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Auction: 20002 - Orders, Decorations, Medals & Space Exploration
Lot: 561

A Great War M.C. and Bar attributed to Captain K. P. Letts, Royal Field Artillery

Military Cross and Second Award Bar, G.V.R., the reverse of the cross privately engraved 'Kenneth P. Letts Zillebeke Sept. 19th.: 21st. 1917.', lacquered, nearly extremely fine

M.C. London Gazette 6 April 1918:

'For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. When a large ammunition dump was exploded, killing two drivers and wounding five, he himself carried the wounded to a safer place, dressed their wounds and remained with them till assistance arrived. The dump was still exploding and the area was being shelled.'

Second Award Bar London Gazette 23 April 1918:

'For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in charge of his battery during a barrage and subsequent S.O.S. call. Though two guns were knocked out, and the only other officer killed, he kept the remaining four guns in action and attended to the wounded. This is not the first time that he has shown himself capable in emergency.'

Kenneth Petrie Letts was born on 11 March 1898 at Croydon, Surrey, the son of book publisher Harry Vaughan Letts. Baptised at the Church of St. Peter on 23 April 1898, he spent his childhood living at 28 Dornton Road in South Croydon before being granted a commission with the R.F.A., Special Reserve on 30 April 1917. Awarded the M.C. and Bar for gallantry on the Western Front, Letts returned to London and married Phoebe S. Barker at St. George's Church, Hanover Square, the couple relocating in the 1930s a little south of Croydon to Godstone, Surrey. They later divorced and Letts went on to marry Helen Glanfield Jones in 1947. He died on 27 April 1965 at St John's Wood, London; sold with copied research.


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