Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

United States of America, Carnegie Hero Fund Medallion, 78mm, bronze, the reverse inscribed in raised letters ‘Awarded to George L. Brown, Jr., who saved Arthur F. Frederick from drowning , Evanston, Wuo., November 6, 1955’, in case of issue, good very fine £200-300

George L. Brown, Jr., a 32 year old railroad fireman from Evanston, Wyoming,was awarded the Carnegie Hero Fund Bronze Medal for having saved Arthur F. Frederick, aged 9, from drowning at Evanston, Wyoming, on 6 November 1955. ‘When they fell through the ice on a pond, Arthur and another boy, both fair swimmers, were briefly submerged in water twelve feet deep, and sixty feet from the nearest bank. The ice broke off when they attempted to climb out; and the other boy, whose boots were filling with water, then grasped Arthur and caused both boys to again be submerged briefly. Arthur reached the edge of the hole and clung to the ice, but the other boy again sank beneath the surface. A third boy ran to a nearby railroad yard and summoned five workmen, including Brown. At a wooden dock at the bank, Brown undressed to his undershorts and then extended himself in a prone position on the ice. When he started to crawl towards Arthur, the ice broke under him, and he plunged into the water. He then broke a path in the ice to fifteen feet from the dock but was too weak to continue. He swam back to the dock and aided the other men in placing a thirty-foot utility pole alongside the path he had made in the ice. Entering the water again, Brown moved to the end of the path and, breaking the ice ahead of him, continued to the end of the pole and thence the twenty feet to Arthur. Grasping Arthur, who did not struggle, Brown towed him twenty feet back through the path in the ice, and lifted him onto the pole. He then worked his way thirty foot to the dock, pulling Arthur along the pole. The boy who had summoned the workmen then told them of the plight of Arthur’s companion and, although cut from the jagged ice and badly chilled, Brown volunteered to search for the missing boy. Restrained by others, Brown dressed and accompanied them to the railroad roundhouse, where they summoned firemen who later recovered the boy’s body. Arthur was cold and weak but recovered. The cut’s on Brown’s body healed without treatment.’

For his gallantry, Brown was awarded the Carnegie Hero Fund Bronze Medal, and was additionally granted the sum of ‘$500 for a worthy purpose as needed’.