Great War Military Cross group to 2 Lieutenant J H Shields RE

Military Cross - contemporarily  engraved - Lieut J H Shields Re 1918 

1914/ 15 Star - correctly impressed - 57925 Spr J H Shields RE in third type officers naming

Pair - correctly impressed - 2 Lieut J H Shields RE

Swing mounted as worn.

Condition - GVF

 

John Henry Shields was born in 1889 in Ireland, and having been educated at Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church, Youghal, County Cork, then worked as a telephone inspector in Belfast, County Antrim, Ireland for ten years, where he married in 1909, and having moved to Glasgow for a year in 1910, then found work in communications with Sir Louis Mallet, the British Ambassador at Constantinople from 1912 to November 1914, before returning to Ireland in order to enlist, he then attested for the British Army when aged 30 at Belfast on 8 Jan. 1915, and joined as a Sapper (No.57928) the Royal Engineers, being posted to the 36th Royal Engineers Signalling Company as a skilled instrument repairer. This company saw service with the 36th Ulster Division for the duration of the war.

 

Shields saw service on the Western Front from 3 Oct. 1915, being appointed to Lance Corporal on 1 Mar. 1916, and then promoted to 2nd Class Corporal on 12 Nov. 1916; he reverted to Lance Corporal on 3 Mar. 1917, and having been commissioned on 5 Mar. 1917, was then discharged to commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers on 21 Jun. 1917, being commissioned in the London Gazette on 7 Jul. 1917.

 

Serving as a Temporary 2nd Lieutenant again on the Western Front with his old pre-commissioning unit, the 36th Signalling Company, Shields was awarded the Military Cross in the King’s Birthday Honours List ‘for good war service’ in the London Gazette for 3 Jun. 1918 and was then Mentioned in Despatches for gallant and distinguished service in the names listed ‘deserving of a special mention’ in the London Gazette for 7 Jul. 1919.

 

Shields remained with the British Army after the war, being promoted to Temporary Lieutenant, whilst serving with the British Army of the Rhine in Germany at Wiesbaden on 30 Jan. 1926 he was reprimanded for “when on active service - neglect to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, in that he at Wiesbaden on or about the 30 Jan. 1926, improperly signed a certificate to the effect that three telephone calls made on the 3rd, 4th and 5th December 1925 respectively, to Berlin were official calls, having negligently failed to ascertain that the said calls were in fact official.’ Shields was officially reprimanded on 11 Feb. 1926.

 

Shields, who also happened to become ill around this time, suffering from the effects of shell shock left over from the Great War, was almost certainly an indirect result of this reprimand, punished when he received the following letter dated 26 Mar. 1926 which stated, ‘in consequence of the demobilisation of the army, a notification will be published… to the effect that you relinquish your commission on completion of service.’ On demobilisation, Shields gave his forwarding address as The British Consulate, Constantinople. His Belgium Croix de Guerre is not gazetted, however, this was almost certainly awarded to him in his capacity as a Signal’s Officer with the 36th Ulster Division