WW1 medal pair – British War Medal & Victory Medal – awarded to Private ERIC CHARLES GOODEY of the 2/4th (City of London) Battalion (Royal Fusiliers) – Killed in action first day of the ‘Second Battle of Passchendaele’ 1917

Stock Reference – MM-MED-0030

WW1 medal pair – British War Medal & Victory Medal – awarded to Private ERIC CHARLES GOODEY of the 2/4^th (City of London) Battalion (Royal Fusiliers) – Killed in action first day of the ‘Second Battle of Passchendaele’ 1917  

You are looking at a WW pair of medals, British War Medal and Victory Medal, awarded to Private ERIC C GOODEY of the 2/4^th (City of London) Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, who was killed in action on the 26^th of October 1917, on the first day of the ‘Second Battle of Passchendaele’ (Third Battle of Ypres).

The medals are inscribed ‘5724 PTE. E.C.GOODEY. 4-LOND.R.’

He was given a new service number, 282690, during the widespread renumbering of the Territorial Force that took place in early 1917. 

ERIC CYRIL GOODEY enlisted into the 2/4^th (City of London) Battalion the Royal Fusiliers, and from his original service number it was likely he joined towards the end of 1915.

An original version of this battalion served in Malta and then Gallipoli, but before ERIC’S time. He joined a secondary formation of the battalion that came about in June 1916 and were deployed to France and Flanders in the November of that year. Whether he was a member of another battalion between enlistment and the formation of the 2/4^th Battalion in 1916 is not known.   

ERIC was killed in action on the 26^th of October 1917, the first day of the ‘Second Battle of Passchendaele’, and he is commemorated at the Tyne Cot Memorial, which indicates that his body was never found.

At the ‘Second Battle of Passchendaele’, the battalion were in support of Canadian troops and were involved in attacking German held positions in the area of Poelcappelle in Belgium, and in doing so, those involved had to advance through deep water and heavily waterlogged positions, whilst being under constant artillery and machine gun fire, and they lost a great many troops in the process of doing so.

In the official history of the 4^th Battalion the London Regiment (Grimwade 1922), the events of the 26^th of October 1917 are described as:

"One of the most unfortunate days ever experienced by the 2/4th Londons. The gallantry of officers, N.C.O.’s and men alike left nothing to be desired, and their defeat was at the hands of the elements far more than of the Germans. So bad indeed was the state of the ground that not a few men, becoming stuck in the mud and exhausted by their efforts to extricate themselves, met their death by drowning in the flooded shell holes”.

The description of what happened speaks for itself.

During the attack, according to the battalion history, it suffered 359 casualties (25 killed, 214 wounded and 109 missing), the highest single-day loss in in the battalion’s history.

Unlike the ‘First Battle of Passchendaele’ that started on the 12^th of October 1917, just two weeks earlier, and was a failure, the second battle, although costly in the number of those killed and wounded, was a success, with allied troops managing to take Passchendaele Village and the nearby ridge, but it was lost again during the German Spring Offensive of April 1918.

ERIC, the son of FREDERICK and RHODA GOODEY, was born c1880/81(baptised 13^th of March 1881) and he appears alongside his parents in all census records from 1881 to 1911. According to a pension record created following his death, his widowed mother RHODA’S address was 6 Hanover Road, Plumstead in London.

SELLER NOTE = Supporting documentation obtained and / or created during my research into this medal will be provided.