Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War ‘Western Front’ M.C. group of three awarded to Captain B. A. Saunders, 16th (1st Bradford Pals) Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment

Military Cross, G.V.R., unnamed as issued; British War and Victory Medals (Capt. B. A. Saunders.) good very fine (3) £500-£700

M.C. London Gazette 4 June 1917.

Basil Ashby Saunders was born in Liversedge, Yorkshire, in 1891, the second son of chemical manufacturer Thomas Bealby Saunders. Recorded in 1911 as a piece dyer, he worked for the Greetland Dyeworks Company in Lancashire from 1914-15, before being appointed to a commission as Temporary Second Lieutenant (Infantry), General List, on 14 May 1915. Transferred to the 16th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, he spent the winter of 1916-17 at Hebuterne in the Pas-de-Calais, spearheading operations designed to probe the German front lines at Rossignol Wood; an attack on 27 February 1917 proved disastrous when poor intelligence missed a German gun emplacement camouflaged in the dense undergrowth. Casualties amounted to two officers and 74 other ranks killed or died of wounds, with a further 2 officers and 83 other ranks wounded and 65 men missing in action.

Awarded the Military Cross in the King’s Birthday Honours List of 1917, Saunders likely witnessed further action with the 16th Battalion at Oppy-Gavrelle in June 1917 where a further 300 men were lost in one day. Throughout the summer and autumn more troops were killed, wounded or posted missing in patrol and trench raids at Arleux and Mericourt; the 16th and 18th Battalions of the West Yorkshire Regiment were subsequently disbanded by the War Office on 28 February 1918, the survivors being transferred to the 3rd Entrenching Battalion. Saunders survived the Great War and returned home to Yorkshire. He died at Calder in 1959.

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