"For Devotion To Duty Etc.,"

On 28th October 1916, a little over one month after the 8th Battalion's gallant and distinguished action at Thiepval, the first of the awards to the Battalion were published.
Signaller Sydney Fuller note that day in his diary that "Eight of the 'Sigs' appeared in 'orders' as having been awarded the military Medal for 'devotion to duty' etc., during the attack on Thiepval" It was till then, the largest single haul of MMs to a single unit of a single Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment for the same action. 
Instituted on 25th March 1916, the Military Medal was the other ranks equivalent of the Military Cross. Made in solid silver, it bore on the reverse, the title "For Bravery In The Field" surrounded by a wreath of laurels. To the obverse, was the reigning Monarch's head.
Recipients were entitled under it's charter, to bear the post nominal letters "MM" after their name, but few seldom did. It had its own old comrades club; the Military Medallists Association and by the end of the conflict, over a hundred had been won by men of the Suffolk Regiment's various Battalions.

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