Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, in November 1916, November 1917, and November 1918, and was also awarded the Distinguished Service Order in June 1917. After the war, Fawcett returned to Brazil to study local wildlife and archaeology. In 1920, he made a solo attempt to search for "Z" but ended it after suffering from a fever and shooting his pack animal. Final expedition In 1924, with funding from a London-based group of financiers known as 'the Glove', Fawcett returned to Brazil with his eldest son Jack and Jack's best and longtime friend, Raleigh Rimell, for an exploratory expedition to find "Z". Fawcett left instructions stating that if the expedition did not return, no rescue expedition should be sent lest the rescuers suffer his fate. Fawcett was a man with years of experience traveling and had taken equipment such as canned foods, powdered milk, guns, flares, a sextant, and a chronometer. His travel companions were both chosen for their health, ability, and loyalty to each other; Fawcett chose only two companions in order to travel lighter and with less notice to native tribes, as some were hostile towards outsiders. On 20 April 1925, his final expedition departed from Cuiabá. In addition to his two principal companions, Fawcett was accompanied by two Brazilian laborers, two horses, eight mules, and a pair of dogs. The last communication from the expedition was on 29 May 1925 when Fawcett wrote, in a letter to his wife delivered by a native runner, that he was ready to go into unexplored territory with only Jack and Raleigh. They were reported to be crossing the Upper Xingu, a southeastern tributary river of the River Amazon. The final letter, written from Dead Horse Camp, gave their location and was generally optimistic. In January 1927, the Royal Geographical Society declared and accepted the men as lost, close to two years after the party's last message. Soon after the society's declaration, there was an outpouring of volunteers to attempt to locate the lost explorers. Many expeditions attempting to find Fawcett failed. At least one lone searcher died in the attempt. Many people assumed that local Indians killed them, as several tribes were nearby at the time: the Kalapalos, the last tribe to have seen them, the Arumás, the Suyás, and the Xavantes whose territory they were entering. According to explorer John Hemming, Fawcett's party of three was too few to survive in