Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Great War M.M. awarded to Able Seaman F. G. Sillence, R.N.V.R., Hood Battalion, Royal Naval Division

Military Medal, G.V.R. (PZ-2002 A.B. F. G. Sillence, Hood Bn: R.N.V.R.) polished, nearly very fine £600-800

M.M. London Gazette 20 August 1919.

Frederick George Sillence was born in Dorset on 16 April 1897, and was a point-lad on the railways when he volunteered for the R.N.V.R. in July 1915. After initial training he was posted to 3rd Reserve Battalion R.N.D. at Blandford, and from there in October 1915 to the Hood Battalion, M.E.F., in the Dardanelles. He served ashore in Gallipoli before embarking in May 1916 in the transport Ionian at Mudros for Marseilles, where he joined the Hood Battalion serving with the B.E.F. in France. Both in the Dardanelles and in France he is constantly in and out of hospital suffering from scabies and other ailments common to trench warfare. In January 1917 he was detached to the 189th Brigade Trench Mortar Battery, where he served until mid-March. He was wounded on 23 April 1917, hospitalized, and re-joined his unit on 27 May. He went on 14 days leave to England at the end of February 1918, and was again in and out of hospital until September when he returned to France. His M.M. was announced in Divisional Orders in February 1919, and he was demobilized at Fovant on 1 March 1919. Sold with full research.