A Fine Collection of Awards to the Canadian Forces

A Great War M.M. awarded to Corporal J. J. Kiely, 42nd (Royal Highlanders of Canada) Battalion, Canadian Infantry, who was also awarded the D.C.M.

Military Medal, G.V.R. (902249 Pte. J. J. Kiely, 42 [?] R.), attempted erasure of naming which is now barely legible, together with an erased Distinguished Conduct Medal, G.V.R., contact marks, edge bruising, nearly very fine (2) £250-350

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Awards to the Canadian Forces.

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D.C.M. London Gazette 11 March 1919. The original recommendation states:

‘North of Cambrai, on 29-30 September 1918, he showed marked courage in dressing wounded men under very heavy machine-gun fire. When four men had been wounded he went out to them and dressed them and brought them back. On another occasion, when a man was wounded by machine-gun fire, he rushed out and dressed him. While he was doing this the casualty was hit three times by machine-gun bullets, and a Corporal who ran out to them was killed. He showed throughout the highest devotion to duty.’

M.M. London Gazette 11 February 1919.

John Joseph Kiely was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, on 3 March 1896. Employed as a Railway Trackman, he enlisted locally into the 193rd (Nova Scotia Highlanders) at Antigonsh in April 1916. Entering France in December 1916, where he was taken on to the strength of the 42nd (Royal Highlanders of Canada) Battalion, he won the M.M. and D.C.M., regimental records stating of the latter award:

‘The men in his platoon say that he carried on when it seemed almost impossible for him not to be killed. In an operation in which all men displayed the greatest bravery, this man’s utter fearlessness and devotion to duty stood out pre-eminently.’

Despite regularly courting death, Kiely escaped the war physically unscathed and was demobilised at Halifax, Nova Scotia, in March 1919; sold with copied service papers and other research.