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Auction: 7022 - Orders, Decorations, Medals & Militaria
Lot: 422

A Great War 1917 Battle of Cambrai ´Bourlon Wood´ M.M. to Sergeant B.L. Marley, Machine Gun Corps, Late London Regiment, Where Mass Formation Attacks by the Enemy Were All Repulsed With Terrible Loss of Life Military Medal, G.V.R. (22314 Sjt: B.L. Marley. 124/ Coy. M.G.C.), good very fine Estimate £ 250-300 M.M. London Gazette 13.3.1918 22314 Sjt. B.L. Marley, M.G. Corps (Balham). M.I.D. London Gazette 21.12.1917 Marley, No. 22314 Serjt. B.L. 22314 Sergeant Bernard Leslie Marley, M.M., enlisted as 321 Private, 21st (1st Surrey Rifles) Battalion, London Regiment; advance to Sergeant; transferred as 6608 Company Sergeant Major, Machine Gun Training Centre; transferred to 142nd Company, Machine Gun Corps, on its formation as part of 47th (2/ London) Division, 10.12.1915, and won his Military Medal for Battle of Bourlon Wood, Cambrai, 28.11.1917: ´Great attacks were delivered at 9:20 a.m., 11:25 a.m., and again at 2:30 p.m. All were repulsed with heavy loss. One group of eight Vickers guns [of the 47th Division] fired 70,000 rounds at close quarters during the day. Their front rank were shot to pieces, but as one wave was swept away another took its place; in one part of the line no less than eleven waves followed one after the other. All were bloodily repulsed. Gunners reported that they could fire into the brown, it was not necessary to select targets, the enemy formations being so dense; it was in fact like the early days of the War when they attacked arm-in-arm.´ (A Wood called Bourlon by W. Moore refers).

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£320