Some of the actors, poets, writers, artists. chaplains, sportspeople, etc. who received awards for outstanding bravery during WW1

Military Cross

Some of the actors, poets, artists and writers who received awards for outstanding bravery during WW1 that I have found so far during the course of my research for a series of commemorative exhibitions.  If you know of any others please let me know:

Actors

Sir Francis Robert Benson, Croix de Guerre (1858 – 1939) - British actor-manager (cousin of actor Basil Rathbone) - drove an ambulance in France during WW1

Basil Rathbone, MC (1892 – 1967) - South African-born English actor. Served as Private with the London Scottish Regiment. Commissioned Lieutenant in the 2/10th Battalion of the King's Liverpool Regiment (Liverpool Scottish), serving as an intelligence officer, eventually attaining the rank of Captain. 

Poets and Writers

William Robert Fountaine Addison VC (1883 – 1962) – British Anglican Church Minister and poet

Gabriele d’Annunzio (Italian) OMS,GMG, MVM

Georges Audibert, Croix de Guerre (1885 – 1915) – French lawyer, writer and poet  

Edmund Clerihew Bentley - Chevalier of the Belgian Order of the Crown
Paul Bewsher, DSC
Edmund Blunden MC
Lt. John Brown, MC
Charles Carrington, MC

Stanley Casson (1889 - 1944) - WW1 poet and amateur soldier - Mentioned in Despatches and Chevalier of the Greek Order of the Redeemer 

Edouard Chiesa, Croix de Guerre (1887 - 1915) – French poet killed fighting at Gallipoli 

Erskine Childers, DSC

Celia, Lady Congreve  (1867 – 1952) – British poet & WW1 nurse awarded the Reconnaissance Française, the Belgian Medaille de la Reine Elisabeth & the French Croix de Guerre - for bravery
2nd Lieutenant L. N. Cook, MC, GVR, Royal Lancaster Regiment

Noel Marcus Francis Corbett (1887 – 1962) – British Royal Naval officer and poet - French Croix de Guerre
Miles Jeffery Game Day, DSC

Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches MM (1894 – 1961) - pen name Louis-Ferdinand Céline – French writer - Médaille Militaire

Owen Evans, MM (1888 – 1918) - Welsh poet – Bardic name Rhiwlas
John Orr Ewing, MC (1884 - 1961) – poet; Major in 16th Lancers

Denys Garstin MC, DSO, Order of St. Catherine of Russia (1890  - 1918) – British writer, poet, diplomat and soldier

Edward John Langford Garstin MC (1893 - 1955) – British poet 

Henri Gervex (1852 - 1929) – French artist – French Croix de Guerre

The Hon. Julian G. Grenfell, DSO

Llewelyn Wyn Griffith (1890 - 1977) - poet and writer; Captain Rioyal Welch Fusiliers, O.B.E., French Croix de Guerre & three Mentions in Despatches

James Norman Hall (1887 – 1951) – American WW1 soldier, airman, writer and poet – awarded French Croix de Guerre with five palms, the Médaille Militaire, French Légion d'Honneur and the American Distinguished Service Cross.
Lt. Col. John Hay Maitland Hardyman DSO, MC
F.W. Harvey, DCM
Ivan Heald MC (1883 - 1916) - British writer, poet and journalist

Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961) – American writer and poet - awarded the Italian War Merit Cross, the Croce al Merito di Guerra for service in the Red Cross in Italy during WW1
William Noel Hodgson, MC 1893 – 1916) – British soldier poet

Robert Jentzsch (1890 – 1918) – German poet and mathmetician - Iron Cross 2nd and 1st Class

Raymond Jubert (1889 – 1917) – French poet, writer and lawyer - Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur & Croix de Guerre with two palms, and stars of vermilion, gold and silver. 

Ernst Jünger (1895 – 1998) - German writer; served in German Army WW1. Awarded 1916 Iron Cross (1914) II. and I. Class; 1917 Prussian House Order of Hohenzollern Knight's Cross with Swords; 1918 Wound Badge (1918) in Gold; 1918 Pour le Mérite (Blue Max) - military class

Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy MC (1883 –1929) aka Woodbine Willy; Army Chaplain and poet 

Joyce Kilmer (1886 - 1918) – French Croix de Guerre
Percy Hugh Beverley Lyon, MC – British poet known as PHBL

Donald Alxander Mackenzie MC (1889 - 1971) – British school teacher; served Royal Field Artillery, France
Ewart Alan Mackintosh, MC
John Charles Beech Masefield, MC
Charles Scott Moncrieff, MC
Armine Frank Gibson Norris MC
Wilfred Owen, MC

George Smith Patton Jr. (1885 - 1945) Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Service Medal and Purple Heart for his combat wounds after the decoration was created in 1932.
Vivian Telfer Pemberton MC,
Alexander Lancaster Pemberton, MC
Claude Quayle Penrose MC and Bar, MiD

The Hon. Colwyn Erasmus Arnold Philipps, MC, MiD (1888 – 1915) - British poet & professional soldier, Royal Horse Guards

Herbert Edward Read, MC, DSO, MiD (1893 - 1968) - served in Green Howards Regt in France WW1

Frank Richards, DCM, MM, born Francis Philip Woodruff (1883 -1961) – Welsh soldier and writer 

Edgell Rickword MC
Siegfried Sassoon, MC
William Maunsell Scanlan, MC, MM – Canadian
Gerald Caldwell Siordet, MC – British (Somme, 1st July 1916 kia Feb. 1917)
Francis W. Smith, MC - Lieutenant, Leeds Rifles, West Yorks Regt. Reilly p 296
Captain James Sprent, MC (1883 - 1948) – Australian poet and doctor

Olaf Stapledon (1886 – 1950) - British poet, writer and philosopher; served Friends' Ambulance Unit, Western Front; awarded French Croix de Guerre 
Adrian Consett Stephen, MC – Australian writer
John Ebenezer Stewart MC - 
Patrick Shaw-Stewart was awarded the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour – Croix de Guerre (France) for his services as a Liaison Officer with the French Headquarters.
W.G. Thomas, MC (1883 - 1960) - Captain

Edward John Thompson, MC, MiD - Poet and Chaplain (1886 – 1946)  – 7th Division, Mesopotamia

Arthur Walderne St. Clair Tisdall VC (1890 - 1915) – British poet

Hugh Walpole (1884 - 1941) - awarded The Russian Cross of St. George, and the C.B.E. in WW1 and a knighthood in 1937

Richard Brereton Marriott Watson MC (1896 -  1918)

Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavel MC (1883 - 1950) - awarded MC during 2nd Battle of Ypres

John Hunter Wickersham Congressional Medal of Honor (1890 - 1918) – American WW1 soldier poet
Eric Fitzwater Wilkinson, MC

Alice Williams, Medaille de la Reconnaissance Française - Welsh Poet - Bardic Name Alys Meirion
Fabian Strachey Woodley, MC (1888 - 1957)

Geoffrey Harold Woolley, VC, OBE, MC (1892 – 1968) - British poet, writer, Army infantry officer, Anglican Priest & WW2 Military Chaplain – 1st British Territorial Army officer to be awarded the Victoria Cross

Robert Julian Yeatman MC (15 July 1897 – 13 July 1968) - British humorist wrote for “Punch” magazine.
Edward Hilton Young, GBE, DSO, DSC & Bar, PC

Geoffrey Winthrop Young (1876 - 1958) - British poet and mountaineer; served with the Friends Ambulance Unit,and later in command of the First British Ambulance for Italy. He was mentioned in British Despatches and awarded the Belgian Order of Leopold for exceptional courage and resource, and the Italian silver medal' for Valour'

Artists/Photographers, Composers, Musicians, and others:

Harry Epworth Allen, MM (1894 - 1958) – British artist awarded Military Medal for conspicuous bravery in the field

Joseph Marius Jean Avy (1871 - 1939)- French Croix de Guerre – French artist 

Geoffrey de Gruchy Barkas, MC, artist/film maker

Hans Bartle (1880 - 1943) - Austrian official WW1 artist. Iron Cross; Silver Medal for Bravery; the Knight's Cross of the Franz Joseph Order

Alan Edmund Beeton, MC

John Warwick Brooke DCM – official WW1 war photographer

George Butterworth, MC (1885 - 1916) - British composer.  Private Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry; 2nd Lieutenant Durham Light Infantry; killed on The Somme 5th August 1916.  

John Cosmo Clark, MC (1897 – 1967) – British artist and art teacher; served in Artists Rifles WW1

Philip Lindsey Clark, DSO, ARBS (1889–1977)  - British sculptor. In December 1917, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (D.S.O) for "...conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in command of the left flank company of the battalion."

Henri Farré (1871-1934) - French artist. Awarded the French Legion d’Honneur and the 1914-1918 Croix de Guerre.

Helena Gleichen - awarded the Italian Bronze Medal of Military Valour

William Robert Gregory MC (1881 – 1918)  - Irish-born, RFC/RAF British airman, artist and cricketer; France made him a Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur in 1917

Antony Gibbons Grinling, MC – artist and sculptor

Carl W Herman, MM (1888 – 1955) – artist

Charles Constantin Joseph Hoffbauer, Croix de Guerre (1875 – 1957) – French-born American artist

 Leslie Fraser Standish Hore, MC (1870 - 1935)  - artist Captain in Australian Light Horse

Christopher Wyndham Hughes MC (1881-1961) – British artist and teacher; served as a Temporary Captain in the 7th Battalion Wiltshire Regiment 

Charles Sargeant Jagger MC ARA (1885 – 1934) British sculptor

Richard Barrett Talbot Kelly MC (1896-1971), Lieutenant Royal Field Artillery

Henry Taylor Lamb MC (1883 - 1960) - Australian-born artist; Royal Army Medical Corps battalion medical officer with the 5th Battalion, The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in Palestine & Western Front 

Paul Maximilien Landowski, Croix de Guerre (1 June 1875 – 31 March 1961) – French Scultpor and WW1 camouflage artist 

A W Lloyd, MC – Arthur Wynell Lloyd (1883 - 1933) – British cartoonist

Walter Marsden MC (1882–1969) – sculptor

John B. McDowell, MC, BEM (1877 – 1954) – British film maker, director and cameraman during WW1

Thomas Arthur Nelson MiD (1876 – 1917) – Scottish International Rugby player and Head of the Edinburgh based Nelsons Publishing House;  Captain in Lothians and Border Horse Regiment

Waldo Peirce (December 17, 1884 – March 8, 1970) was an American painter, who for many years reveled in living the life of a bohemian expatriate.  Croix de Guerre

William Charles Penn MC

Geneste Penrose MM

Gerald Spencer Pryse MC (1882–1956) was a British artist and lithographer.

E. Claude Rowberry, MM, (1896 - 1962) – artist

Walter Westley Russell (1867–1949) - Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers; Mentioned in Dispatches.

E.H. Shepard, MC – artist

William George Storm, MC (1882 - 1917) – Canadian artist

John Turner MC, Croix de Guerre (1882 – 1918) – artist - known as Jack Turner - served with 8th Royal Warwickshire Regiment

Robert Bagster Wilson Vinter, MC (1896 – 1916) – British soldier and aspiring poet 

Dents Wells, BEM (1881-1973) served in the Artists Rifles during WWI; awarded a B.E.M. for gallantry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire_Medal

Charles Arthur Wheeler, DCM (1880 - 1877) - New Zealand artist. Served in 22 Bn Royal Fusiliers; awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (1916) for his actions at Vimy Ridge

Sir George Hubert Wilkins MC & Bar (31 October 1888 – 30 November 1958).

NOTE:  James Miles Langstaff ( 1883 - 1917) was Mentioned in Despatches and recommended for a Military Cross. 

Chaplains

Rev. W.R.F. Addison VC - Army Chaplain AND poet also awarded the Order of St George-Russia.

Rev Elijah Cobham MC, - Chaplain with King's African Rifles

Rev Herbert Butler Cowl, MC (1887-1971)   – Wesleyan Army Chaplain to the 23rd Infantry Division, 68th Brigade, in the British Army during the First World War

Walter Ernest Dexter DSO, MC, DCM, MiD Australian Army Chaplain - served at Gallipoli with the 5th Battalion AIF and on the Western Front.

Rev. Theodore Bayley Hardy, VC, DSO, MC (1863 – 1918) - Anglican Church Minister and School teacher who served as a British Army Chaplain in WW1 

Chaplain the Reverend Rupert Edward Inglis (1863 – 1916) - England international rugby player, Anglican Rector and Military Chaplain

Rev. Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy MC (1883 –1929) aka Woodbine Willy; Army Chaplain and poet 

Rev. Noel Mellish VC, MC

Rev. Basil Pemberton Plumptre, MC (1883 - 1917) – British Army Chaplain

Father Albert Bertrand Purdie, OBE (1888 - 1976) – British writer, poet and Catholic Church Minister, Chaplain to the Forces, Corps: Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry on the Western Front   

Rev. David Railton MC (1884 – 1955) - British Army Chaplain who had the  idea for creating a British Unknown Warrior memorial  

Edward John Thompson, MC, MiD - Poet and Chaplain (1886 – 1946)  – 7th Division, Mesopotamia

Rev. Morgan Watcyn-Williams, MC

Sports People

William Angus VC (1888 – 1959) - Scottish footballer and recipient of the Victoria Cross

William John Beatty OBE (1888 - 1919) - Irish Rugby International of WW1

Sir Arthur Frederick Blakiston, 7th Baronet, MC (1892 - 1974) - International Rugby Union player and WW1 soldier

Maurice Jean-Paul Boyau, Médaille Militaire and Légion d'honneur (1888 – 1918)  - French Rugby Union player and WW1 fighter pilot ace killed in WW1

Christopher Bushell VC, DSO (1888 – 1918) – English sportsman and soldier killed in WW`1

Major Walter Torrie Forrest MC (14 November 1880 – 19 April 1917 - Scottish rugby union player and British Army officer who was killed in World War I

Arthur Leyland Harrison, VC (1886 - 1918) – British Rugby player and naval officer killed during the Zeebrugge Raid in WW1

Morgan Maddox Morgan-Owen, DSO (1877 – 1950) - Wales football international and captain - WW1 soldier

Adrian Dura Stoop, MC (1883 - 1957) – English Rugby Player and WW1 soldier

Clarence "Clarrie" Wallach MC (1889 – 1918) - Australian Rugby Union player killed in WW1

Medal Shown above:  British Military Cross. The Military Cross award was created on 28th December 1914 for commissioned officers of the substantive rank of Captain or below and for Warrant Officers. Awards were announced in “The London Gazette”.  From August 1916, recipients of the Cross were entitled to use the post-nominal letters MC, and bars could be awarded for further acts of gallantry meriting the award. 

Military Medal 

The Military Medal (MM) see left - was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the British Army and other arms of the armed forces, and to personnel of other Commonwealth countries, below commissioned rank, for bravery in battle on land. 

The award was established in 1916, with retrospective application to 1914, and was awarded to other ranks for "acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire". 

The Military Medal was discontinued in 1993 when it was replaced by the Military Cross, which was extended to all ranks, while other Commonwealth nations instituted their own award systems in the post war period.

The British Victoria Cross

Victoria Cross

The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories. It takes precedence over all other orders, decorations and medals.

The VC t may be awarded to a person of any rank in any service and to civilians under military command. The VC is usually presented to the recipient or to their next of kin by the British monarch at an investiture held at Buckingham Palace.

The VC was introduced on 29th January, 1856 by Queen Victoria to honour acts of valour during the Crimean War. Since then, the medal has been awarded 1,358 times to 1,355 individual recipients.

https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/medals/victoria-cross

France

French Award  The Médaille militaire (Tr. English: Military Medal) is a military decoration of the French Republic for other ranks for meritorious service and acts of bravery in action against an enemy force. It is the third highest award of the French Republic, after the Legion of Honour, a civil and military order, and the Order of Liberation, a Second World War-only order. The Médaille militaire is therefore the most senior entirely military active French decoration.The award was first established in 1852 by the first President of the French Republic, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who may have taken his inspiration from a medal established and awarded by his father, Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland.

French Medaille Militaire 

Belgium's Order of  the Crown

The Order of the Crown is the second highest Belgian Order of Knighthood, 

junior only to the Order of Leopold. H.M. King Leopold II 

established the Order in 1897. Receiving a Knighthood in the 

Order of the Crown is considered a gift of very high value in international diplomacy.

Belgian Order of the Crown

This award can be compared to the modern 'Order of the Merit'...

It was awarded for important contributions to the First World War 

effort by way of artistic, written or scientific contributions, 

or important contributions to industry and trade.

German Pour le Mérite

The Pour le Mérite is an order of merit (German: Verdienstorden) established in 1740 by King Frederick II of Prussia. It was awarded as both a military and civil honour and ranked, along with the Order of the Black Eagle, the Order of the Red Eagle and the House Order of Hohenzollern, among the highest orders of merit in the Kingdom of Prussia. The order of merit was the highest royal Prussian order of bravery for officers of all ranks. After 1871, when the various German kingdoms, grand duchies, duchies, principalities and Hanseatic city states had come together under Prussian leadership to form the federally structured German Empire, the Prussian honours gradually assumed, at least in public perception, the status of honours of Imperial Germany, even though many honours of the various German states continued to be awarded.

The Pour le Mérite was an honour conferred both for military (1740–1918) and civil (1740–1810, after 1842 as a separate class) services. It was awarded in recognition of extraordinary personal achievement, rather than as a general marker of social status or a courtesy-honour, although certain restrictions of social class and military rank were applied. The order was secular, and membership endured for the remaining lifetime of the recipient, unless renounced or revoked.

During the First World War, the Pour le Mérite was known informally as the Blue Max (German: Blauer Max), in honour of flying ace Max Immelmann, the first recipient during the war. Immelmann was also the first aviator to win the award.

The German Iron Cross

The Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III established the Iron Cross on 13th March 1813, at the beginning of the German campaign as part of the Napoleonic Wars. The design was a silver-framed cast iron cross.    Iron was a material which symbolised defiance and reflected the spirit of the age. The Prussian state had mounted a campaign steeped in patriotic rhetoric to rally their citizens to repulse the French occupation. To finance the army, the king implored wealthy Prussians to turn in their jewels in exchange for a men's cast-iron ring or a ladies' brooch, each bearing the legend "Gold I gave for iron" (Gold gab ich für Eisen). The award was reinstituted for the wars in 1870 and 1914.

Emperor Wilhelm II reauthorized the Iron Cross on 5th August 1914, at the start of The First World War. The 1813, 1870, and 1914 Iron Crosses had three grades:

Iron Cross 2nd Class (Eisernes Kreuz 2. Klasse, or EKII)

Iron Cross 1st Class (Eisernes Kreuz 1. Klasse, or EKI)

Grand Cross of the Iron Cross (Großkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes, often simply Großkreuz)

The Iron Cross 2nd Class

The Iron Cross 1st Class

American Distinguished Service Cross

First awarded during the First World War, the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) is the United States of America's Army's second highest military decoration for soldiers who display extraordinary heroism in combat with an armed enemy force.

American Distinguished Service Medal

Authorized by Presidential Order dated 01-02-1918, and confirmed by Congress on 07-09-1918, the award was announced by War Department General Order No. 6, 1918-01-12.  

The Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) is a military decoration of the United States Army that is presented to soldiers who have distinguished themselves by exceptionally meritorious service to the government in a duty of great responsibility.

American Purple Heart 

The Purple Heart (PH) is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those wounded or killed while serving, on or after 5th  April 1917, with the U.S. military. With its forerunner, the Badge of Military Merit, which took the form of a heart made of purple cloth, the Purple Heart is the oldest military award still given to U.S. military members. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York.

The original Purple Heart, designated as the Badge of Military Merit, was established by George Washington – then the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army – by order from his Newburgh, New York headquarters on 7th August 1782.

After the award was re-authorized in 1932, some U.S. Army wounded from conflicts prior to the First World War applied for, & were awarded, the Purple Heart - veterans of the Civil War and Indian Wars, the Spanish–American War, China Relief Expedition (Boxer Rebellion), and Philippine Insurrection.

French Croix de Guerre  

The Croix de Guerre is a military decoration of France created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awarded during the First World War, again in World War II, and in other conflicts; the croix de guerre des théâtres d'opérations extérieures ("cross of war for external theatres of operations") was established in 1921. The Croix de Guerre was also bestowed on foreign military forces allied to France.

The Italian  War Merit Cross (Italian: Croce al Merito di Guerra) is an Italian military decoration. 

It was instituted by King Victor Emmanuel III during the First World War on 19th January 1918.