Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Lieutenant F. W. Evans, Royal Air Force, late 22nd (Kensington) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, and Royal Flying Corps

1914-15 Star (1356 Pte. F. W. Evans, R. Fus.); British War and Victory Medals (1356 Pte. F. W. Evans, R. Fus.); Defence Medal 1939-45, gilt worn on the Victory Medal, otherwise generally very fine (4) £160-180

Frederick Walter Evans was born in November 1897, and was living at Notting Hill, London, at the time of his enlistment in the 22nd (Kensington) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, in February 1915. Embarked for France in November of the same year, he would have gone into action on the Somme in late July, early August 1916, when the battalion sustained around 250 casualties at Delville Wood. In April 1917, he returned to the U.K. and transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and, on qualifying as a pilot that summer, was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and posted to the Wireless and Observation School at Winchester. And he remained similarly employed until March 1918 when, owing to an ongoing breathing complaint, he was grounded. Evans, who was demobilised as a Lieutenant in September 1919, served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 181st (101st Nottinghamshire Home Guard) Anti-Aircraft Battery in the 1939-45 War. He died at Maidstone, Kent, in December 1987, aged 90 years.