British War Medal 1914-20 : Warrant Officer 2 Lewis Henry Ryall, 60th Battalion, AIF

British War Medal 1914-20. Impressed around edge with recipient's details.

Born in Melbourne, Victoria, nineteen year old Lewis Henry Ryall was a third year law student at the University of Melbourne when he enlisted in the AIF on 9 February 1915. He was then serving with the Melbourne University Rifles and had been awarded marksmanship prizes in the 1912-13 Commonwealth Battalion competition.

Ryall was posted a private, service number 728, to C Company of the newly raised 22nd Battalion. He was promoted sergeant shortly before the battalion embarked for overseas service aboard HMAT A38 Ulysses, on 10 May.

After training in Egypt the battalion landed at Gallipoli at the beginning of September. Ryall was evacuated to Lemnos, and then to Malta in early October suffering from enteritis and conjunctivitis. After returning to Egypt in January 1916 he was again hospitalised.

In April 1916 Ryall was transferred to another newly raised unit, 60th Battalion. The battalion arrived in France for service on the Western Front in late June. Less than two weeks later Ryall developed pneumonia and was evacuated to England, missing the battalion's first disastrous action at Fromelles on 19 July in which over 700 of its men became casualties. Although he had recovered sufficiently to undertake training in England in November Ryall developed bronchitis at the end of the year and needed further medical treatment. He rejoined his battalion in France in April 1917.

Ryall was awarded the Military Medal for his 'conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty' at Bullecourt on 12 May. He received a gunshot wound to his cheek near Zonnebeke, Belgium on 25 October but was able to return to his battalion early December. Ryall was appointed Company Sergeant Major (Warrant Officer Class 2) on 21 January 1918.

On 27 April, at Villers-Bretonneux, France, Ryall received a severe penetrating gunshot wound to his chest and was evacuated to England where he spent 172 days in hospital. The head of his left humerus had been fractured leaving a bone fragment 'almost sticking through skin', his left lung had collapsed and his heart was displaced. A number of operations to drain infections in his shoulder and resection a rib left him looking 'ill and wasted'. Ryall returned to Australia aboard the hospital ship Karoola in December 1918. He underwent further treatment for osteomyelitis at 11th Australian General Hospital at Caulfield, Melbourne, where his shoulder joint was excised, before being medically discharged on 16 June 1919.

While he was in Caulfield Hospital Ryall met Dorothy Newton, an Australian Army Nursing sister who had recently returned from overseas service and was visiting her sister, Eileen, also a nurse, who was working at the hospital. The couple fell in love and married in 1921. Their only child, William Henry 'Bill', was born the following year. The Ryalls moved to Queensland for the sake of Lewis's health. He died there in 1927, from war related injuries.