Major General
Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...
Francis Arthur Sutton
M.C. (born England 14 February 1884, died
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
22 October 1944) was an English adventurer known as "One Arm Sutton" after losing part of an arm by a hand grenade at the
Battle of Gallipoli where he was awarded the
Military Cross
The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries.
The MC ...
.
A product of Eton College, Sutton studied two years of engineering at University of London before working in civil engineering in Argentina, Mexico, and the US after 1906.
Sutton held a commission in the
Royal Engineers during World War I. Following the war he built railways in Mexico and Argentina and also mined for gold in Siberia and Korea.
Sutton travelled to China where he had purchased manufacturing rights for the
Stokes Mortar that he provided to various warlords. He became a major general for the Chinese
warlord
A warlord is a person who exercises military, economic, and political control over a region in a country without a strong national government; largely because of coercive control over the armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of h ...
Zhang Zuolin
Zhang Zuolin (; March 19, 1875 June 4, 1928), courtesy name Yuting (雨亭), nicknamed Zhang Laogang (張老疙瘩), was an influential Chinese bandit, soldier, and warlord during the Warlord Era in China. The warlord of Manchuria from 1916 to ...
. In
Mukden
Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu name Mukden, is a major Chinese sub-provincial city and the provincial capital of Liaoning province. Located in central-north Liaoning, it is the prov ...
, Sutton provided hospitality to
Aloha Baker on her round-the-world drive as her party passed through a war zone.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
he was interned in Hong Kon
where he died of
dysentery
Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...
.
Notes
References
* Sutton, F. A. ''One Arm Sutton'' 1933 Macmillan
* Drage, Charles ''General of Fortune: The Story of One Arm Sutton'' 1973 White Lion Publishers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sutton, Francis Arthur
1884 births
1944 deaths
Royal Engineers officers
National Revolutionary Army generals
Recipients of the Military Cross
British mercenaries
Deaths from dysentery
British Army personnel of World War I
Canadian amputees
British amputees
British people who died in Japanese internment camps
British expatriates in Mexico
British expatriates in the United States
British expatriates in Argentina
British expatriates in China