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Auction: 17003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 550

Three: Private A. E. Surridge, Royal Marines Light Infantry, attached Royal Naval Division, who, having been wounded at Gallipoli, was killed in action at Gavrelle Windmill in the battle of Arras in April 1917, arguably the bloodiest action in the history of that distinguished corps

1914-15 Star (CH. 18863 Pte. A. E. Surridge, R.M.L.I.); British War and Victory Medals (CH. 18863 Pte. A. E. Surridge, R.M.L.I.), together with the recipient's Memorial Plaque (Albert Edward Surridge) and Buckingham Palace memorial scroll in the name of 'Pte. Albert Edward Surridge, R.M., R.N. Division', extremely fine (4)

Albert Edward Surridge was born in Mile End, London in March 1897 and enlisted in the Royal Marines Light Infantry in London in late August 1914.

Drafted to the Deal Battalion of the R.M. Brigade, he was embarked for Gallipoli in the following year, where he was seriously wounded in the right foot on 16 June 1915 and - via 'W' Beach casualty clearing station and Alexandria - was evacuated home.

He was re-embarked for the same theatre of war at the end of 1915 and joined the 1st R.M. Battalion in November. In January 1916, as a consequence of a new wound - or trouble caused by his old one - he was admitted to the hospital ship Salta but he rejoined his unit at the month's end.

Having then joined the 4th Entrenching Battalion, he was embarked for France in November 1916, where he transferred to the 1st Battalion, R.M. Brigade. It was in this capacity that he was killed in action at the Gavrelle Windmill in the battle of Arras on 28 April. On that date, he was among 1,000 casualties suffered by the ranks of the 1st and 2nd R.M.L.I., the heaviest losses inflicted on distinguished corps in a single day: at one point in the action an overwhelming enemy counter-attack was stemmed by the senior officer's rapid enlistment of his H.Q. staff, cooks and bottle-washers among them.

Surridge had no known grave and is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, France; sold with copied research.


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Sold for
£650