260149 Gnr. Frederick Charles Arthurs MM, CdeG.British Army F Battalion Machine Gun Corps (Heavy) from:Great Percy Street, Finsbury, London. Frederick Arthurs, was born in Petersfield , Hampshire in 1898. Soon after his birth, his mother died. Fred’s father, William Arthurs, was in the army, and Fred ended up in a children’s home in Caledonia Rd., London. When war broke out in 1914, Fred was sixteen and he ran away and joined up, pretending he was eighteen. Fred’s dad by chance found him in France and got him sent home. This was not before Fred had the chance to fight in a battle at Mons.
Fred rejoined when he was eighteen and ended up in the Machine Gun Corps and subsequently as a gunner in the tank F41 Fray Bentos. Fred took part in the Third Battle of Ypres and together with the rest of his crew was stuck for three days in no-man’s-land from the 22nd to the 24th August 1917. Near Pond Farm, one crew member was killed and all the rest were wounded. Fred was ordered to open a door of the tank and wave a flag to signal to British lines that the tank was still in British hands. As he did this, a shell exploded beside the tank and Fred got shrapnel through the neck causing him to be knocked unconscious. After three days, Fred and the remaining crew made it back to British lines, but his family was told he was missing. When Fred got home, he walked down the road and his future wife was horrified when she saw him, thinking she was seeing a ghost. Fred may also have taken part in the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917 in F41 Fray Bentos 2.
Fred never really worked properly again on returning from the war, as he had heart and lung problems caused by the fumes in the tank and maybe by poison gas. There is a story that he once lifted a car off of someone when it fell off a jack in the street and was squashing him. He also swapped some medals for a loaf of bread as he was so hard up. At one time, Fred was a casual mechanic for eccentric Irish Brooklands racing driver Kay Donne. Fred died in 1949 aged 51.
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