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Auction: 3016 - Orders, Medals, Decorations & Militaria
Lot: 79

A 1944-45 M.M. Group of Four to Bombadier G.J. Skinner, Royal Artillery, noted for his Gallant Conduct from the Landing in Normandy to the Crossing of both the Rhine and the Elbe.
Military Medal, G.VI.R. (14296120 Bmbr. G.J. Skinner. R.A.); 1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; War Medal, good very fine and better (4)


M.M. London Gazette 11.10.1945 Bombardier Gordon James Skinner, 109 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery.
The Recommendation states: 'Bdr. Skinner has been an OAP since the landing in Normandy and throughout the campaign he has discharged his duties under the most trying conditions with a complete disregard for enemy fire. On several occasions he has performed acts of personal gallantry which set a fine example to his comrades of devotion to duty. At Hoogebrug in November and again just outside Blerick in November he personally established OP's and directed our artillery fire with great effect until relieved by an officer. On 16 Feb 1945, in the Goch area Bdr. Skinner was in charge of an OP team ordered forward to occupy an OP in a small wood, a bridgehead over a stream near Schlors Calbreek. At the time it was thought that the whole of this wood was fully held by infantry from another Battalion, but when Bdr. Skinner reached it he discovered that only a small part of the wood was in fact in our hands. This small area of woodland soon came under concentrated artillery and mortar fire and it became apparent that the bridgehead and its approaches formed the target for all the German artillery and mortars in the area. In spite of this heavy fire and casualties around him, Bdr. Skinner contacted the infantry commander who told him that in fact the bridgehead was only fifty yards deep, that an SP gun was in the neighbourhood and had just withdrawn from the wood and that he had just had to withdraw his leading platoon from the right edge of the wood. Bdr. Skinner was completely undaunted by the situation and the fire. He continued alone to the forward edge of the wood from which the platoon had recently withdrawn. He reconnoitred and established an OP which for the sake of observation had to be outside the wood and in view of the enemy. He then brought heavy fire to bear on the enemy, inflicting casualties and causing an appreciable falling off in the enemy's fire. He maintained this OP until relieved by an NCO in a Churchill.
Throughout the operation he showed the utmost resource and determination to push on which inspired both the Company holding the bridgehead and the Company which eventually went through to relieve them and occupy the area of Bdr. Skinner's O.P. This NCO has continued to behave in this exemplary manner in the crossings of both the Rhine and the Elbe.'


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£1,300