Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

A gentleman came to the help desk asking about the above mentioned Officer. According to his medal card he was awarded the Military Cross and Bar. And he made a application for Medals and his MC and bar on 22nd November 1922. I have looked in the London Gazette and I can't locate a entry. I have tried to locate his Officer's records at Kew, none showing up. He is going to return to the Help desk next Tuesday and help greatly appreciated. He has all his family history it's just the information regarding the MC & Bar

This should help.....

Googled just "2nd Lt. John Kelly Harris". Got this hit at top of the list...
Supplement to the Edinburgh Gazette, December 4, 1918. 4417
http://www.edinburgh-gazette.co.uk/issu ... /page.pdf‎

2nd Lt. John Kelly Harris, 2/6th Bn., L'pool R., T.F.
During a critical period in an attack,
when all the officers in the right half company
had become casualties, this officer took
command, and, by his initiative and total
disregard of danger, successfully consolidated
and formed a defensive flank. It was
entirely due to his good - leadership that a
very dangerous flank was made good.

Because there is no mention of him being gazetted, I am assuming this report concerns the award of a Bar to the MC, not the MC itself.

EDIT TO ADD: Ancestry has a hit in the Medal Rolls collection for a John K Harris. No sub so can't access.

Thank you DS I owe you one.

Katie wrote:Thank you DS I owe you one.

You are welcome! Here's a bit more background from http://www.1914-1918.net/kings.htm...

2/6th (Rifle) Battalion:
Formed in Liverpool on 10 September 1914 as a Second Line battalion.
8 February 1915 : came under orders of 171st Brigade, 57th (2nd West Lancashire) Division.
14 February 1917 : landed in France.

If 2nd Lt Harris was in the 2/6th from formation and not transferred into it from another unit, he won the MC sometime after 14th Feb 1917.

See EDIT to prev post.

dickiesam wrote:This should help.....

Googled just "2nd Lt. John Kelly Harris". Got this hit at top of the list...
Supplement to the Edinburgh Gazette, December 4, 1918. 4417
http://www.edinburgh-gazette.co.uk/issu ... /page.pdf‎

2nd Lt. John Kelly Harris, 2/6th Bn., L'pool R., T.F.
During a critical period in an attack,
when all the officers in the right half company
had become casualties, this officer took
command, and, by his initiative and total
disregard of danger, successfully consolidated
and formed a defensive flank. It was
entirely due to his good - leadership that a
very dangerous flank was made good.

Because there is no mention of him being gazetted, I am assuming this report concerns the award of a Bar to the MC, not the MC itself.

EDIT TO ADD: Ancestry has a hit in the Medal Rolls collection for a John K Harris. No sub so can't access.

He has all that DS. He actually paid the London Gazette £100 to search for this citation and they never found it. Also very little information on the Medal card.

Hi DS

I have passed on the info to the relative of John Kelly Harris and he has asked me to pass on his Thanks, his been searching for years for this information. There should be more about this as the Military Cross is in his procession. But he now has a date and he can go from there.

It IS in the London Gazette, in the Supplement dated 2 Dec 1918, page 14243, wording same as for Edinburgh. He should ask the LG to refund his money!!!

I searched the LG with just "Kelly Harris" and got this one hit, after drawing blank with more complex terms.

As there is no mention of an existing MC, the second one, or bar, must have been gazetted later. Has anyone tried the new Gazette search (Beta level)?

Daggers

Hi Daggers.

I will give him a ring tomorrow, I tried all search terms. Harris, L'pool, Harris, Military Cross etc. He showed me the letter he received and they suggested to him that he may have been awarded the MC or Bar in a New Years Honour list after 1921.

Mind Boggles!!!

I reckon that £100 Gazette search must have been done on POETS Day...

POETS Day? In case you don't know it is P*ss Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday!

The researcher most probably used their search engine and typed in what I did and got matches loads and couldn't be bother trawling through. No nice. £20.00 an hour he was charged.

Hi Katie,

Blimey, where have I been going wrong I only ask for £75 for a Gazette look up - only kidding!

I only have him listed as MC in my database - I checked out his MIC and which seems to confirm this - it says "applied for medals and MC 20/11/22" - there is no mention of a bar.

I hold a gazette date of 2/12/18 - this was done prior to the internet from the hard copies of the Gazettes - the OCR of the London Gazette is notoriously fickle and I cannot confirm this using the internet.

For completeness I have sent you an email containing details from his papers as well as other bits and pieces including a write up from the war diary and Bn History of the action in which I think he was awarded the MC.

Keep up the good work on those newspapers!

Regards

Joe

Thanks Joe.

He has a picture of John with his 2 brothers and he is going to bring the MC in for me to look at so I'll get copies.

I'm up to list no 5696 which covers casualties end August/September 1918 big lists, the beginning of the end I suppose of WW1 it has been an education for me working on these lists I wish I could record all, but I am only extracting those from the Liverpool & South West Lancs area.