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Auction: 18001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 566

(x) A fine Great War D.C.M. group of five awarded to Company Sergeant-Major H. O. Cohn, King's Royal Rifle Corps, late City of London Imperial Volunteers

Distinguished Conduct Medal, G.V.R. (11820 L. Cpl. H. O. Cohn, 1/K.R.R.C.); Queen's South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill (452 Pte. H. O. Cohn, C.I.V.); 1914 Star, with clasp (11820 (Pte. H. O. Cohn, 1/K.R. Rif. C.); British War and Victory Medals (11820 Sjt. H. O. Cohn, K.R.R.C.), possible official correction to rank; Canadian Voluntary Service Medal 1939-45; War Medal 1939-45, silver, generally good very fine (7)



D.C.M. London Gazette 22 January 1916:

'For conspicuous gallantry near Cambrin on the night of 24 November 1915. When the Germans had exploded a mine killing or wounding most of the garrison of a crater, Lance-Corporal Cohn volunteered to lead forward a fresh party of bombers to meet the enemy's attack. He occupied the crater, repulsed the enemy's bomb attack, and by his coolness and example kept his men together and held on until day break, when all was quiet.'

Harmon Oliver Cohn was born at Hampstead, London on 16 June 1880 and enlisted - underage - in the 1st Middlesex Rifle Volunteers in 1896. He was subsequently among 40 soldiers in his unit who were drafted to the newly raised City of London Imperial Volunteers in early 1900 and it was in this capacity that he witnessed active service in South Africa. He was wounded by a gunshot to his right thigh at Diamond Hill on 12 June 1900.

On the advent of hostilities in August 1914, Cohn enlisted in the King's Royal Rifle Corps and he was drafted as a reinforcement to the 1st Battalion in France in the following month. Having then won the D.C.M. for his gallant deeds at Cambrin in November 1915, he was discharged as a result of wounds in March 1917 - namely gunshot wounds to his left buttock, upper right thigh and the calf of his left leg.

Remarkably, Cohn then re-enlisted in the Rifle Brigade in February 1918 and served in the 3rd Battalion in France until the Armistice. He was discharged to the Army Reserve in March 1919.

Having then emigrated to Canada in the late 1920s, he attested at Vancouver for active service in the Veterans' Guard of Canada in October 1942. He was posted to the P.O.W. camp at Lethbridge, Alberta, where his skills as a linguist - he was fluent in German - were no doubt put to good use. He was finally discharged in February 1945, when he returned to Sumas Prairie in British Columbia, where he was a rancher. He died there in September 1948; above details courtesy of the Royal Green Jackets (Rifles) Museum, Winchester.




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