Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 141 continued ... Fraser Peter Hutchinson of Port Wallace (Dartmouth), NS, was the first Canadian soldier to be awarded the Military Medal during WW II. King George VI pinned the MM on Sapper Hutchinson in a private ceremony that was not widely published. Hutchinson was sworn to secrecy that he would not reveal any of the details about his escape from the continent back to England until after the war. Fraser Peter Hutchinson was born in 1912 in Quebec and moved to Nova Scotia, with his family, sometime before 1921. In November 1939 Gunner Hutchinson transferred from the Non-Permanent Active Militia to the Canadian Active Service Force and was posted to the Royal Canadian Engineers. The sapper-historians of the Canadian Military Engineers Association tell us the rest of the story: In June 1940, the 1st Canadian Division started to move from England to Brittany in France as part of the effort to re-establish a second British Expeditionary Force (2 BEF) in Europe following the Dunkirk Evacuation. The main body of the 1st Field Company landed in Brest on 14 June with most of their vehicles having arrived a few days earlier with the advance party on 8 June. The company quickly moved out of Brittany inland to assemble in the area of Laval-La Mans. 2nd Field Park Company landed without their equipment and stayed in Brest with Division Engineer HQ. 3rd and 4th Field Companies, while having assembled in English ports, were not embarked. Things were moving faster than the planners had anticipated. The French Army was near collapse and unable to support the new Allied force. Without support and with the capitulation of France only days away, the newly landed troops were withdrawn little more than a week after the initial units had landed. The 1st Field Company left most of their equipment, destroying as much as possible. The Canadians also left behind six soldiers, including Sappers C. Julien and Fraser Peter Hutchinson who were quickly taken prisoner by the Germans. Four of the six managed to escape including the two sappers. Sapper Hutchinson Reports for Duty On 4 March 1942, almost two years later, Sapper Fraser Peter Hutchinson turned up at the Headquarters of the 1st Canadian Field Company wearing the first Military Medal awarded to a Canadian in the Second World War. While he was under strict instructions not to divulge any details relative to either the award or his escapes, we do know that his adventure began when he was left behind wounded and unconscious in hospital. When he recovered, the Germans put him into a labour camp. He escaped with the assistance of French civilians and reached Paris and later managed to cross into Vichy France, only to be arrested in Marseilles. He escaped once again and this time went to Geneva. He quickly discovered Switzerland was not the best jumping-off place for The first Military Medal awarded to a Canadian soldier in WW II
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