Orders, Decorations & Medals - Aust. Groups

Lot 3177    SESSION 13 (2.30PM THURSDAY 25TH MARCH)    Orders, Decorations & Medals - Aust. Groups

Estimate $2,500
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $1,600

TRIO TO KIA AT GALLIPOLI LANDING: 1914-15 Star; British War Medal 1914-18; Victory Medal 1914-19. 300 Pte C.L.Williams 1/Bn. A.I.F. All medals impressed. Toned uncirculated.

Together with WWI Memorial Plaque named to Charles Williams; original boxes for each service medal.

Charles Louis Williams, orchard hand, age 21, born at Kempsey, NSW; Enl.22Aug1914 at Sydney, NSW in 1Bn; Emb.18Oct1914; to join MEF Gallipoli 05Ap1915; WIA at the landing 25Apr1915; MIA 25/29Apr1915 and later determined as KIA 25/29Apr1915 following Court of Enquiry held at Tel-el-Kebir, Egypt on 11Jan1916; commemorated at the Lone Pine Memorial.

In a letter received from Pte E.Glass, who was at Gallipoli with Charles, he stated:-'My information is that he was wounded in the upper arm or shoulder during a retirement on the 25th April and refused to leave the firing line, but kept on blazing away at the enemy. When next found he was dead with a bullet wound through the head but still lying in a prone position with his rifle still in a correct altitude, so you may rest assured that poor Charlie died not only heroically but painlessly.'

When asked for particulars required for the Roll of Honour of Australia in the Memorial War Museum, one of the details Charles Williams' father supplied was that Charles Louis Williams was the great grandson of Captain Edward Ellerker Williams 8th Dragoons, the friend of the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, with whom he was drowned July 1822.

With research including copy of Service File.