How
Company Sergeant Major Fredrick Barter, Special Reserve, Attached 1st
Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, Won The Victoria Cross At Festubert
At
daybreak on May 16th 1915, after very effective artillery
preparation, which swept away the German wire entanglements as though
they had been matchwood, and in places almost obliterated their
trenches, the British infantry attacked the enemy’s position
immediately east of Festubert, where their front showed a pronounced
salient. Two brigades of
the 7th Division-the 20th and 22nd-and
part of the 2nd Division and the Indian Corps were the troops
to which the movement was entrusted.
The latter attacked on the left near Richebourg l’Avoue; the 20th
brigade moved from Rue du Bois south eastward; while the 22nd
Brigade advanced to the southeast of Festubert against the Rue
d’Ouvert. The most
successful movement was that of the 22nd Brigade on our
right, composed of the 2nd Queen’s, 1st Royal
Welsh Fusiliers and the 1st South Staffords, with the 2nd
Warwick’s and the 8th Royal Scots in support, which
advanced for more than a mile and succeeded in reaching the enemy’s
main communication trench near the Rue’d’ Ouvert.
The German entrenchments in the Festubert area were curiously
complicated, forming, in fact, a veritable network, and these
circumstances naturally put a premium on bomb throwing. He old
eighteenth century weapon being the most efficient we possessed for
close quarter fighting. The
bombers of the 1st grenadiers, in the 20th Brigade, did brilliant work,
and by a party of the Civil Service Rifles, led by a sergeant of the
Post Office Rifles, on the following day, the four survivors each being
awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
But these feats were surpassed by that performed by a party of
the 1st Welsh Fusiliers, led by Company Sergeant Major
Barter. When his
battalion reached the first line of German trenches, Barter called for
bomb throwers to enable him to extend our line.
With the eight volunteers who responded, he proceeded to deal out
death and mutilation on so wholesale a scale that in a very short time
he had cleared five hundred yards of hostile trenches and captured three
officers and one hundred and two men, besides finding and cutting eleven
mine leads, situated about twenty yards apart.
For this most splendid exploit, worthy to
rank with that of Sergeant Michael O’Leary at Cuinchy, Company
sergeant Major Barter was awarded the Victoria Cross, while subsequently
he was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant.
He is a Cardiff man, and having served his time with the colours,
was, when war broke out, in the employment of the Cardiff Gas Company as
a gas stove fitter. Any
account of the famous bomb exploit at Festubert would be incomplete
without mention of a mystery connected with one of the party, which his
death on this occasion served to clear up.
Among the eight men who assisted Lieutenant Barter was a private
of the 2nd Queen’s named them as Hardy, who had been
temporarily attached to the Welsh Fusiliers for training in bomb
throwing, in which he made astonishing progress.
Hardy was a man of splendid physique, obviously a gentleman, and
so proficient in his military duties that Barter, with whom he soon
became on intimate terms, began to suspect that he was an officer who
had left the service possibly under a cloud, and had enlisted under an
assumed name. His
suspicious proved, in the main, to be correct, for one day “Hardy”
admitted to him that his real name was Smart, and that he had been a
captain in the 53rd Sikhs, and that, being on leave in
England at the time when war broke out, he had decided not to return to
India, but to join a British regiment as a private in order to make sure
of getting to the front. He
begged Barter to keep the fact a secret while he lived, but, should he
be killed in action, he might then consider himself at liberty to make
it public.
In the bomb attack, Private “Hardy”
showed such splendid courage that, in Lieutenant Barter’s opinion he
would, had he survived, have certainly awarded the Distinguished Conduct
Medal. “He was,” said
he, in conversation with a representative of a London paper, “about
ten yards from the first German trench when he got wounded.
It was a terrible blow in the right shoulder.
Some of our men bound up the wound, and I shouted, ‘Hardy, go
back!’ I could see, however that he was determined to go at the enemy.
‘Hardy’ answered: ‘It’s all right, for I am left
handed.’ “The next
thing I saw was ‘Hardy’ rushing off to our right, and, with the
bravery which seemed his characteristic, he commenced to slam the bombs
at the enemy. He carried on
like that for about twenty or thirty years, and he was eventually shot
through the head, half of which was blown off.
He died a hero’s death, and no one regretted his end more than
I did, for I was probably attached to him more than anyone else, and was
afforded opportunities of seeing his sterling worth.
Hardy was a man of splendid physique-I should say he was quite
six feet high, and there can be no doubt of this, that he was six feet
of real manhood. A more fearless fellow it would be impossible to find.
We all loved him. I have never seen a happier man.
He seemed to live to beat the Germans.”
As the result of the May fighting in the Festubert area, we made
considerable gains, piercing the German lines on a total front of four
miles, and capturing their entire first line system of trenches for two
miles, and on the remaining portion both the first and second lines.
But our losses were very heavy, particularly among the
commissioned ranks, and the 22nd Brigade lost three of its
battalion commanders, those of the 1st Royal Welsh Fusiliers,
the 2nd Queen’s and the 8th Royal Scots. Extracted
from 'Deeds That Thrill The Empire'
How
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Hotham Montagu Doughty Wylie C.B.,C.M.G., Of
The Royal Welsh Fusiliers, And Captain Garth Neville Walford, Of The
Royal Field Artillery, Won The V.C. At Sedd-El-Bahr
About one
o’clock on the morning of Sunday, April 25th 1915, the
transports containing our Mediterranean Expeditionary Force dropped
anchor at a point five miles from the shores of the Gallipoli Peninsula,
and by the time the first streaks of dawn-the dawn of the last day which
many a brave man was ever to see-appeared in the eastern sky, boats and
destroyers crowded with troops were stealing in towards the land.
Fierce was the resistance of the Turks at each of the six landing
places-from Gaba Tepe, on the north side of the Peninsula, to Beach S in
Morto Bay-but at Beach V, which at its southern extremity is commanded
by the castle and village of Sedd-el-Bahr, and where our men were
exposed to every type of converging fire, it was the fiercest of all.
Here fell Brigadier-General Napier, Captain Costeker, his
brigade-major, Lieutenant-Colonel Carrington smith, commanding the
Hampshire Regiment, and many other distinguished officers.
Here a whole company of the Munsters was practically wiped out
and a half company of the Dublin Fusiliers reduced, by midday, to
twenty-five effectives; and when the morning of the 26th
dawned the disembarkation was still in its first stage, and the remnant
of the leading party-the survivors of the Dublin and Munster Fusiliers
and of two companies of the Hampshire’s had been crouching for many
hours behind a steep sandy bank at the top of the beach, the cover
afforded by which had alone preserved them from being annihilated.
But cramped and stiff though they were, tormented by thirst, and
subjected to a heavy and unceasing fire, our men were still full of
fight, for with them were brave and devoted officers-Lieutenant Colonels
Doughty-Wylie and Williams, of the Headquarters Staff, and Captain
Walford, Brigade Major, R.A. who, with sublime indifference to their own
danger, had been striving all through that day and night of ceaseless
peril to keep their comrades in good heart.
And now, when it was daylight once more, these officers proceeded
to organise an attack against the hill above the beach.
Fortunately, it happened that at about this same time
arrangements had been made for the warships to begin a heavy bombardment
of the Old Fort, the village of Sedd-el-Bahr, the Old Castle, north of
the village, and of the ground leading up from the beach, under cover of
which our men, most gallantly led by Lieutenant Colonel Doughty Wylie
and Captain Walford, succeeded by 10 a.m. in gaining a footing in the
village. They had to
encounter a most stubborn resistance, and suffered heavy losses from the
fire of cleverly concealed riflemen and machine guns.
But though many fell, their comrades, supported by the terrific
fire from the huge naval guns, continued to press on breaking in the
doors of the houses with the butts of their rifles and routing the
snipers out of their hiding places at the point of the bayonet; and soon
after midday they penetrated to the northern edge f the village, whence
they were in a position to attack the Old Castle and Hill 141. Brave
Captain Walford had already fallen, and now when, owing so largely to
his inspiring example and splendid courage, the position had been almost
won, Lieutenant Colonel Doughty-Wylie, who, with a little cane in his
hand, had led the attack all the way up from the beach through the west
side of the village, under a galling fire, was shot through the brain
while leading the last assault. But
out men, undeterred by the fall of their leaders, pushed resolutely
forward, and fighting their way across the open in the most dashing
manner, before 2 p.m. had gained the summit and occupied the Old Castle
and Hill 141. Both
Lieutenant Colonel Doughty-Wylie and Captain Walford were awarded the
Victoria Cross, the official announcement stating that “it was mainly
due to the initiative, skill and great gallantry of these two officers
that the attack was a complete success.”
Extracted from 'Deeds That Thrill The Empire'
How
Private James Lavin, Of The 1/5th Battalion Royal Welsh
Fusiliers, Won The D.C.M. At Suvla Bay, Gallipoli
At the beginning of
November 1915, the 15th Royal Welsh Fusiliers were occupying
a section of our front line at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli.
One trench, which lay in a valley, was separated from those of
the Turks by about one hundred yards, and from it a disused sap ran out
to within sixty yards of the enemy.
At the end of this sap was an open field, half way across which
stood a large tree. It was
the duty of our patrols to proceed as far as this tree, and the Turkish
snipers, aware of this, had had the distances from the sap to the tree
set and kept up a steady fire, with the result that scarcely a night
passed without some of our men getting hit.
Sometimes, one or more Turks would conceal themselves behind the
tree and fire upon a patrol as it emerged from the sap, and since our
men, when they left our trench, never knew whether there were snipers
behind the tree or not, patrol duty in such circumstances was not
exactly a popular one. The
enemy, moreover, had contracted the disagreeable habit of creeping up
the sap and throwing bombs into our trench, until, what with the snipers
and the bombs, the life of its occupants was becoming a little too
eventful to be pleasant. A
daring Fusilier, Private James Lavin, who had been wounded in the fierce
fighting of the previous August and had only recently returned to duty,
determined to try and do something to mitigate the nuisance, and one
dark night, when out with a patrol, he allowed his comrades to return
without him, and hid himself behind the tree.
Presently, some half dozen Turks, who had seen the patrol going
in, came creeping up behind them, with the intention of throwing bombs
into out trench so soon as the coast was clear.
One Turk entered the sap, while the others lay down about twenty
yards from it, ready to cover his retreat.
Perceiving this, Lavin crawled out from behind the tree, and made
a detour, which brought him between the prostrate Turks and the sap.
He could hear the man who had entered the sap clicking his rifle,
but the night was too dark to make him out.
Lavin knew that we had a sentry on guard at the trench end of the
sap, and that if he fired up the sap, he might hit his own comrade;
besides, his orders were not to fire except in a case of most extreme
emergency, but to use the bayonet only. On the other hand, if the sentry heard a man coming along the
sap, he would think it was Lavin returning, since the patrol would
certainly have told him that one of them had remained behind. However, it was necessary to act at once, for at any moment
the Turk might throw a bomb and kill the sentry, and then rush past him
and fling more bombs into the trench itself.
Accordingly, he made his way up the sap as quickly and as
noiselessly as he could, but had proceeded only a few yards when, as ill
luck would have it, he kicked against an empty tin which someone had
flung down there. The Turk
turned round instantly, and the two men could now see each other quite
plainly. Before Lavin could
recover from his surprise at his misadventure with the tin, the Turk
levelled his rifle and fired point blank at him.
Happily, he missed, and the Fusilier dropping his own rifle,
sprang forward and grappled with him.
The struggle, though fierce, was short, and Lavin, having
succeeded in wrenching the rifle out of his opponent’s hand, drove him
at the point of the bayonet towards the British trench.
Meantime, a number of his comrades, alarmed by the shot, came
running for the sap, but Lavin called out to them not to fire, as it was
he with a prisoner. When
searched, the captured Turk was fund to be carrying two bombs, so that
Lavin’s fortunate intervention probably saved the lives of several of
our men. It appears, too, to have served as a salutary lesson to the
Turks, for after this incident the Welsh Fusiliers had no more trouble
with bomb throwers. Three
weeks later they were withdrawn from the Peninsula.
Private James Lavin, who was awarded a well deserved
Distinguished Conduct Medal, is thirty years of age, and his home I at
Goldings, Hertford.
Extracted from 'Deeds That Thrill The Empire'
How
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Hotham Montagu Doughty Wylie, C.B., C.M.G.,
Of The Royal Welsh Fusiliers, And Captain Garth Neville Walford,
Of The Royal field Artillery, Won The V.C. At Sedd-El-Bahr
About
one o’clock on the morning of Sunday, April 25th 1915, the
transports containing our Mediterranean Expeditionary Force dropped
anchor at a point five miles from the shores of the Gallipolis
Peninsula, and by the time the first streaks of dawn-the dawn of the
last day which many a brave man was ever to see-appeared in the eastern
sky, boats and destroyers crowded with troops were stealing in towards
the land. Fierce
was the resistance of the Turks at each of the six landing places-from
Gaba Tepe, on the north side of the peninsula, to Beach S in Morto
Bay-but at Beach V, which at its southern extremity is commanded by the
castle and village of Sedd-el-Bahr, and where our men were exposed to
every type of converging fire, it was the fiercest of all.
Here fell Brigadier General Napier, Captain Costeker, his brigade
major, Lieutenant Colonel Carrington Smith, commanding the Hampshire
Regiment, and many other distinguished officers.
Here a whole company of the Munsters was practically wiped out
and a half company of the Dublin Fusiliers reduced, by midday, to
twenty-five effectives; and when the morning of the 26th
dawned the disembarkation was still in its first stage, and the remnant
of the landing party-the survivors of the Dublin and Munster Fusiliers
and of two companies of the Hampshire’s had been crouching for many
hours behind a steep sandy bank at the top of the beach, the cover
afforded by which had alone preserved them from being annihilated.
But cramped and stiff though they were,
tormented by thirst, and subjected to a heavy and unceasing fire, our
men were still full of fight, for with them were brave and devoted
officers-Lieutenant Colonels Doughty Wylie and Williams, of the
headquarters Staff, and captain Walford, Brigade Major R.A. who, with
sublime indifference to their own danger, had been striving all through
that day and night of ceaseless peril to keep their comrades in good
heart. And now, when it was
daylight once more, these officers proceeded to organise an attack
against the beach. Fortunately,
it happened that at about this same time arrangements had been made for
the warships to begin a heavy bombardment of the Old Fort, the village
of Sedd-el-Bahr, the Old Castle, north of the village, and of the ground
leading up from the beach, under cover of which our men, most gallantly
led by lieutenant Colonel Doughty Wylie and Captain Walford succeeded by
10 a.m. in gaining a footing in the village.
They had to encounter a most stubborn resistance, and suffered
heavy losses from the fire of cleverly concealed rifle and machine guns.
But though many fell, their comrades, supported by the terrific
fire from the huge naval guns, continued to press on, breaking in the
doors of the houses with the butts of their rifles and routing the
snipers out of their hiding places at the point f the bayonet; and soon
after midday they penetrated to the northern edge of the village, whence
they were in a position to attack the Old Castle and Hill 141.
Brave Captain Walford had already fallen,
and now when, owing so largely to his inspiring example and splendid
courage, the position had been almost won, Lieutenant Colonel Doughty
Wylie, who with a little cane in his hand, had led the attack all the
way up from the beach through the west side of the village, under a
galling fire, was shot through the brain while leading the last assault.
But our men, undeterred by the fall of their leaders, pushed
resolutely forward, and fighting their way across the open in the most
dashing manner, before 2 p.m. had gained the summit and occupied the Old
Castle and Hill 141.
Both Lieutenant Colonel Doughty Wylie and
Captain Walford were awarded the Victoria Cross, the official
announcement stating, “It was mainly due to the initiative, skill and
great gallantry of these two officers that the attack was a complete
success.” Extracted from 'Deeds That Thrill The Empire'
EDWARD
W. D. BELL (Captain, afterwards Major
General, C.B.) 23rd The Royal Welsh
Fusiliers Knight Of The Legion Of Honour
Captain Bell won the Victoria Cross on the heights of Alma on
September 20th 1854. Though
more than decimated, the gallant Welsh charged up the hill in face of
the Russian batteries and dense columns of infantry.
The enemy was speedily in retreat.
Captain Bell, seeing the enemy’s gunners in front of him
preparing to ride off with one of their guns, which was actually
limbered up, rushed forward, seized the leading horse, and, single
handed captured the fieldpiece.
All his senior officers being killed or
wounded, he found himself in command of the regiment, which he
successfully brought out of action.
The gun was afterwards placed at Woolwich,
the horses serving for some time in what was known as the “Black
Battery.” Major-General
Bell became Lieutenant in April 1842; Captain in December 1848;
Brevet-Major 1854; Lieut. -Colonel in Jan 1858, Colonel in August 1862,
and Major General on March 6th 1868. Was appointed to the command of the Belfast District February
28th 1875.
LUKE
O’COMMOR (Colour-Sergeant, now Major
General, retired) 23rd, The Royal
Welsh Fusiliers
Colour-Sergeant O’Connor is remarkable instance of a man rising
from the ranks to one of the highest positions in the army by sheer
merit and bravery. On
September 20th 1954, at the battle of Alma, he snatched the
fallen Colours from the hands of Lieut. Anstruther, whose blood dyed
them as he fell. Although severely wounded himself, being shot in the breast,
he persisted in carrying the Queen’s Colours throughout the day.
On September 8th following, he behaved with marked
gallantry at the Redan, where he was shot through both thighs.
General O’Connor was born on February 21st
1831. After serving through the Crimean War, he fought in the
Indian Mutiny 1857-58, and the Ashantee Expedition 1873. He retired from the service in 1887.
ROBERT
SHIELDS (Corporal) 23rd
of Foot, (The Royal Welsh Fusiliers)
On September 8th 1855 after the attack on the Redan,
Shields volunteered to go out the front from the 5th
Parallel, to bring in Lieutenant Dyneley, who had fallen
wounded-mortally as it afterwards proved.
WILLIAM
HENRY THOMAS SYLVESTER (Assistant Surgeon,
Now M.D,. L.R.C.S. Edin, L.S.A., retired) 23rd
of Foot, (The Royal Welsh Fusiliers) Knight
of the Legion of Honour
On September 8th 1855, under a terrific fire, Surgeon
Sylvester went out near the Redan, to where Lieutenant Dyneley was lying
mortally wounded, and attended to him in that exposed and dangerous
position. He was also
specially mentioned in General Sir James Simpson’s despatch of
September 18th 1855, for going to the front and attending to
many wounded under very severe fire.
He served in the Indian Mutiny and took
part in the Relief of Lucknow 1857-8.
THOMAS BERNARD HACKETT
(Lieutenant, afterwards Lieut. –Colonel) 23rd
of Foot, The Royal Welsh Fusiliers
At the Secundra Bagh, Lucknow, on November 18th 1857,
a young corporal of the 23rd was dangerously wounded, and lay
in an exposed position under fire of the enemy.
Lieutenant Hackett and George Monger (V.C.), seeing his danger,
rushed out and, placing him between them, brought him under cover, and,
promptly procuring medical aid, his life was saved.
On the same date Lieutenant Hackett displayed conspicuous courage
in getting on to the roof of a burning bungalow, from which he tore the
thatch to prevent the fire spreading.
While doing this he became the target for hundreds of Sepoys in
the houses close by, who poured on him an incessant fire.
It is said to relate that he eventually met his death by the
explosion of his own some years ago in Ireland.
George Mongor (Private)
23rd of Foot, The Royal Welsh Fusiliers
At the Secundra Bagh, Lucknow, on November 18th 1857,
Monger displayed great bravery in accompanying Lieutenant Hackett (V.C.)
to assist in carrying in a corporal of his regiment who, being wounded,
was lying in a most exposed position.
