Gallantry of Individuals
An Irish Fusilier regiment was in a dangerous position and a messenger
was wanted to bring to the men an order to retire. Who would go? Every
man offered himself, though they knew that they would have to cross an
open country raked with rifle fire. They tossed for the honour, and the
first man who started with the message had not gone more than 200 yards
when he was wounded, but he rushed on till a second bullet brought him
down. Another man took on the message and got only a little way when he
was hit. A third messenger almost reached the endangered regiment when
he was shot. Half-a-dozen men ran out to bring him in. They all were
hit; but the wounded messenger making a supreme effort, crawled to the
regiment and delivered the message.
Similar gallantry was shown when the Munster Fusiliers were surrounded
and a driver of the R.F.A. named Pledge, who was shut up with them,
was asked to "cut through" and get the assistance of the artillery.
Pledge mounted a horse and dashed through the German lines. His horse
fell and Pledge's legs were injured. Nothing daunted, he got his horse
on its feet, and again set off at a great pace. To get to the artillery
he had to pass down a narrow road, which was lined with German
riflemen. He did not stop, however, but rode through without being hit
by a single bullet. He conveyed the message to the artillery, which
tore off to the assistance of the Munsters, and saved the situation.
In view of the death of Prince Maurice of Battenberg, the story told by
Corporal J. Jolley, King's Royal Rifles, has special interest. After
the retreat from Mons the Germans were severely punished. On reaching a
height overlooking Chorley-sur-Marne, the King's Royal Rifles were the
advance guard. They noticed the Germans preparing to blow up a bridge,
but they got away on seeing the British. The latter were ordered to
take the bridge. Prince Maurice was the first man over, and searched a
house all by himself--a brave act for an officer alone. The British got
across the bridge.
A short time before he was shot the cap of the Prince was struck by a
bullet. The Prince made a joke of the occurrence and laughed.
Among those who fell at Cambrai was Captain Clutterbuck, of the King's
Own (Lancaster) Regiment. He was killed while leading a bayonet charge.
"Just like Clutterbuck," wrote a wounded sergeant, describing the
officer's valour, and adding, "Lieutenant Steele-Perkins also died one
of the grandest deaths a British officer could wish for. He was lifted
out of the trenches wounded four times, but protested and crawled back
again till he was mortally wounded."
A British officer was in one of the Antwerp forts when it was being
pounded by great shells. When its doom was sealed the officer ordered
the mixed garrison to save themselves. They succeeded in doing so, but
the officer, who stuck to the fort as a captain to his sinking ship,
was made a prisoner.
A German prisoner told about a Lancashire Fusilier who had been cut off
and refused to surrender to two hundred Germans. He lay on the ground
and kept firing away until he hadn't a cartridge left, and as his
bayonet was gone he stood up with folded arms while they shot him down.
A corporal of the Fusilier Brigade held a company of Germans at bay for
two hours by firing at them from different points, and so making them
think they had a crowd to face. He was getting on very well until a
party of cavalry outflanked him, and as they were right on top of him
there was no deceiving as to his "strength," so he bolted, and the
Germans took the position he had held so long.
Rev. Percy Wyndham Guinness, Chaplain to the Forces, 3rd Cavalry
Brigade, was awarded a D.S.O., because on November 5th he brought Major
Dixon, 16th Lancers, when mortally wounded to an ambulance under heavy
fire, and on the afternoon of the same day, being the only individual
with a horse in the shelled area, took a message under heavy fire from
4th Hussars to headquarters of 3rd Cavalry Brigade.
An Englishman, who had just returned from making his way by the banks
of the Aisne in an attempt to take cigarettes to the troops, came
across a solitary grave. Twice he passed it, and his attention was
arrested by the fact that kindly hands each day strewed fresh flowers
over it. On the pontoon bridge near by a French detachment was keeping
guard, and the soldiers explained that the grave was that of an English
soldier who, quite alone, had there fought till overwhelmed by numbers.
During the great retreat he had strayed from his comrades and fallen
exhausted from fatigue. Unable to find them he took up his quarters in
an abandoned carriage, but thirty-six hours later the Germans appeared
on the other side of the Aisne and fired at him. Undeterred by the fact
that he was utterly alone he replied, and such was his determination
and accuracy of aim that the villagers declared he accounted for six
German officers, one of them a general, before he fell under a volley.
The French buried him where he had fought, and erected a cross in
honour of his gallantry.
The 1st Royal Scots Fusiliers were defending a bridge and the Germans
were firing into them. An officer called Stephens was severely wounded,
and would have fallen into the hands of the enemy if he had not been
rescued by one of the sergeants. Cropp (that was the sergeant's name)
went on the bridge, seized the wounded officer, and placed him on his
back. Instead of risking a journey across the shot-swept bridge, he
decided, encumbered as he was, to swim the canal, which he did. He swam
with the wounded officer out of the line of fire to a place of safety.
A private in the East Yorkshire Regiment tells the following
story--"One of the hardest night attacks we had to face was made
possible by the momentary carelessness of a lad of the Loyal North
Lancashires who was on guard and somehow allowed his thoughts to stray
in other directions so that he didn't notice the Germans until they
were on top of him. He was disarmed, and became terribly distressed
over the prospect of what his carelessness had brought on the Army. He
had one chance of redeeming his fault, and he took it. Just when the
Germans were half-way towards the sleeping camp he made a run for it.
He didn't go far, but the shots fired by the Germans warned the camp of
what was coming, and the advanced guard held them in check until the
main body got under arms. When we found that lad he was just able to
explain what had happened, but he was quite happy when I told him there
wasn't a soldier who wouldn't think that his heroism had atoned for the
original fault. At that he smiled and passed away."
Another private wrote: "One poor fellow here deserves the V.C. He saved
two officers under heavy firing; then after that a shell came and blew
a horse right in two. One part of the horse fell across the legs of
another wounded man. This fellow, named Morris, of the R.E., rushed out
and tried to pull the horse off him. He just managed to do so, and the
chap could get up, when another shell came and blew the wounded chap's
head and shoulders off, at the same time blowing half of Morris's right
leg off. The brave fellow has a wife and three children and is only
twenty-five years old. I am glad to say he is getting better, although
the whole of his leg has been taken off."
This story was told by a sergeant of the Northumberland Fusiliers.
"There was a man of the Manchester Regiment who was lying close to
the German lines terribly wounded. He happened to overhear some
conversation between German soldiers, and being familiar with the
language, he gathered that they intended to attack the position we held
that night. In spite of his wounds he decided to warn us of the danger,
and he set out on the weary tramp of over five miles. He was under fire
from the moment he got to his feet, but he stumbled along in spite of
that, and soon got out of range. Later he ran into a patrol of Uhlans,
but before they saw him he dropped to earth and shammed being dead.
They passed by without a sign, and then he resumed his weary journey.
But this time the strain had told on him, and his wound began to bleed,
marking his path towards our lines with thin red streaks. In the early
morning, just half an hour before the time fixed for the German attack,
he staggered into one of our advanced posts, and managed to tell his
story to the officer in charge before collapsing in a heap. Thanks to
the information he gave, we were ready for the Germans when they came,
and beat them off; but his anxiety to warn us had cost him his life."
There was a time during the battle of Ypres when our line, so thin
in comparison with that of the Germans, was in great danger of
being broken, but the courage of individuals of all ranks saved the
situation. The General commanding the division spent one day with his
staff in the trenches encouraging the men. Brigadier-General H.E. Watts
rushed into the firing line on one occasion to rally the infantry.
A spy, a German in a British uniform, had brought an order to retire
at a moment when retirement would have meant annihilation. From his
post in a château the Brigadier saw the movement. He acted at once.
He ran through a storm of shrapnel, placed himself at the head of the
battalions, formed them up under cover of a road, and then headed them
at the charge back to the trench they had vacated.
Private Jones and Private Vennicombe, 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards,
decided that they would rescue Colonel Ponsonby, their colonel, who had
fallen. Although German bullets were falling fast, the two men made a
dash towards their colonel's body. They found that he had been shot in
the leg, and was unable to walk. Between them they managed to get back
safely into the cover of their companions, carrying their colonel.
So great was the gallantry of Private Goggins, of the Leinster
Regiment, that in a night he brought in under fire no less than sixty
wounded men.
Sergeant-major White, of the Army Service Corps, was awarded the
Victoria Cross for a deed which he thus described to an interviewer.
"We got orders at night to move a convoy. We ran into an ambush of
Uhlans and they gave it to us hot. I accounted for four of them with my
sword, but we had to retire. When we reached a place where we could
pull ourselves together the officer asked if anyone had seen Captain
Grey, who was in charge. It was stated he had been shot down, and I
said I would go back for him. I went and found him, and placing him
across my horse, galloped back to safety with bullets whistling round.
I was hit in both legs."
Lance-corporal F.W. Holmes, of the 2nd Battalion King's Own Yorkshire
Light Infantry, after carrying a wounded man out of the trenches under
heavy fire assisted to drive a gun out of action by taking the place
of the driver, who had been wounded. His letters to his wife contained
no mention of his deeds, but after he was invalided home with a bullet
wound in the leg, he informed her that he had received the French
Medaille Militaire and had been recommended for the Victoria Cross.
An officer of the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers, writing to the
parents of Private Tom Barry, said: "All letters written by men have to
be read and signed by an officer. Your son is under me (on the maxim
gun), and I read his letters. I see he is too modest to tell you that
he has been mentioned for conspicuous conduct. During an advance the
man carrying one of the maxims was wounded and lying in the open. Your
son ran out from under cover, brought the gun up to the firing line,
and then went back for the ammunition he had previously been carrying.
He is a good soldier, and I am proud to have him in my section. If you
have any more like Tom, send them out here."
War in the air has given to many individuals an opportunity of showing
gallantry. An officer thus described a duel between a German and a
British airman. "The German manœuvred for position and prepared to
attack, but our fellow was too quick for him, and darted into a higher
plane. The German tried to circle round and follow, and so in short
spurts they fought for mastery, firing at each other all the time,
the machines swaying and oscillating violently. The British airman,
however, well maintained his ascendancy. Then suddenly there was a
pause, the German machine began to reel, the wounded pilot had lost
control, and with a dive the aeroplane came to earth half a mile away.
Our man hovered about for a time, and then calmly glided away over the
German lines to reconnoitre."