members, with each lady identified; and copied research.