Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Second World War Salerno operations M.M. group of seven awarded to Sergeant J. Spratt, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers - a Machine-Gun Platoon Sergeant, he was taken P.O.W. when his position was overrun by a Parachute Battalion of the fanatical Hermann Goring Division

Military Medal, G.VI.R. (4266142 Sjt. J. Spratt, R. North’d. Fus.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Efficiency Medal, G.VI.R., 1st issue, Territorial, with Bar (4266142 Sjt. J. Spratt, 7-R. North’d. Fus.), mounted as worn, the first with contact marks and edge cut and scratch over unit, otherwise very fine and better (7)
£1400-1600

M.M. London Gazette 21 February 1946:

‘In recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the Field.’

John Spratt was decorated for his gallant deeds as a Machine-Gun Platoon Sergeant in 2nd Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, attached No. 1 Support Group, 6th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment, during a devastating enemy counter-attack on the Dragonea feature, on the Salerno to Avellion Road, on 12 September 1943 - reported as missing when his platoon was overrun on that date, he was later confirmed as a P.O.W. (Brigadier Barclay’s History of The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers 1939-1945 refers).

Given the the fanatical opposition facing Spratt and his comrades at Dragonea on that fateful day, he was lucky to emerge as a P.O.W. - Operation Avalanche, by Hickey and Smith, takes up the story:

‘The stocky Major Josef Fitz, affectionately known to his men as ‘Gustl’, was determined to capture Dragonea just north of Vietri before dark. To the Germans the hill and its village of yellow stucco houses leaning into narrow streets was strategically vital.

The twenty-seven-year-old Austrian was renowned for his almost reckless courage. To his Panzers in the 2nd Parachute Battalion of the Hermann Goring Division, who would ‘go through fire for him’, he was as daring and exemplary a leader as Jack Churchill to his Commandos. Described as ‘a soldier from head to foot’, Fitz had joined the Austrian Federal Army in 1937 and transferred to the Wermacht a year later. During the campaigns in Poland and Russia he had cheated death on eight occasions and wore the Ritterkreuz, Knight’s Cross, among his decorations to prove his valour.

On recovering from severe wounds in the Russian campaign Fitz joined the Tank Division of the Hermann Goring Panzers during the summer of 1943 and was soon in command of the 2nd Parachute Battalion of the Hermann Goring Panzers. He trained them at Doberitz for battle, then brought them, kitted in tropical uniform, by train from Berlin, through France to the south of Italy. This morning they had reached Cava de’ Tirreni. Though exhausted from lack of sleep, he was determined they should take Dragonea without delay.

General Hawkesworth meanwhile had sent 138 Brigade into the Dragonea area to relieve the badly mauled Commandos. Men of the Lincolns, K.O.Y.L.Is and Yorks and Lancs arrived to discover the charred bodies of British and German dead, still burning from the barrage of phosphorous bombs.

Fitz now roused the enthusiasm of his weary Panzers. Standing in the turret of his Tiger tank, he waved his Luger and urged them on with shouts of ‘Sieg Heil!’ Soon the dusk was noisy with the crash of shells and the staccato bursts of machine-gun fire. Oblivious to the mortars bursting around him, Fitz led his battalion of 600 men up the road from Cava and through the village of Dragonea, driving Lincolns and K.O.Y.L.Is before him and taking scores of prisoners. Stitching their heels with vicious bursts of Spandau fire, he drove the British down the slopes, carrying his men forward with a fanatical show of courage.

The British abandoned the bullet-pocked village and staggered from their hillside dugouts in surrender. The village and hill of Dragonea were in German hands again and the ‘Fitz Battalion’ now threatened the vital pass of La Molina.’

Spratt, a miner from Morpeth, was born in 1908, and enlisted in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers (Territorials) in March 1928. Following his capture at Dragonea in September 1943, he was incarcerated at Stalag 66 at Capua, Italy, but in common with fellow Allied prisoners was moved to Germany later that month, where he ended the War at Stalag IVB at Muhlberg.