Arturo Fanconi

Arturo "Arthur" Fanconi, (28 March 1906 – 28 June 1944) was a Swiss confectioner who was posthumously awarded the Albert Medal for Lifesaving (equivalent to the George Cross) after saving lives in a minefield while acting as a Royal Navy sick berth attendant.

Biography Fanconi was born on 28 March 1906 in Tonbridge, Kent, England, to Giulio Fanconi and Anna Fanconi ( Shumacher). He grew up in Ilminster, Somerset, He worked with his family as a confectioner and pastry chef before the Second World War. This was not a ship but a stone frigate associated with Combined Operations. On D-Day (6 June 1944), he was present at Utah Beach where United States' troops landed.

Albert Medal and death On 28 June 1944, Fanconi was killed in action while providing medical aid to American troops caught in a minefield in Quineville, Normandy. In May 1945, he was posthumously awarded the Albert Medal for Lifesaving in Gold for saving the lives of two injured men, before being fatally injured while in an attempting to save a third. He was the final person to be awarded the Albert Medal in Gold before it was subsumed into the George Cross in 1971. He is buried in Bayeux war cemetery.

The medal was brought to the Antiques Roadshow in 2024, and was valued at between £20,000 and £25,000.