PREVIEW: ORDERS, DECORATIONS, MEDALS & MILITARIA 26 JULY

So frail he was originally turned down for enlistment, Arnold Loosemore became one of the most highly decorated soldiers of the First World War – his tale of gallantry reading like a Boy’s Own heroic adventure.

Loosemore was a 21-year-old corporal in the 8th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment) during the second Anglo-French general attack of the Third Battle of Ypres south of Langemarck in Belgium on 11 August 1917 when he won his Victoria Cross.

After two members of his section had been killed beside him, he fought with every means at his disposal – machine-gun, bomb, rifle and revolver – to thwart a determined and apparently unbeatable counterattack. In doing so Loosemore accounted for about 20 of the enemy as well as a number of snipers, before returning to his original post with a wounded comrade under heavy fire.

Just the day before he is also reputed to have shot down with his Lewis gun a German fighter that was engaged in a ‘dog fight’ with a British aircraft, saving the British pilot’s life as a result.

That was not the end of his outstanding service.

On 20 June 1918, Loosemore was with the 1st/4th Battalion during a raid at Zillebeke. The raid was ‘a highly successful operation, 11 prisoners and one machine gun being captured, and numerous casualties being inflicted on the enemy’, with Loosemore awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (D.C.M) for his gallantry.

His fortunes soon turned, however, and he was severely wounded by machine gun fire at Villers-en-Cauchies on 11 October 1918, resulting in his left leg being amputated. He never fully recovered from his war wounds and died because of tuberculosis in 1924.
 
It was a tragically early end for a man who had fought so hard to serve his country.

Arnold Loosemore was born in Sharrow, Sheffield, on 7 June 1896, the son of George Loosemore, a gardener at the Sheffield Central Cemetery, and his wife Selina, and the sixth of seven brothers, all of whom served during the Great War. Educated at Clifford School in Sheffield, he was employed as a farmworker at Fulwood, Yorkshire when War was declared in 1914, and immediately volunteered.

Turned down for enlistment owing to his frail physique, he took a job with a coal merchant to build up his strength, and successfully attested for the York and Lancaster Regiment on 2 January 1915. He transferred to the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment) on 10 March 1915 and served with the 8th Battalion during the Great War in the Gallipoli theatre of War from 11 September 1915.

He returned to England and was posted to the Western Front as a Lewis machine-gunner in July 1916. 

H.M. King George V presented Loosemore with his V.C. at Buckingham Palace on 2 January 1918, and the following day his home city of Sheffield held a Civic Reception in Loosemore’s where over 2,000 people cheered him from the steps of the Town Hall. 

When their hero died, however, the city authority’s treatment of his widow cast a cloud that was not cleared for 60 years.

Loosemore was buried with full military honours, his funeral being organised by Sheffield City Council, with crowds lining the procession route from Hillsborough to Ecclesall, and the funeral service being conducted by the Lord Bishop of Sheffield.

His widow was denied a War Widows pension from the Government on the grounds that he was no longer a serving soldier at the time of their marriage, and, as her husband’s V.C. annuity ceased upon his death, she and their son were left penniless.

To make matters worse, the City Council then sent her the bill for her husband’s funeral procession. It was only 60 years later that the City Council belatedly attempted to right this wrong, by naming a new residential road ‘Loosemore Drive’ in his honour.