Kiwi Medals

This Military Medal was awarded to Richard Burchell R.F.A. service number 686, gazetted 21st October 1918. He was a driver in the Royal Field Artillery. The rank on the Military Medal is Acting Lance Bombadier while on his medal card it shows it as the obsolete rank of Lance Sergeant. He was awarded the Military Medal for actions including driving shells up to the guns while under direct fire from German artillery. According to his records he was reduced in rank in May 1917 after being AWOL for 3 days. Court martialled and sentenced to Field Punishment Number 2 and ordered to forfeit a weeks pay. Apparently after being wounded at Beaumont Hamel he was evacuated to a base hospital and returned to the line on October 5th 1916. He was lucky not to forfeit the Military Medal. His Territorial Service Medal shows his movement to the Royal Artillery and his peacetime rank of driver.

This entry was posted on April 18, 2013 at 3:30 AM and is filed under Family Groups & Singles, Valour Medals with tags Family Groups and Singles, Somme, United Kingdom, WW1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.