A Very Unusual 'DOUBLE' ' FOREIGN GALLANTRY group of EIGHT.
YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (WW1) & R.A.M.C. (WW2) .
War & Victory Medal Pair , 1939-45 Star, War Medal, Defence Medal,
Territorial Medal (Clasp 'MILITIA')
RUSSIAN CROSS OF ST GEORGE, (1918) (No.11608)
FOR GALLANTRY
&
FRENCH CROIX de GUERRE.(1939 )
FOR GALLANTRY 
To:
64935. Pte. J.E. SMAILES. YORK REGT (WW1 Pair)
7339297. Pte J.E. SMAILES R.A.M.C. (Territorial)
Private Smailes from Benwell, had experienced a varied service during WW1 having served with The Green Howards, The Colstream Guards, the Dragoons and The Yorkshire Regiment.
{THE CROSS OF ST GEORGE ACTION, RUSSIA, 1918}
After quite a normal World War One, he was then suddenly posted to Northern Russia where all his 'fun' started when his unit was employed fighting against the Russian Revolutionary Army, where within a few days of action he had won the Russian Cross of St George for bravery.
"He had charged a Revolutionary held block-house at MALERZERKI with rifle and bayonet and forced the soldiers inside to surrender".
When the Russian campaign ended with the revolutionary take over in Russia the then Sgt Smailes retired to a peaceful life in Newcastle.
{THE CROIX DE GUERRE ACTION, FRANCE, 1940 } 
Then, in 1939 he was again called from the reserves and served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Too old for direct combat he became an ambulance driver and served by taking injured soldiers to the evacuation points in Dunkirk prior and during the evacuation. During one journey he ran straight into a German ambush where the enemy opened fire on his ambulance full of wounded men. Driver Smailes then noticed that all around him there were the dead bodies of a French company which the Germans had already wiped out. Smailes was so angry at what he saw and that the Germans would knowingly shoot at his clearly marked ambulance that he dashed for an abandoned French machine gun and mowed down the enemy with a savage burst of fire.
His actions were witnessed by a badly wounded French officer who had raised his head at the sound of more gunfire, only to see the lone British driver avenging his fallen French comrades.
The French government awarded him the Croix de Guerre.
All he got from the British Authorities and his C.O. was a good telling off and told that as a member of the R.A.M.C. he should not have " become involved in armed combat" !!!!
OUR NOTE: (Driver Smailes should have received a Military Medal at the very least, and more suitably a D.C.M. .... There are plenty of instances of R.A.M.C. men picking up a rifle to defend casualties and later being decorated.)
Obviously his boss was a "rules-jobs-worth" type for not sending in an immediate award recommendation for this brave but 'technically non-combatant' soldier, who, having been attacked and at great peril to his own life, clearly and single handedly saved the lives of his wounded passengers and the life of the French officer, and dispensed with a group of the enemy who had shown no regard to the Geneva Convention by attacking an ambulence .. By taking on a whole group of armed Germans, on your own, and saving life in this way might also have been considered for a Victoria Cross. 
. A WONDERFUL STORY OF A BRAVE AND SPONTANEOUSLY COURAGEOUS SOLDIER WITH SERVICE IN BOTH WORLD WARS. A TRULY EXCELLENT AND PERHAPS UNIQUE COMBINATION OF AWARDS WITH DUEL GALLANTRY RECOGNITION.
SOLD