Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

In February 1918, he returned to the Royal Fusiliers as a Second Lieutenant and was demobilised in March 1919, four months after the end of the war, retaining the rank of Lieutenant. By this time the battalion was based near Cologne, part of an occupying Army. The Surrey Annual Report for 1919 acknowledged his front-line experience: Lieutenant Ernest Hayes, who is captaining Surrey this year, has been awarded the MBE (Military Division). He served in France with the Royal Fusiliers, enlisting as a private, and was on one occasion badly knocked about in a shell explosion, being buried for a considerable time. The Golden Age Ends on the Western Front 88