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Auction: 23111 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 934

The Great War M.M. awarded to Acting-Serjeant W. Fitton, 1/10th (Liverpool Scottish) Battalion, Liverpool Regiment (Territorial Force), who survived the battalion's first major engagement at Hooge, was later commissioned, only to lose his life in a tragic aircraft accident in 1918

Military Medal, G.V.R. (3061 A. Sjt. W. Fitton. 1/10 L'Pool. R. - T.F.), minor edge knock, good very fine

M.M. London Gazette 11 November 1916.

William Fitton was born in September 1895 in Birkenhead, Cheshire and was employed as a Municipal Clerk at the Birkenhead Corporation upon his enlistment in "the Scottish", one of the best territorial units in the British Army at this time - indeed, they were the seventh territorial battalion to be dispatched to the Western Front and disembarked at Le Havre on 3 November 1914. Fitton and his regiment first saw significant action on 16 June 1915 at Hooge: along with the 1st Lincolnshire's the Liverpool Scottish formed the second wave of a three-phase assault on German trenches at the south-western edge of Bellewaarde Lake. After taking and consolidating several enemy trench lines the battalion was subject to heavy German artillery fire and lost severely: by the next day, for the gain of 1,000 yards of territory, the Liverpool Scottish sustained 400 casualties from a total strength of 542. William Fitton was exceedingly lucky to come through unscathed.

Commissioned into the 4th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers in 1917, within a few months Fitton applied to transfer to the Royal Flying Corps and, earning his 'wings', he was assigned to No.6 Squadron - where just a few months from the end of the war he was to meet a sad end. The Liverpool Scroll of Fame takes up the story: 'The very next day [19 August 1918] after reporting for duty he met with a fatal accident, for his machine got into a spin and "crashed" before he could right it, as it was only two hundred feet up. Thus a young life, he was only twenty-four, was cut off on the brink of another period full of promise of brilliant service, for, in the words of his squadron commander, "With such a fine record behind him we expected him to be one of our stars.”
Second-Lieutenant William Fitton is buried at Wavans British Cemetery in France, with his medals later being sent to his wife - Amy - in Birkenhead. He is additionally commemorated on the Birkenhead Institute Roll of Honour (on display in the Central Library) as well as in the aforementioned book. By a strange quirk of fate, Fitton appears to have been surrounded by holders of the Victoria Cross in one way or another - he is buried in the same small cemetery as Captain J.T.B. McCudden; a past member of No.6 Squadron was Major L.G. Hawker; and a Royal Army Medical Corps officer attached to the Liverpool Scottish was Captain N.G. Chavasse.

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Sold for
£320

Starting price
£140