Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family Group:

Pair: Sapper K. G. Freeman, Canadian Engineers
British War and Victory Medals (451413 Spr. K. G. Freeman. C.E.) good very fine

Five: Lance-Sergeant C. F. Freeman, Royal Canadian Engineers, later Royal Canadian Artillery and Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps
1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence Medal, Canadian issue in silver; Canadian Volunteer Service Medal, with overseas clasp; War Medal 1939-45, Canadian issue in silver, all privately engraved ‘C Freeman B 5883’, good very fine (7) £80-£100

This lot is to be sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of Lieutenant-Colonel Edward De Santis.

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Kenneth Gerald Freeman was born in Watford, Hertfordshire on 5 March 1885 and emigrated to Canada before the Great War, where he was onetime a member of the Governor General’s Body Guard in the Militia. Having then enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in July 1915, he was embarked for England at the end of the year and thence, in early 1916, for France, where he undertook tramway construction duties during the Somme, Vimy and Passchendaele offensives. In May 1918, however, he received a serious sports’ injury, necessitating his return to Canada, and he was discharged at Toronto in January 1919.

Cecil Frederick Freeman, son of the above, served in the Canadian Militia in the period 1928-34, prior to his enlistment in the Royal Canadian Engineers in Toronto in September 1940. He subsequently transferred to the Royal Canadian Artillery in December 1940 and to the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps in March 1941. And he came ashore in Normandy in late July 1944, where his unit was attached to 21st Army Group and undertook tank recovery work, among other duties. Discharged back in Toronto in October 1945, Freeman later rejoined the Militia and served in the Queen’s York Rangers from August 1950 to June 1952.