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Auction: 19002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 234

A Great War M.M. group of five awarded to Private J. C. Hooper, 1/5th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry, decorated for his part in the operations around Jerusalem in November 1917

Military Medal, G.V.R. (240272 Pte. J. C. Hooper. 1/5 Som: L. I. - T.F.); British War and Victory Medals (240272 Pte. J. C. Hooper. Som. L. I.); Territorial Force War Medal 1914-19 (1621 Pte. J. C. Hooper. Som. L. I.); Defence Medal 1939-45, good very fine (5)

M.M. London Gazette 10 April 1918 (Egypt).

James C. Hooper, a native of Crewkerne, Somerset served with the 1/5th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry in India and Palestine. His M.M. is noted in the Battalion History as having been for the November operations. During this period, following the victory at Beersheba the Battalion immediately made an advance on 'Middlesex Hill' and 'the Maze' on 6 November, the attack going in at 11.30 p.m. with each man '...drawing bombs and taking a tot of rum'. Following an intense barrage '...the men of Somerset and Wiltshire advanced shoulder to shoulder, and, having safely reached their objectives, consolidated the position.'

Another hard action was fought on 13 November, on which day the Commanding Officer, Major F. D. Urwick, won an immediate D.S.O.. A later action of the month would be the celebrated capture of Kuryet El Enab, when the Battalion advanced headlong into the position without faltering under covering fire from armoured cars drawn along the roadway. Indeed, the War Office issued a decree announcing the victory. The 1/5th would close out the month in the attacks on Jerusalem, taking heavy casualties on 25 November, suffering 10 killed, 26 wounded and 2 missing.

Hooper was disembodied on 28 April 1919 but served in the Home Guard during the Second World War; sold with copied MIC and research.

Reference source:

The Book of Remembrance, 5th Battalion (Prince Albert's) Somerset Light Infantry

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Sold for
£850