Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Private H. L. Smith, 2/5th Battalion, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment, who was captured at Bullecourt on 21 March 1918, the first day of the German Spring Offensive, when his Battalion was cut off and surrounded: attacked from front and rear, then enfiladed by machine gun fire and bombing at the flanks, the Battalion effectively ceased to exist by nightfall - the War Diary notes only four other ranks at muster a short while later

British War and Victory Medals (97937 Pte. H. L. Smith. Notts. & Derby. R.) mounted as worn, nearly very fine (2) £70-£90

Herbert Lewis Smith was born in Rochford, Essex, on 26 February 1899, and attested for the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment. He served on the Western Front with “A” Company of the 2/5th Sherwood Foresters and was present in the trenches east of Ecoust (near Noreuil) at 5am on the first day of the German Spring Offensive when the Germans commenced a four-hour long artillery bombardment of high explosive, shrapnel and gas shells. This was followed by a mass formation attack at speed which overwhelmed the Sherwood Foresters; the Battalion War Diary of 21 March 1918 records 22 officers and 599 other ranks killed, wounded or missing that day.

Captured and taken Prisoner of War, Smith was sent to Dulmen P.O.W. camp at Haltern am See, and was repatriated at the cessation of hostilities. Remaining in the Army, he was sent to Catterick Military Hospital on 25 March 1919 suffering from influenza but was discharged a week later. He died at Thurrock in April 1979.