The interesting Great War Western Front Hospital Orderly and 1926 award of the Royal Air Force Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, as awarded to Sergeant A. Dreseman, Royal Air Force, formerly Royal Army Medical Corps. Dreseman, whose surname was also spelt Dreselman, and Drieselman, was from a German family, his father having emigrated to England to work as a hairdresser in London. Owing to subsequent politics and the conflict with Germany, he opted to go by the surname of Dreseman, this clearly being the least Germanic. A pre-war regular soldier since March 1907, he was out in Cairo on the outbreak of the war, and then saw service on the Western Front as a Hospital Orderly with the 13th General Hospital from 16 October 1914. He transferred into the Royal Air Force in October 1918 and remained employed as a Hospital Orderly with 37 Squadron, a home defence fighter unit which patrolled in the final month of the war to the north of London, and from March 1919 was with it at R.A.F. Biggin Hill. He was awarded the Royal Air Force Long Service and Good Conduct Medal in 1926.
Group of 4: 1914-1915 Star, this converted to a 1914 Star with the obverse date erased and re-engraved, reverse with naming erased and then engraved; (7798 PTE. A. DRES*AN R.A.M.C.); British War Medal and Victory Medal; (7798 PTE. A. DRESELMAN. R.A.M.C.); Royal Air Force Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, GVR Coinage bust; (301781. SGT. A. DRESEMAN. R.A.F.)
Condition: first erased and renamed, second and third have attempted erasures to the naming around the letter ‘L’ of recipient’s surname otherwise correct as issued, and all naming details are still visible, last as issued, overall only Fine.
Albert Dreselman, surname also spelt Drieselman and later amended to Dreseman, was born on 9 March 1889 in Woolwich, Kent. Owing to subsequent politics and the conflict with Germany, he opted to go by the surname of Dreseman, and would amend his Great War medals to reflect this. He was the son of Charles and Anna Drieselman, his father, a hairdresser, having been born in Germany, and by the mid 1890’s his family had moved to Battersea. On 14 March 1907 he enlisted into the British Army, joining as a Private (No.7798) the Royal Army Medical Corps, and went on to serve as a hospital orderly.
With the Great War he was on service out in Egypt and stationed in the Citadel at Cairo and was there when he married Irene Ethel Calderari on 8 August 1914. They later settled in Dover, Kent, and had on daughter, Dorothy Dreselman. He then saw service out on the Western Front from 16 October 1914 with the 13th General Hospital, and was one home service in England when he transferred into the Royal Air Force on 2 October 1918 as a Private 2nd Class (No.301781), and was posted to No.37 Squadron on 25 October 1918, this being a home defence fighter unit that was then patrolling to the north of London. Dreselman was from 1 January 1919 still with this squadron and employed as an Aircraftman 2nd Class and Hospital Orderly, and he then transferred with this squadron to R.A.F. Biggin Hill in Kent from 17 March 1919 being then posted to 6th Brigade Headquarters from 18 May 1919.
Dreselman was reclassified as an Aircraftsman 1st Class on 1 July 1919, and was then reclassified as a Leading Aircraftsman from 2 March 1920. He went on to be awarded the Royal Air Force Long Service and Good Conduct Medal in 1926 when a Sergeant.
