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Auction: 24112 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 690

The posthumous M.M. group of four awarded to Private E. Broomfield, 10th Battalion, The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, who was killed in action on 2 October 1918

Military Medal G.V.R. (11616 Pte. E. Broomfield. 10/R. W. Kent. R.); British War and Victory Medals (11616 Pte. E. R. Broomfield. R. W. Kent. R.); Great War Bronze Memorial Plaque (Edgar Robert Broomfield), together with damaged boxes for the BWM & VM and Medal enclosure slip, extremely fine (4)

M.M. London Gazette 14 May 1919.

Edgar Robert Broomfield was born at Ashford, Kent in 1891, he was a plumber when he enlisted in the 10th Battalion, The Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment at Bromley in 1915. He served at home from 11 December 1915-18 May 1916 when he was sent to France. Initially posted to the 3rd Battalion, he joined the 10th Battalion in 1917.

The Regimental History by C. T. Atkinson (Page 433) refers to the action in which Broomfield was killed:

'The Forty-First Division was now transferred to the left to press the advance on Menin; the move brought it into line just South of the Ypres-Menin road. On October 1st the 123rd Brigade advanced towards Gheluwe, the battalion, which was in reserve, moving through Tenbrielen to the America Cabaret under heavy shelling from Comines. The leading battalions were held up by a trench system called the Gheluwe Switch, which the 10th had to attack next day, when the 122nd Brigade's progress on the left gave the 123rd a better chance to get on. A and B Companies were sent forward about noon and pushed on some way, but a counterattack on the battalion on their left, which drove that unit back, compelled the two companies to conform, though one platoon of B managed to maintain its ground. Sergt. Pilcher was again to the fore, rallying retiring troops and bringing them into the firing-line in the face of heavy machine-gun fire; and in the end the Germans, who had suffered severely from the rifle and machine- gun fire to which they had exposed themselves, retired in disorder.'

Broomfield is Commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Panel 106 & 108, Zonnebeke, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium.


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Sold for
£550

Starting price
£450