James Kirk’s Victoria Cross, awarded posthumously for his defence of Royal Engineers at the Oise Canal, goes to auction at Noonans on 7 October. The medal and his three other service medals are expected to fetch £100,000-£160,000.
Noonans says Kirk, then 21, paddled across the Oise Canal on a raft made from petrol tins and cork floats, carrying a Lewis gun and ammunition. Wounded in the arm and face, he kept firing to cover the Royal Engineers until he was shot through the head. He was killed in the same action as war poet Wilfred Owen.
