George Arthur Frearson MM. WW2

George Arthur Frearson MM. 1886412, Lance Corporal, 19 Field Coy., Royal Engineers. Drowned crossing the River Seine, 31st August 1944. Age 27yrs.

George Arthur Frearson, born at Field Broughton on 17th November 1916, was the eldest son of George and Dorothea Frearson and lived with them at Wellington View, Newton-in-Cartmel, Grange-over-Sands, until his enlistment. He had a younger brother, William, sadly also named on the memorial, and a sister, Dorothy, who has provided me with almost all the following information about these two outstanding young men.

Arthur first went to Newton School, then Cartmel. The Headmistress at Newton seems to have been a real dragon, most parents wanted to move their children to Cartmel or Leven Valley! A quiet young man he was a very keen member of the Scout movement and spent much of his leisure time with them. He became apprentice joiner, to Mr Tim Ridding of Ayside, after leaving school. Arthur combined his work and his hobby and helped to build the Scouts' Outdoor Centre at Tower Wood near Bowness, where he is commemorated. Mr Ridding retired and Arthur worked for other joiners in the area. An example of his skill, a corner wall-cupboard in his sister's home is shown here.

This is an extract from a letter written to his mother during this time and dated only "Wednesday", "We've been seeing a bit of France, it is quite nice we been through some quite nice scenery. We haven't been getting much food lately we can't get any bread we've been having biscuits instead and they are very hard too, we're still sleeping in a barn. We've seen hundreds of evacuees on the roads running away from the war on bikes and cars with their bedding strapped on.

"We've been moving again and we have managed to get some bread, the first few days over here were grand and sunny, but its got a bit showery now. I've not heard anything from you yet it will likely take letters a bit to catch us up,.........We've not seen many British troops yet and have not seen anybody I know...."

This description of Arthur's movements was compiled from brief entries in his pocket diaries and does not convey quite how confused the situation was and how precarious his position. French defences in the west were breached on 10th May and the panzer corps commanded by General Heinz Guderian crossed the Meuse at Sedan on the 13th. The majority of the B.E.F. (British Expeditionary Force) were cut off when the Germans did not cross the Somme, but turned north, heading for the Channel coast, and encircling the troops in Belgium . The Dunkirk operation began, by 30th May 126,000 troops had been evacuated and by June 4th, when the operation was ended, 338,000 Allied troops had landed in England.

After Dunkirk, only two British divisions remained in France, but two more, only partially trained, were sent over. The French had to hold a longer front, along the Somme and the Aisne, with fewer troops than at the start of the campaign. They fought bravely, but the Somme was quickly crossed and Rommel's 7th Panzer division drove through Hornoy to Forges-les-Eaux on June 7th, the day 1st Field Squadron RE left Aumale. A look at a road map of the region shows Aumale on the direct route between the two towns! 7th Panzer continued its advance to the Seine where the bridges at Elbeuf were destroyed. Rommel then turned north-west reaching the Channel at Fécamp and, on the 12th of June 1940, 46,000 British and French soldiers surrendered at St Valery-en-Caux, but Sapper Frearson had escaped to fight another day.

After a spell in England Arthur went out to North Africa in the latter half of 1941. In January of 1942 he was reported missing, but was actually serving with another unit. His family were not unduly worried about this, because they had received a somewhat puzzling telegram from Arthur, saying he was fine and not to worry, before the War Office had informed them he was missing!

The war in North Africa ebbed backwards and forwards through most of 1941 and 1942. The siege of Tobruk was lifted on 4th December 1941, during "Operation Crusader", but Rommel was a long way from final defeat. In June 1942 the Axis armies advanced to invest Tobruk, where Sapper Frearson was stationed. The town's external defences were not as well maintained as they had been previously, Allied troops were not well handled and the Afrika Korps had learned from their experiences of the previous year. At 5:20am, on June 20th part of the Tobruk perimeter was bombarded by dive-bombers and artillery, at 8:30am panzers were surging through the breach and by the end of the morning General Klopper, the garrison commander, decided that he had no option but to surrender. 35,000 troops were taken prisoner, but George Arthur Frearson was not among them, he and some 14 of his squadron, a South African and one officer avoided capture and decided to try to escape. The Axis forces continued east and did not stop until they had crossed the Egyptian frontier and approached the Alamein line, on June 30th. This meant that Arthur and his comrades were deep in enemy held territory.

He described the following period in his diary which begins;

June 20th 1942. The Battle of Tobruk, our old pal Cyril Hickinbotham killed (13 party Ripon.) Derby lad.

Sun. June 21st. Cease fire ordered, burnt our trucks, then went down to the shore, on the Western side of the town. Sheltered in a cave till evening, saw some boats, out to sea, signalled with a fire without result.

Mon. June 22nd. Stopped in a cave, till dusk then set off along the shore clambering over rocks, and wading through the shallower water, till we came outside the perimeter defences. Given a compass by another officer, sixteen of us set off, fifteen R.E. and a S.A. darkie, not much food and water with us.

The diary continues and I will include more extracts later, but Arthur wrote a letter to his mother telling of his adventures, "....we were in Tobruk when it fell, and decided to make a break for it, before we got rounded up. We got down to the coast and hid up for a day or two hoping it might be another St. Valery touch, but no such luck, we saw some boats one night, and we lit a fire and signalled to them all night but nothing came of it. We set off out into the desert, 16 of us, with only enough food for a week, and very little water, we walked at night and hid up in the daytime, which was the worst part of the whole journey, the sun was so hot, and the flies nearly drove us mad, sometimes we found an old lorry, and were able to lay underneath it, out of the sun. Sometimes we found a drop of water in a tin or were able to drain some out of the radiators of lorries, it tasted oily, but it was water, and so, we managed a week of it.

"And then, just when we were looking for some-one to give ourselves up to as we'd finished all our food, we struck an Arab camp, they gave us food and water on the spot, Arab bread and eggs, and then found us a place to hide up at, and supplied us with food for three days, we had a couple of desert sheep, biscuits, Arab bread, (which is just flour and water, and cooked on a hot iron and looks rather like a pancake) and eggs. I don't suppose you can imagine me, sitting on the ground, with the leg of a sheep in my hand, sucking it, and trying to find a scrap more food on it, it surprised me, (He wasn't very keen on meat at home.) , I'll tell you that seven weeks learnt me quite a few lessons. Then they brought us more stuff including, coffee, rice and macaroni, so we set off again, but didn't go far before four of the chaps packed in leaving only twelve.

"We thought about another week would see us through, then one of the chaps was taken ill so the officer and two of us stopped with him and the others went on (they didn't get through), after a couple of nights rest, he felt a bit better, so we decided to go up near the road, in case he was taken bad again, we couldn't do anything for him way out in the desert, so we moved slowly on again. We'd been travelling over a fortnight now, so decided to stop at the next Arab camp, when we found one, they were very good to us, and hid us up for 6 days and supplied us with food and water, and we were only about 4 miles from the road, along which hundreds of enemy transport were moving. The sick man was getting quite fit again, so we set off once more, after having been told we had farther to go than we expected, we reckoned on about another fortnight, we'd already been out 3 weeks. By now, the other chaps, and my boots had worn right through, so you can guess it was pretty awful walking at night, as most of the desert is covered in stones, anyway, we got going again and after being helped several times by different lots of Arabs and picking up tinned food off derelict trucks and finding water sometimes, then running into a bad stretch of country, where we had to live for four days on less than a half pint of water a day and we were getting very weak, we were picked up by the Germans, only a few miles from our own lines. What happened next I can't tell you much about except that, we were set off back to Tobruk in a truck, escaped, pinched a truck, and food and water, got shot up by our own people, then finished up in a plane, in actual fact it was more thrilling than the pictures. So you can guess, we were ready for a day or two in hospital, but I've got over it now, though I'm still rather thin, still I'll be able to make that up..."

Some more detail from the diary, July 4th Sat. Went down escarpment at dawn, and walked east, parallel to the road, four decided they couldn't go any further, so left us. The rest of us carried on to a deserted fort where we stopped the night.

July 5th. Sun. Stopped all day in fort, found some biscuits, some tins of bully, a tin of jam, and a tin of margarine, plenty of water.

July 6th. Mon. Filled up with water and set off again at dawn, sheltered for a while near a bit more water, Goddard taken ill, but managed to walk a bit further, got worse so we stopped early.

July 27th. Mon. Set off again in the morning, walking due East now, towards the gunfire, hid up in some scrub at midday, very rough day, very hot & only a little water. Set off again at dusk, after about 2 hours of agony, we walked into a German leaguer, in the dark, treated very well, given coffee & food and blankets to sleep in.

July 28th. Tue. Captivity, searched etc. by the Germans, then put in a truck for Daba, slept in the truck at night, given food by the driver.

July 30th. Thurs. Searched again, put in truck for Tobruk, together with 5 R.A.F., 2 S.A.s, and 1 H.L.I., & us 4 R.E.s, made twelve, with two Italian guards, & two civvy drivers. Overpowered the guards at dusk and took the truck over Hellfire Pass (south of Sollum), into the desert, with Italian civvy driving.

Aug. 2nd. Sun. Getting short of fuel, so turned N.E., up Matruh-Siwa track, found some dirty water, stopped for day, moved on again in evening, stopped near a bir, signalled to the R.A.F., at night with truck headlights.

Aug. 3rd. Mon. Decided to stop for the day, fired at by two jeeps, just after breakfast, not very nice, found they were British, everything O.K. now, taken back to their H.Q. plenty of food & water, about 150 miles behind lines.

Aug. 4th. Tue. Day of rest, feeling rather weak, set off at dusk, in trucks, cleared a landing ground, then laid flares for planes to land, taken off in planes, which landed behind the enemy lines.

Aug. 5th. Wed. Landed by plane and taken to hospital (9th General Hospital) everything O.K. transferred to the 43rd General Hospital, Aug 15th, discharged from hospital, Oct 24th. back to the Squadron, Dec 21st.

Arthur, as you can see, spent quite some time in hospital recovering from dysentery and debilitation after seven weeks in the desert. He convalesced in Jerusalem, and took the opportunity to visit Holy sites sending home souvenirs of his stay, including fragments of rock from Mt. Calvary.

George Arthur Frearson's journey through the desert took him from Tobruk north to the coast, west along that coast, then south-west across the main Tobruk-Bardia road, south of the Trigh Capuzzo and Trigh el Abd to Libyan Sheferzen, north-east to cross the escarpment at "Fig Trees", east, to the south of Sidi Barrani, north to the Coast Road then south east toward Sidi Hamza and then to Budweis. He was captured and taken to Matruh via Daba. Mersa Matruh was left behind, the truck being taken over west of Barrani, it was driven through Halfaya (Hellfire) Pass to Halfaya station then, travelling south-east of the main Siwa road, turned up the Siwa-Matruh track and encountered a British patrol at Bir el Hilu.

This epic undertaking earned the young joiner from Newton the award of the Military Medal. The citation concludes, "In spite of very great hardship, the example of members of the party giving themselves up through physical exhaustion or because they thought the feat impossible, Sapper Frearson remained undaunted and the officer spoke highly of the way he came forward to help with the sick man, though he realised it would jeopardise his chances of escape, and thus probably make the courageous walk of over 200 miles valueless.

"Sapper Frearson showed a fine example of self-sacrifice, perseverance and dogged courage."

The award was Gazetted on 24th November, 1942.

The Battle of Alamein and the "Torch" landings took place at the end of October and beginning of November 1942, while Arthur was recuperating in the Holy Land. Tobruk was reached on 13th November 1942, and Arthur would rejoin his unit as Axis forces retreated into Tripolitania. The Allies conquest of North Africa concluded on the night of 12/13th May 1943, when, Cramer, the commander of the Afrika Korps sent out his last signal, "Ammunition shot off. Arms and Equipment destroyed. In accordance with orders received Afrika Korps has fought itself to a condition where it can fight no more. The German Afrika Korps must rise again. Heil Safari! Cramer, General Commanding."

Arthur continued to distinguish himself, being Mentioned in Despatches, for brave conduct (London Gazette 24/6/43), and gaining promotion to Lance-Corporal. Sadly his brother, William, was killed in an aircraft training accident in Wales in August 1943.

On 7th June 1944 George Arthur landed in France and went through the bitter Normandy campaign. The Allies broke out of Normandy at Avranches at the end of July and advanced into Brittany eastwards and began to encircle the Germans in the west, thus forming the infamous Falaise pocket, where many Wehrmacht troops perished. Paris was liberated on the night of August 24/25th. The 51st Highland Division including, L/Cpl Frearson, reached the banks of the Seine 20km downstream from Rouen, on 31st August 1944.

On that day he wrote a cheery letter home, "As we have got a few hours off today, I am trying to write a few letters, we have been very busy lately, so a few hours off is a nice change. I expect you will have some idea by the news, how busy we have been, we've travelled a few miles this last couple of weeks. We have noticed quite a difference in the French people around the places we have been lately, when we first landed, they seemed very suspicious of us, I suppose they expected the Germans would push us off again, but lately, everywhere you go they come out and wave, and shout, and if we stop they bring out cider, and wine, for us. Some of the places we have been in we were among the first British troops to enter, so you can imagine the reception we got, and when we were working, putting a bridge up, or filling in huge craters in the roads, they came out with jugs of cider, and we had to shake hands all round. Then some places we went into there was hardly one stone standing on another, it was terrible to see the destruction, we had to work for hours with bulldozers and shovels to clear passage for the traffic, and among it all we saw the civilians, coming back to see what was left, and trying to recover what they could of what had been left in the houses, but they all seemed cheerful, & some said that their menfolk were in Germany, & without the destruction they couldn't expect them back.

"At present we are just below the Seine, and I am waiting to see it again as we saw it in 1940, what different circumstances we are in now, I wonder if we will visit any of the old places again. I've met several more of my old desert pals over here, but I've not yet met any of the locals.........thinking of you all & looking forward to being home again, keep smiling. Cheerio, Arthur."

Those lighthearted words ended Arthur's last letter home. Late in the afternoon of the same day he died. His officer, Lt. Peake, 2 Platoon, 19th Field Coy RE described the circumstances, "Your son was lost during the late afternoon of 31st August last, while engaged in Ferrying Operations with the 51st Highland Division across the River Seine at the village of DUCLAIR on the upper Seine. Being among the first troops to reach the river, operations had to be carried out despite conditions and the craft which your son was commanding capsized and sank in a very heavy tide. L/Cpl Frearson was seen to get free from the capsized vessel and although not a strong swimmer himself was last seen giving assistance to a non-swimmer.

"I can assure you that every effort possible was made to save these men but all attempts proved unsuccessful.

"On behalf of the platoon, with which your son has lived and worked I must express the sympathy that we hold for you on this your second loss of this brutal but essential war, for we knew your son and he was a very fine fellow, one to be proud of.

"Although at the time I had only been with the platoon a short time, I would like to tell you I had already recommended him for further promotion, and that I was proud to have him under my command. Yours sincerely,....."

The Seine was crossed and the British Army's 11th Armoured Division captured Amiens on the night of August 30/31st, with Antwerp falling on September 4th.

George Arthur Frearson MM was never found, he is commemorated on the Groesbeek Memorial, Netherlands. Panel number 2.