Victoria Cross: Sheffield war hero’s bravery medal sells for big money nearly 100 years after his death

Sgt Loosemore was awarded the medal for halting a German counter attack during the Third Battle of Ypres – often known as the battle of Passchendaele – south of Langemarck in Belgium on August 11, 1917.

But he tragically died just a few years after the war had finished, in 1924, while still over a year short of his 30th birthday.

Yesterday his medals were sold to a private collector for a hammer price of £220,000 by the auctioneers, Noonans, in a sale of orders, decorations, medals and militaria.

Christopher Mellor-Hill, the head of client liaison at Noonans, said: “We were very pleased that both telephone bidders on the VC were British and that it has gone to the collection of a private individual who is known to lend items for display. This was a very respectable price that reflects Loosemore’s gallantry in the Great War and it was a nice ending to his very sad story.

“Loosemore’s medals were a phenomenal achievement with only 32 men receiving both the Victoria Cross and the Distinguished Conduct Medal during the Great War; of these, only three received the DCM after the VC, and consequently Loosemore’s DCM is just one of three to be named with the post-nominal letters ‘VC’.”

He added: “No other medal is as desirable and sought-after by collectors as the Victoria Cross. This example had been sold by the recipient’s son in 1996 to a collector in Australia and we were pleased to show the medals to Loosemore’s grandson for the first time before the sale.”

Sgt Loosemore was serving in the 8th Battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment) when he won his medal, and 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 counterattack by the enemy, which appeared to many as though it must succeed, and accounted for about 20 of the enemy as well as a number of snipers, before returning to his original post, along with a wounded comrade, while coming under heavy fire.

Sgt Loosemore’s VC-winning exploits came the day after he was reputed to have shot down a German fighter plane that had been engaged in a ‘dog-fight’ with a British aircraft.

He used his Lewis gun, a type of machine gun to shoot at the aircraft from the ground, saving the British pilot’s life. He was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) for his gallantry with the 1st/4th Battalion while he was serving at Zillebeke during a raid on June 20, 1918.

The raid was described as ‘a highly successful operation, 11 prisoners and one machine gun being captured, and numerous casualties being inflicted on the enemy’.

Loosemore was severely wounded by machine gun fire at Villers-en-Cauchies on October 11, 1918, just a month before the war ended, resulting in his left leg being amputated. He never fully recovered from his war wounds, and died because of tuberculosis in 1924.

Arnold Loosemore was born in Sharrow, on June 7, 1896, the son of George Loosemore, a gardener at the Sheffield Central Cemetery, and his wife Selina, and he was 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 in Fulwood when war was declared in 1914, and immediately volunteered. Initially turned down for enlistment owing to his frail physique, he took a job with a coal merchant to build up his strength, and was sworn in with the York and Lancaster Regiment on January 2, 1915.

He transferred to the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment) on March 10, 1915 and served with the 8th Battalion during the Great War in Gallipoli from 11 September, 1915. Departing Turkey in December 1915, Loosemore returned to England, before being posted to France, arriving on the Western Front on 3 July, 1916 as a Lewis machine-gunner.

Promoted Corporal on August 17, 1917, Loosemore’s Victoria Cross was announced on 14 September, 1917, and he was presented with the VC riband by the General Officer Commanding at Poperinghe, a town behind British lines near Ypres, on September 23.

Returning to the UK on leave in December of that year, he was presented with his Victoria Cross by HM the King, George V, at Buckingham Palace on January 2, 1918, and the following day attended a Civic Reception in his home city of Sheffield, where over 2,000 people cheered him from the steps of the Town Hall.

He 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 VC annuity ceased upon his death, she and their son were left penniless. Shamefully, she was then sent the bill for her husband’s funeral procession by the City Council. Then, 60 years later the City Council belatedly attempted to right this wrong, by naming a new residential road ‘Loosemore Drive’, near Gleadless, in his honour.