V.C.s Sell For £800 Each

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30808, 21 July 1965, Page 17

V.C.s Sell For £800 Each

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) LONDON, July 20. A Victoria Cross won by an Australian soldier during the First World War was sold for £BOO by auction at Sotheby’s in London today. The V.C. was awarded to Captain W. Symons of the 7th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, in 1915, for bravery at Lone Pine trenches in the Gallipoli peninsula. Six officers were killed or wounded in succession and a portion of the trenches was lost. Captain Symons then led

a charge and retook the lost portion in the face of great opposition. The medal was bought by a London coin and medal specialist. A second V.C., awarded to a British soldier, also fetched £BOO at the auction. It had been posthumously awarded to Sergeant Alfred Gilg, of the King's Royal Rifle Corps in July, 1916, for bravery at Delville Wood, France, after he had stood up in a trench and directed the Are of his men on the enemy creeping through thick undergrowth within 20 yards range. He was killed instantly. There was no immediate information on who was selling the medals, or why.

The “Daily Sketch” reported that a 29-year-old man sold his George Medal at the auction to help pay debts and save his marriage. The medal sold for £l5O sterling. The man, Mr Christopher Matthews, of Falmouth. Conwall, was out of work and needed the money to pay rates and electricity bills. His decision to sell the medal had reunited him with his wife and two children after disagreements over debts. Mr Matthews, of the R.A.F., won the medal for rescuing a colleague from sharkinfested seas off Christmas Island, in the Pacific, in 1956. He said: “I didn't want to sell it, but I was heavily in debt—and it was either that or the break-up of my marriage.” The medal was sold in less than a minute.