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Auction: 20001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - conducted behind closed doors
Lot: 665

A fine 'First Day of the Battle of the Somme' M.C. group of three to Captain G. E. Gee, Royal Scots, who was decorated for his part in the capture of Scots Redoubt, a horrific action in which the 15th Battalion suffered 628 casualties

Military Cross, G.V.R. (Capt. E. Gee.), in Royal Mint fitted leather box of issue; British War and Victory Medals 1914-19 (Capt. G. E. Gee), nearly extremely fine (3)

M.C. London Gazette 19 August 1916.

George Edward Gee served during the Great War with the 15th (Service) Battalion (1st Edinburgh), Royal Scots, landing at Le Havre on 8 January 1916. He wrote numerous letters to his wife, containing lines such as: 'Dearest - Your letter and small parcel arrived here at 4.30 this afternoon. Thanks very much for cigarettes. They are very acceptable.' The letters reveal that the Battalion was reviewed by General Joffre and Sir Douglas Haig on 20 January 1916. Five days later it marched into the front line, Gee writing: 'we again marched off through the usual bad roads - Some of our men have hardly any soles to their boots.'

Part of 101st Brigade, 34th Division, the 15th Battalion took part in the attack on La Boiselle on 1 July 1916, as part of the wider Somme Offensive. The War Diary notes that both the 1st and 2nd waves formed up in No Man's Land just before zero hour (7.30 a.m.), the men leaving 'with great heart and in grand form.' German machine-guns in La Boiselle and Sausage Valley inflicted severe losses, but the Battalion succeeded in taking Scots Redoubt at 7.48 a.m., before relief came at 3 p.m. that afternoon. Casualties amounted to 628 officers and men. The city of Edinburgh was unable to provide sufficient recruits to bring the Battalion up to strength, and so the Battalion's link with Edinburgh was completely wiped away.

During this ghastly assault, Gee lost both his legs to German shell-fire while he was advancing across No Man's Land. He lay in a shell-hole in the blazing sun for 48 hours, without water. From the letters of Lewis Nott, who served with the 15th Battalion in the same action, we know that Gee was finally discovered and carried away on 3 July, still 'with a joke on his lips' (Nott, p. 161). Taken to hospital in London, Gee was gazetted for the M.C. but never lived to receive it. He died of his wounds on 27 July 1916, and is buried at West Norwood Cemetery (Ref. 85.34379); sold with Gee's copied letters to his wife, spanning the period 19 January to 18 May 1916, and a copy of David Nott's Somewhere in France: The Collected Letters of Lewis Windermere Nott (1996).




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Sold for
£2,400

Starting price
£1400