Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War M.M. group of four awarded to Private J. B. Crompton, 23rd Battalion (1st Sportsman’s), Royal Fusiliers

Military Medal, G.V.R. (7613 A.L. Cpl. J. B. Crompton, 23/R. Fus.); 1914-15 Star (PS-7613 Pte., R. Fus.); British War and Victory Medals (PS-7613 Pte., R. Fus.), cleaned, very fine or better (4) £500-600

M.M. London Gazette 19 November 1917.

John B. Crompton, a native of Radcliffe, landed at Boulogne with the 23rd Battalion (1st Sportsman’s), Royal Fusiliers in November 1915. As part of 99th Brigade, his unit was heavily engaged on the Somme in the summer of 1916, not least in the operations against Delville Wood in late July, fighting that witnessed the Battalion sustaining 288 casualties - the survivors, on emerging from the wood, were seen to be smoking German cigars. Yet rather than being given a promised rest from operations, the hastily reformed “Sportsmen” were plunged into the bitter fighting at Beaumont Hamel that November.

In April 1917, having sustained well over 200 casualties in a failed attack in mid-February, the Battalion participated in the operations on Vimy Ridge, and, soon afterwards, was back in action on the Somme front, where it more or less fought for the remainder of the year. Although difficult to confirm, it seems likely Crompton won his M.M. for patrol work during this latter period, the Battalion regularly mounting aggressive forays into No Man’s Land and beyond. One of the biggest raids it carried out was that on the evening of 20 July, when two officers and about a hundred other ranks crossed the enemy’s front and support lines - just over 20 of the raiding party became casualties; see F. W. Ward’s record of the Battalion’s services in the Great War for further details, including an excellent eye-witness account of the July 1916 Somme operations.