Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Great War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
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205585
Lt. George "Dirty" Anderton MID.
British Army 15th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers
from:Oldham, Lancs
I have copies of four letters dated 9-14th March 1916 from BEF France. In the first, my Uncle Norman Hurst Anderton of the 16th battalion, the Lancashire Fusiliers is writing to his parents while in the front line for the first time under heavy bombardment.
In the second and subsequent letters, my father Lieutenant George Anderton of the 15th Battalion which was in the immediate rear, writes to console his parents that his brother Norman was probably taken prisoner, as there was no blood in the trench when he went forward to investigate.
George Anderton was an intelligence officer and sniper. His nickname "Dirty" related to his many forays into "no man's land", hands and face camouflaged with a good layer of mud. He had a narrow escape when, standing on the firestep, a German sniper bullet hit the end of his telescopic sight and ricocheted into the trench below wounding one of his men. He was wounded later in 1916, shot through the neck. He is alleged to have told stretcher bearers not to bother with him as "they have blown my head off".
After hospital treatment he eventually landed up in the Convalescent Hospital on the Promenade in Southport where he met my mother to be, who was serving as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment). Another relic is a torn piece of paper with the medical details of his wound recorded in red crayon, perhaps written by one of the MOs of a Field Ambulance or CCS. He survived the war ending up as a Captain.