George Medal set to fetch up to £5,000

A George Medal awarded to a bomb disposal expert from Wolverhampton is set to fetch between £4,000 and £5,000 at auction.

RAF Sergeant Kenneth Lythgoe, son of Bilston-born electrical engineer fitter Kenneth Lythgoe senior and wife Mary, of Waterloo Road,Wolverhampton, was one of the very first recipients of the George Medal just seventeen weeks after it was introduced by King George VI.

The George Medal – awarded for acts of great bravery – was introduced by King George VI during the Second World War on September 24,1940. Sgt Lythgoe, along with two RAF colleagues, were awarded their George Medals on January 21,1941, for defusing enemy bombs between July and September 1940 "with great courage and disregard for their personal safety."

On one occasion Sgt Lythgoe and his colleagues had to dig for eight days to a depth of forty feet to expose the top of a bomb, which they exploded in situ. On another mission, they dug seven feet down to an unexploded bomb.

Now, 70 years later, Sgt Lythgoe's George Medal and his 1939-1945 Star and Defence and War medals are up for sale expected to sell for between £4,000 and £5,000 at Spink, in Bloomsbury, London, on September 6. They are among dozens of heroes' medals set to fetch between £375,000 and £525,000.

All proceeds will go towards creating a Battle of Britain museum in Stanmore,London.

Since 1940, only 2,122 George Medals have been awarded. They include the medal awarded to Blakenhall nursery teacher, Lisa Potts, injured trying to protect children from a machete wielding madman on school grounds in July 1996.