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Auction: 13001 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals and Militaria
Lot: 408

Great War Bronze Memorial Plaque (Arthur Hadwell Symonds), minor trace of verdigris, otherwise nearly extremely fine

30333 Private Arthur Hadwell Symonds, born Merthyr, Glamorgan; served with the 2nd Battalion South Wales Borderers during the Great War; killed in action on the Western Front, 21.11.1917, during the Battle of Cambrai, on which date the Battalion was involved in the attack on Marcoing Copse: ´In the bend of the canal east of Marcoing the 87th Brigade was to attack at 11:00 hours. The assault was to be carried out by the 2nd South Wales Borderers and 1st K.O.S.B. More tank assistance was forthcoming than allotted, and in the end 18 tanks took part. Nine tanks assisted the South Wales Borderers on the right; everywhere the machines were received with terrific machine-gun fire, and it soon became clear that the plate of the Mark IV tank was not proof against the German armour-piercing bullet. For more than two hours the tanks cruised among the German trenches, but they could not subdue the machine-gunners who took refuge in dug-outs and seized their chance to emerge and open fire upon tanks and infantry alike. The infantry had little success in its frontal assault against wire which was mostly intact. The tanks were, in the words of one commander, "badly mauled". Only three were lost, two by direct hits from enemy field guns, but several had been set on fire and many were holed by armour-piercing bullets´ (Official History of the War refers). The South Wales Borderers suffered heavy casualties that day; Symonds is buried in Marcoing British Cemetery, France.

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£90