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Auction: 22102 - Orders, Decorations and Medals e-Auction VI - e-Auction
Lot: 442

Three: Private E. L. F. Gibbs, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Regiment, late 1st/4th Battalion, who was wounded in action on the Italian Front at the opening of the Second Battle of the Piave River, 15 June 1918

British War and Victory Medals (29405 Pte. E. L. F. Gibbs. Oxf. & Bucks. L.I.); Defence Medal 1939-45, in named box of issue with named slip of issue, good very fine (3)

Edward Leonard Francis Gibbs was born in the winter of 1896 at Bromsgrove, Worcestershire the son of Edward and Rosina Gibbs of 30 Albion Street, Brierley Hill. His father worked as the Station Master on the Great Western Railway and by 1911 Gibbs himself was already employed at Nail and Chain Manufacturing at Kye, Worcestershire as a Warehouse Boy. Joining the war with 1st/4th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Regiment Gibbs served with this unit until the Second Battle of the Piave River on 15 June 1918. Here the British troops were holding a section of the line upon the Asiago Range, before the city of Vicenza, when they faced a heavy attack from Austro-Hungarian troops. During the fighting Gibbs received gunshot wounds to the back and left leg on 15 June and was evacuated from Villaverla to Genoa on 30 June 1918 via Hospital train and from there to Marseilles on 7 July 1918.

Surviving his wound Gibbs went on to marry Laura A. Haines in the spring of 1920 at Stourbridge, Worcestershire. He saw service during the Second World War while working as a Relief Signalman from Great Western Railway, at this time he was still living at Stourbridge. Gibbs died in autumn 1979; sold together copied research including birth, marriage and death registration indexes, census data, M.I.C. and medical records.

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Sold for
£90

Starting price
£75