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Auction: 18002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 415

Pair: Private A. Evans, 1/6th Essex Regiment, who died in Palestine on 23 November 1918

British War and Victory Medals (43347 Pte. A. E. Evans, Essex R.), very fine (2)


Alfred Evans was born in London and lived with his wife at 15 Morton Road, Portway, West Ham. During 1916, his regiment and the 54th Division were brought up to strength and in mid-January 1917 assembled for the opening of the Palestine campaign.

As soon as they arrived in Egypt, the Essex Regiment were assigned to guarding the coast railway from Alexandria to Da'aba. They then began to cross the Sinai in stages and engaged in the First, Second and Third Battles of Gaza, 1/6th assisting the ANZAC mounted division in the rapid pursuit of Ottoman troops across the desert. At the Battle of Megiddo from 19 to 25 September 1918, Turkish resistance was finally broken, when 161 Brigade secured the Es Zakur line and then managed to form a defensive flank; covered by an overhead barrage from the machine-gun companies, the first line took their objectives successfully with the Essex Regiment in the second line as close support. By the time the Armistice with Turkey was signed on 30 October 1918, allied troops had entered Beirut. Evans died on 23 November 1918, aged 27 and is buried in the Beirut British War Cemetery: sold with copied MIC.


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Sold for
£95