A Collection of Army Gallantry Awards to the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, and the Royal Air Force


Promoted Chief Petty Officer on 26 February 1915, Gallagher sailed with the Royal Naval Division for the Mediterranean two days later before going into camp on Lemnos Island in March. The Royal Naval Division took part in a diversionary convoy in the Gulf of Saros on 25 April whilst A.N.Z.A.C. troops were landing at Gaba Tepe and British troops at Helles, with most of the Royal Naval Division coming ashore on 28 April. From that date battalions of the Division saw action at A.N.Z.A.C. attached to 4th Brigade Australian Imperial Force and at Helles alongside 29th Division during the Turkish counter attacks of May 1915. On 4 June the Royal Naval Division took part in an offensive at the Helles sector aimed at capturing the dominating hill of Achi Baba. The French Division on the right of the Royal Naval Division failed to maintain the advance leaving the sailors and marines exposed to Turkish positions on the right flank. The Collingwood Battalion was enfiladed in the open by Turkish machine guns and within 15 minutes had been virtually destroyed.


Casualties in other battalions of the Royal Naval Division during the failed attack were also high but none so heavy as the Collingwood. Most of the officers had been killed including the Commanding Officer, Second in Command and virtually all of the Company and Platoon commanders. Those that had not been killed were either wounded or missing, the senior surviving officer being a junior Sub- Lieutenant. In his Despatch General Hamilton wrote that the battalion had been ‘practically destroyed’. The Collingwood Battalion had ceased to exist as a unit and was disbanded only days later, with the survivors posted to Hood Battalion.


Just a few days after being posted to Hood Battalion, on 12 June while in the rest camp behind ‘Backhouse Post’, Gallagher was wounded by shrapnel in the groin, his Certificate for Wounds and Hurts being signed by Bernard Freyberg, who would be awarded the Victoria Cross for his command of Hood Battalion during the Royal Naval Division’s first major action on the Western Front at the Ancre, 13-14 November 1916, and would finish the war with the V.C., and the Distinguished Service Order with Three Bars.


After the evacuation from Gallipoli the Admiralty relinquished command of the Royal Naval Division to the Army, who gave the division the new designation of 63rd (Royal Naval) Division but allowed to retain its naval ranks, identity and traditions. Chief Petty Officer Gallagher was appointed Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant shortly before the Division’s first action on the Western Front on the Ancre River. He was subsequently present at the Royal Naval Division’s battles at Gavrelle in April 1917, part of the Arras offensive in which the two Royal Marine battalions were virtually wiped out; the Passchendaele offensive in October 1917; Welsh Ridge in December 1917, when the German troops attacked over the snow covered ground dressed in white smocks (for which action he was unsuccessfully recommended for the Distinguished Conduct Medal); the March 1918 retreat and Aveluy and Logeast Wood actions the following month; and the Drocourt-Queant Line and Canal du Nord actions in September and October 1918 shortly before the end of the War.


In existence for just over four years, two years under Admiralty command and two years under Army command, by November 1918 the Royal Naval Division had established itself as ‘elite’ shock troops used to break the most difficult parts of the enemy line and was considered one of the best divisions of the British Army. For his services with the Hood Battalion during 1918 Gallagher was awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal and Meritorious Service Medal, one of only two D.C.M./M.S.M. combinations awarded to the Royal Navy.


As a Chief Petty Officer, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Gallagher was ‘Discharged to Shore on Demobilisation’ on 13 April 1919.


Sold with a privately published book entitled ‘The Collingwood Battalion’, being a short history of the Battalion together with biographical notes of all the officers and lists of the men; the recipient’s Certificate of Wounds and Hurts; the recipient’s Certificates of Service and Employment; D.C.M. League Membership Card; Pay Book; Army Guard Book for Field Service Forms used by Gallagher as company record book and containing a unique record of sailors of 'C' Company, Collingwood Battalion on Gallipoli; a group photographic image of officers and Chief Petty Officers of Hood Battalion taken in January 1919; and original typed recommendations for awards of the D.C.M. and M.S.M.


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