The Collection of Medals to the Leicester Regiment and Yeomanry formed by the late Trevor Harris

A Great War Hindenburg Line M.C. group of three awarded to 2nd Lieutenant H. G. Fairall, Leicestershire Regiment, late Army Service Corps

Military Cross, G.V.R., the reverse privately engraved, ‘Awarded by His Majesty King George V, Sept. 28th 1918, to 2nd Lieut. Harry Gustavus Fairall, 1/4th Battn. Leics. Reg., Territorial Force’, in its case of issue; British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut.), generally extremely fine (3) £600-800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to the Leicester Regiment and Yeomanry formed by the late Trevor Harris.

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M.C. London Gazette 30 July 1919:

‘On the morning of 28 September 1918, during the operations round Pike Copse, an outpost of the Hindenburg Line, near Pontruet, he was sent with his platoon to reinforce the company on the right whose flank was in danger of being turned. In spite of the darkness and confusion, he threw back a defensive flank and succeeded in driving off two enemy attacks which were threatening the rear of our position. He showed great coolness and initiative.’

Harry Gustavus Fairall, who was born in Leicester in July 1894, enlisted in the North Midland Divisional Train of the Army Service Corps (Territorials) in October 1914, aged 20 years. Advanced to Acting Sergeant in May 1915, he remained employed in the U.K. and was discharged from the A.S.C. on appointment to a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1/4th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment in May 1917. He subsequently joined his new unit out in France that July, and went on to win the M.C. for his gallant exploits on the Hindenburg Line towards the War’s end. Sadly, however, Fairall died of influenza back in the U.K. in November 1918 and was buried in the Leicester (Welford Road) Cemetery.