Captain

Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)

Captain is a junior officer rank of the British Army and Royal Marines. It ranks above Lieutenant and below Major and has a NATO ranking code of OF-2. The rank is equivalent to a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and to a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force...

 Ralph Dominic Gamble MC

Military Cross

The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....

 was born in Simla

Shimla

Shimla , formerly known as Simla, is the capital city of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summer capital of the British Raj in India. A popular tourist destination, Shimla is often referred to as the "Queen of Hills," a term coined by the British...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 in 1897. The second child and the only son of Sir Reginald Arthur Gamble.

His grandfather had been Dominic Jacotin Gamble, a veteran of the Crimean War

Crimean War

The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

 and campaigns in New Zealand. Eventually, he had become the Director of Military Education prior to his death in 1887.

His sister married Kenneth Arthur Noel Anderson

Kenneth Arthur Noel Anderson

General Sir Kenneth Arthur Noel Anderson, KCB, MC was a British Army officer in both the First and Second World Wars. He is mainly remembered as the commander of the First Army during Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of Tunisia. He had an outwardly reserved character and did not court...

.

Ralph was educated in England at Summer Fields

Summer Fields School

Summer Fields is a boys' independent preparatory school based in Summertown, Oxford, England.-History:Originally called Summerfield, it became a Boys' Preparatory School in 1864 with seven pupils. Its owner, Archibald Maclaren, was a fencing teacher who ran a gymnasium in Oxford; he himself was...

, a prep school in Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 1906 - 1912 and as a King's Scholar

King's Scholar

A King's Scholar is a foundation scholar of one of certain public schools...

 at Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 1912 - 1916. There, he was one of the top academics at the school despite the fact that he was far more interested in sports. He was talented at cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

, all of the school variations of football

English public school football games

During the early modern era students, former students and teachers at English public schools developed and wrote down the first codes of football, most notably the Eton College...

, as well as at Eton Fives

Eton Fives

Eton Fives, one derivative of the British game of Fives, is a hand-ball game, similar to Rugby Fives, played as doubles in a three-sided court. The object is to force the other team to fail to hit the ball 'up' off the front wall, using any variety of wall or ledge combinations as long as the ball...

.

On leaving school, he joined the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards

Coldstream Guards

Her Majesty's Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, also known officially as the Coldstream Guards , is a regiment of the British Army, part of the Guards Division or Household Division....

. Having served through the Battle of the Somme and then Cambrai

Cambrai

Cambrai is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.Cambrai is the seat of an archdiocese whose jurisdiction was immense during the Middle Ages. The territory of the Bishopric of Cambrai, roughly coinciding with the shire of Brabant, included...

 he was promoted to the rank of Captain. He was leading his Company when he was killed in action near Moyenville on 22 August 1918. There was heavy shelling in the area and he was killed instantly. Of two Lieutenants accompanying, one was killed early on and the other had already been severely wounded. Following his death, the Officer commanding the 2nd Guards Brigade put him forward for the Distinguished Service Order

Distinguished Service Order

The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...

.

Eventually, in 1919, Gamble was instead awarded the Military Cross

Military Cross

The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....

for leading his company into heavy fog and taking a position without the tanks allocated to support him during the action that cost him his life.