GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY 1726


A very rare Great War Gallipoli operations C.G.M. group of six awarded to Lieutenant F. Pilgrim, Royal Marines, attached Royal Naval Division, afterwards a Major in the Home Guard


CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY MEDAL, G.V.R. (PO. 846 S. Act. Cpl. F. Pilgrim, R.M., R.N.D., Gallipoli, 20 Nov. 1915); 1914-15 STAR (PO-846-S F. Pilgrim, L. Cpl., R.M.L.I.); BRITISH WAR AND VICTORY MEDALS (2 Lt. F. Pilgrim, R.M.L.I.); DEFENCE MEDAL 1939-45; FRANCE, CROIX DE GUERRE 1914-1917, with bronze palm, the fourth with officially re-impressed naming, generally good very fine (6)


£8000-10000


One of 21 awards of the C.G.M. to the Royal Marines in the Great War. C.G.M. London Gazette 31 May 1916:


‘On 20 November 1915, at Cape Helles, he threw a live Turkish grenade out of a trench and thereby avoided a dangerous incident.’ French Croix de Guerre London Gazette 19 December 1917, the original citation referring to the same incident. Mention in despatches London Gazette 13 July 1916:


‘For distinguished and gallant services rendered during the period of General Sir Charles Munro’s command of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force.’


Frank Pilgrim, who was born in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire in August 1887, enlisted in the Portsmouth Division, Royal Marines Light Infantry, in January 1915.


Embarked for Gallipoli that May, as a member of the Royal Naval Division, he quickly saw action, being wounded in the right thigh by a shell splinter at the end of June, most probably in the Portsmouth Battalion’s attack on Turkish trenches covered by enemy machine- guns on the slopes of Achibaba and the Kereves Dere - ‘the retribution came even more swiftly; the utmost gallantry and skill could not prevail against the facts, and the position was rightly given up within half an hour. In this operation the Marines suffered seriously ... ’ (Jerrold’s history of the R.N.D. refers).


Having then been awarded the C.G.M. for the above cited deeds on 20 November, and been evacuated from the Peninsula in early January 1916, he remained employed with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, as a member of the 2nd R.M. Battalion, until May of that year. He was mentioned in despatches.


Embarked for France in the latter month, Pilgrim would have been present at the bloody battles of Ancre, Cambrai, Gavrelle and Passchendaele, prior to returning to the U.K. in March 1918, at which stage he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Marines, and, having attended bombing and anti-gas courses, went back out to France with the 1st R.M. Battalion, 63rd Royal Naval Division, in October 1918.


Pilgrim was finally demobilised as a Lieutenant in June 1919, but returned to uniform in the 1939-45 War, when he was commissioned in the 4th North Riding (Quisborough) Battalion, Home Guard, and attained the rank of Major before the end of hostilities.


Sold with the recipient’s original commission warrant for the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, R.M., dated 9 March 1918, and his Croix de Guerre award document, with citation, dated 31 May 1917.


www.dnw.co.uk


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