b. 05/04/1894 Isleworth, Middlesex. d. 23/12/1963 London.
DATE OF AM ACTION: 01/11/1918 Wouldham, Kent.
Edward was born on 5th April 1894 in Isleworth, Middlesex, the only son of Edward Charles and Alice Simmons. He had an elder sister, Ethel. During the Great War, Edward was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 5th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment and served in France. He was presented with his AM on 5th May 1919 by King George V at Buckingham Palace. After the war, he became a commercial clerk and paint manufacturer. On 26th June 1930, he married Mary Evelyn Woods at St Philip and St James, Richmond upon Thames. Edward died in London in 1963 aged 70.
AM CITATION:
On the 1st November, 1918, at Wouldham, a platoon was engaged in attack practice, in the course of which the rifle sections advanced under cover of a rifle bomb barrage. The riflemen had reached a point some twenty yards in advance of the bombers, when, owing to a defective cartridge one of the bombs fired from the right flank, where Lieutenant Simmons was stationed as bombing officer, fell about four yards in rear of the riflemen. Lieutenant Simmons, who was behind the bombers, at once rushed forward, and, as there was no time to pick up the bomb and throw it away, he kicked it away. It exploded immediately, and he received severe wounds. Lieutenant Simmons undoubtedly saved some of the men from injury or death at the cost of injury to himself and at the risk of his own life.
BURIAL LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: NATIONAL ARMY MUSEUM, LONDON.
Acknowledgement:
National Army Museum – Image of Edward Simmons’ Albert Medal.