Military Medal: Acting Corporal Leslie Ernest Willoughby, 4th Battalion, AIF

Military Medal (Geo V). Impressed around edge with recipient's details.

Leslie Ernest Willoughby, a 19 year old enameller, enlisted in the AIF on 15 August 1915 at Holsworthy, NSW. He was assigned to the 12th reinforcements for the 4th Battalion. Willoughby embarked from Sydney aboard HMAT Medic on 30 December 1915 and arrived in Egypt on 7 March 1916. He proceeded to France in late March for service on the Western Front.

In August, Willoughby was promoted to lance corporal, then to corporal on 19 March 1917. He was awarded the Military Medal, while an acting corporal, for an action at Le Barque, France, in the Bapaume sector. The recommendation for the award reads: 'For exceptionally good work on patrol duty on the night of 1st. March, 1917, when (while in charge of a patrol of 6 men) he came into contact with a German patrol of 1 N.C.O and 15 men. He attacked the hostile patrol and dispersed them, taking the N.C.O prisoner. As the Company from which our patrol was sent out was digging themselves in on a new advanced line, Cpl. WILLOUGHBY's action no doubt prevented loss to us. This N.C.O has at all times shown much enterprise and dash in his patrol work.'

On 30 April, Willoughby was promoted to temporary sergeant. He was killed during the second battle of Bullecourt on 5 May 1917. His body was not recovered for burial and his name is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial.

His brothers Arthur Edward and Spencer Gordon Willoughby also served and survived the war. Their nephew, Corporal Leslie Edward Willoughby died of illness in New Guinea in 1944, during the Second World War.