Bombardier

Waterloo Medal

Waterloo Medal of Ralph Surtees, 2nd Battalion. 73rd Regiment foot.

Surtees recorded as suffering a 'gun shot wound in the right ankle at Waterloo' and being rendered unfit for further service and discharged

Image Source: http://www.warandson.co.uk/
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73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot
The regiment was raised as the 2nd Battalion, 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment of Foot in March 1780, with eight officers from the 1st Battalion being detached to help raise the new battalion. The battalion was sent to India in January 1781 and took part in the Siege of Mangalore in autumn 1783 during the Second Anglo-Mysore War. It was still in India when the battalion received regimental status in 1786 as the 73rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot. The new regiment remained in India and saw action at the Siege of Seringapatam in 1792 during the Third Anglo-Mysore War, the Siege of Pondicherry in August 1793 during the French Revolutionary Wars and the capture of the Dutch settlements in Ceylon in 1795. It went on to form part of the storming party at the Siege of Seringapatam in April 1799 during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War before returning to England in July 1806.
The 2nd Battalion remained in England until May 1813 when it was shipped to Swedish Pomerania and fought at the Battle of the Göhrde in September 1813 and the Battle of Merxem in January 1814. In 1815 the battalion joined Wellington's Army in Belgium: the regiment was in Major-General Colin Halkett's Brigade in Lieutenant General Sir Charles Alten's 3rd Division. The battalion fought in the Battle of Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815 where they lost 53 men killed and wounded. At the subsequent Battle of Waterloo on 18 June, the regiment was charged by French Cavalry no less than 11 times during the battle and bombarded by French artillery. It remained in square without breaking. The battalion lost 6 officers and 225 men killed and wounded, the second heaviest casualties suffered by a line infantry regiment, after the 1st Battalion 27th (Inniskillings), which lost 450 out of 700 men in holding their square and Wellington's line. The battalion formed part of the Army of Occupation in Paris before moving back to England in December 1815.
 

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