VCs of the First World War Gallipoli

by Stephen Snelling

  Incredibly, it was decided to continue the assault into the afternoon. The Essex and the 5th Royal Scots, from the 88th Brigade, were pushed forward and at 4.00 p.m. the Royal Scots, using Saps No. 29 and 30 for cover, launched another futile attack over ground already strewn with the dead of the Scottish Rifles. Shell-fire and machine-guns destroyed the attack before it had really begun. One subaltern emerging from Sap No. 30 with only three men of his platoon still unscathed saw beyond a barricade ‘many men with fierce bearded faces and he realised that to lead his three men against such a throng of foes would be an act of insane folly. Accordingly he withdrew …’

  Attached to the 5th Royal Scots was Lt. Herbert James, a 26-year-old subaltern from the 4th Worcestershires, who had been commissioned from the ranks in the autumn of 1914. James had only returned to the peninsula twelve days earlier after recovering from wounds sustained during the April fighting. He had been sent to the Royal Scots as a liaison officer, with the job of helping his battalion exploit any success. When the Royal Scots’ attack foundered, James was sent forward by the battalion’s CO in order to assist the assault. But by the time he arrived, the frontline trenches were crowded with wounded and dazed survivors. All the unit’s officers having become casualties, James took over command and set about restoring order. Then he made his way back to battalion HQ before returning with reinforcements. When he arrived back, he discovered that a Turkish counter-attack had shattered the defence. So once again he re-established the line and held it until nightfall.

  During the next three days fighting continued on both sides of Gully Ravine. But the Turks in H12a and H12, who had successfully repulsed the Lowland Scots on 28 June, continued to hold out. Two days after the first failed assault, the 88th Brigade took over from the exhausted 156th and arrangements were made to pinch out the salient. The attack, postponed from 1 July to the following day, was to be carried out by parties from the 4th Worcestershires and the 2nd Hampshires. None of the detachments involved were larger than a company.

  In view of the shortage of shells, it was decided a bombing attack along the existing saps would stand a better chance of success than another full-scale assault across the open. Two saps in the centre of the line were assigned to the Worcesters. The Hampshires were allotted two saps on the left. In command of one of the Worcesters’ detachments was Lt. James, who had gained first-hand knowledge of the ground during his attachment to the Royal Scots.

  The attack was launched at 9.00 a.m. Two below-strength companies of the Hampshires advanced beyond the Northern and Southern Barricades established in H12a and H12. Their official history recorded:

  W Company gained about 20 yards in H12a. Further they could not go: rifle fire from the next trench behind and enfilade fire from a communication trench commanded a bend round which it was impossible to advance, so a barricade was made. X also made about the same distance in H12 and established another barricade, where also much bombing developed …

  The Worcesters, with smaller parties each consisting of about thirty men, initially fared better. Having left the cover of the saps, they sprinted across the open, overran the Turkish sap heads and sent the surprised defenders reeling back. Lt. James led his bombers along the left-hand sap while Lt. J. Mould led his first attack along the right sap. James pushed well forward, but his progress was hampered by the large number of dead bodies clogging the trench. The grisly post resembled a charnel-house. Since the battle of 4 June, fighting had raged along it off and on for a month and soldiers of all ranks lay in heaps, some half-buried by earth with more recent victims sprawled on top. The 4th Worcesters’ official account recorded:

  The bombers advanced up the sap head to the trench junction at its further end. There the enemy were waiting, and a furious bombing fight ensued. The enemy were well provided with bombs (the British forces had at that date only ‘jam-tin’ bombs, the Turks were supplied with spherical bombs of archaic appearance, but of much greater effect) and in rapid succession the men of Lieut James’ party were struck down. Presently, only four were left standing – the subaltern, one lance-corporal and two privates. These four maintained an obstinate fight, hoping for reinforcements …

  James had sent one of his men back with a message calling for assistance, but unknown to him he had been killed. Meanwhile, the bomb fight reached its climax. A number of Turkish bombs were thrown back before they could explode, but then one burst among them, killing the two privates and peppering James and L/Cpl. R. Reece with fragments. Ordering Reece to return for reinforcements, James decided to try and hang on alone. According to the Worcesters’ account:

  The Turks were organising a counter-attack. A cluster of bayonets could be seen over the top of the trench. Presently came a shower of bombs and the bayonets moved forward. Before that attack the subaltern fell back along the winding trench, holding back the pursuit by bombing from each successive bend. The enemy followed. Halfway back along the saphead, Lieut James came to a point where a heap of dead bodies blocked the trench. There, he found one of his bombers, Private Parry, lying wounded. To protect him, Lieut James turned to bay. Hastily forming a low barricade of sandbags (at that point there was a small ‘dump’ of bombs and sandbags on top of dead bodies) the subaltern organised a temporary defence.

  With two rifles and a sack of bombs, Lieut James held the trench single-handed, alternately lying behind his barricade to fire then rising to bomb the Turks after his rifle had driven them back behind cover. Amid a shower of bombs he held his ground until the arrival of reinforcements headed by Sgt-Major C. Felix.

  With the reinforcements came L/Cpl. Reece, who joined his officer at the temporary block while a secure barricade was constructed behind them. Finally, after Pte. Parry had been removed, James and Reece pulled back behind the new defensive barrier. Shortly afterwards, the Turkish attack petered out. Just how long James waged his single-handed battle is not clear. His unit’s historian stated: ‘The exact length of time … can never be known, but during that time he expended nearly the whole of his sack of bombs.’ Throughout his splendid rearguard action Lt. Mould had waged a similarly gallant but hopeless struggle on the right for which he later received a Military Cross.

  By early afternoon the action was over. The battalion war diary stated: ‘2.30 p.m. After repeated attempts we have been unable to gain H12 and H12a. Total casualties three killed and twelve wounded.’ The two positions inside the salient remained in Turkish hands to the end of the campaign. Apart from cuts and bruises sustained in the bomb fight, Lt. James came out miraculously unscathed. He was recommended for the Victoria Cross, and, while the papers made their way along official channels, he was promoted adjutant.

  Two months later, on 6 August, during the battle for the Vineyard, his battalion was almost destroyed. The following day he went forward to investigate reports that some wounded were still lying out in no-man’s-land with a view to sending out a rescue party. Lt. Col. C.A. Bolton later recalled: ‘Lieut James left me and I did not see him again until next morning, when he reported that there had been wounded in no-man’s-land and that to save a patrol he had gone out and brought them in himself – two men badly hit and unable to move.’

  Three weeks later, while the remnants of the battalion were resting on Imbros, news came through of James’ VC award. The citation, published in the London Gazette on 1 September, stated:

  For most conspicuous bravery during the operations in the Southern Zone of the Gallipoli Peninsula. On 28th June, when a portion of the regiment had been checked, owing to all the officers being put out of action, Second Lieutenant James, who belonged to a neighbouring unit, entirely on his own initiative, gathered together a body of men and led them forward under heavy shell and rifle fire. He then returned, organised a second party and again advanced. His gallant example put fresh life into the attack. On 3rd July [sic], in the same locality, Second Lieutenant James headed a party of bomb throwers up a Turkish communication trench and after nearly all his bomb throwers had been killed or
wounded, he remained alone at the head of the trench and kept back the enemy single-handed until a barrier had been built behind him and the trench secured. He was throughout exposed to murderous fire.

  L/Cpl. Reece was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal for his part in the second action.

  On the night of 27/28 September James was wounded in the foot while visiting one of his battalion’s advanced sap heads. The injury necessitated his evacuation, and after treatment the new VC hero was sent home on a month’s convalescence leave. He slipped into Birmingham almost unnoticed and, throughout his stay, he politely but steadfastly refused to discuss his experiences. He could not, however, evade completely the public adulation. During December, he returned to his old school to be presented with a splendid ‘sword of honour’ and, in a ceremony orchestrated by the city’s Lord Mayor Neville Chamberlain, the future Prime Minister, received his fellow citizens’ acclaim in a crowded Victoria Square.

  Herbert James, the first member of the Worcestershire Regiment to win the VC in the war, was born on 13 November 1888 in Ladywood, Birmingham, the son of Mr and Mrs Walter James. His father ran a jewellery engraving business in Warstone Lane.

  Herbert James was educated at Smethwick Central School, and appeared destined for the teaching profession. After leaving school he worked as a teacher’s assistant and primary teacher at the Bearwood Road and Brasshouse Lane schools, but ‘being of a roving disposition’ and wishing to travel abroad, he joined the army, against his father’s wishes, on a short service enlistment as a trooper in the 21st Lancers on 13 April 1909. He joined his regiment the following month and went with it to Egypt in 1910 for a two-year tour of duty followed by a spell in India.

  James was promoted lance-corporal on 14 July 1911. Even in the Army, he continued with his studies, and his talent for languages won him numerous prizes. He intended to make a career in the Civil Service after his Army days were over, but, like so many plans, it was overtaken by the war.

  By the autumn of 1914 the War Office, faced with the task of recruiting a New Army, found it necessary to increase the number of commissions offered to Regular Army NCOs. James was a prime candidate, and on 9 November 1914, after having spent five years and 208 days in the ranks, L/Cpl. James became 2nd Lt. James of the 4th Worcestershires. He returned to England to join the unit, largely consisting of men from his home city of Birmingham, and embarked with the battalion on 22 March 1915 for the Dardanelles.

  The main body of the 4th Worcesters landed at W Beach on 25 April and the unit played a key role in effecting the link-up with the troops on V Beach the following day. It was during this fierce fighting that James was severely wounded in the head. He was evacuated to Malta, his name appearing in the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force’s first casualty list alongside two other Gallipoli VCs, Garth Walford and Cuthbert Bromley.

  After being evacuated from the peninsula for the last time in September, Lt. James was transferred to the 1st Worcestershires where he was given command of B Company. He went to France in March 1916 and served with the battalion on the Somme in July 1916. During the fighting around the village of Contalmaison Lt. James was wounded again. His injuries led to him being evacuated to a hospital on the Isle of Wight and were of such severity that a metal plate had to be inserted in his head. He was then moved to the mainland to continue his recovery and two months later, on 5 September, he married Gladys Beatrice Lillicrap at Stoke Damerel parish church, Devonport.

  Little more is recorded of his subsequent war service. He returned to duty on 18 August 1917 as a general staff officer, grade three, with the rank of temporary captain. On 1 April 1918 he was promoted to the rank of brigade-major. James was awarded the French Croix de Guerre on 1 May 1917 and the Military Cross on 15 October 1918 for an action some months earlier (the certificate announcing the award was dated 30 August). The citation for his MC read:

  During an attack, he rode forward when the situation was obscure under heavy fire, and brought back most valuable information. He then reorganised and led forward parties of men from other units and skilfully formed a defensive flank where a gap had occurred, exposing himself for many hours to a very heavy fire. By his gallantry, coolness and utter disregard of personal safety, he set a splendid example to all ranks.

  He also received two mentions in dispatches, gazetted on 20 May and 20 December 1918 (the certificates were dated 7 April and 8 November), and the honorary award of the Panamanian Medal de la Solidaridad, which was only approved on 17 February 1920.

  Capt. James VC, MC remained in the Army after the war, his Civil Service ambitions apparently forgotten. On 21 December 1920 he transferred to the East Lancashire Regiment with the rank of captain and brevet major. He served in the West Indies before entering the Staff College. He then took up a post as a staff captain at the War Office. He had a stint as a brigade major in the Aldershot Command from October 1927 to November 1928 and it was during that spell of duty that he transferred to the York and Lancaster Regiment with the rank of major.

  He separated from his first wife, and married Jessy Amy England in a quiet ceremony in London on 26 November 1929. The following March the London Gazette announced that Maj. James was retiring from the Army due to ill health. Maj. James’ son, A.H. James, who later followed his father into the Worcestershires and rose to the rank of major, wrote of his father:

  He was a dedicated and very efficient soldier, but a shy withdrawn man who found it difficult to get on with other people. He was invalided out of the Army … due to ill health brought on by a head wound which he got in France. I believe he would have risen very high in the Army but for this.

  Little more is recorded of Maj. James’ life. By the late 1950s he was living apart from his second wife in a rented bedsit in Brunswick Gardens, Kensington. He lived there for the last fifteen months of his life a virtual recluse, buying and selling paintings. In August 1958 he suffered a heart attack and, according to newspaper reports, was found five days later by his landlord lying on the floor of his close-shuttered room on the point of starvation. Maj. James was taken to hospital, where he died on 15 August. The following day newspapers carried the tragic story. In one, the landlord’s sister told how her brother had found him surrounded by paintings, many of them stacked together. ‘My brother picked up a book in the room’, she said. ‘It was a complete list of VCs and it fell open at a page marked in pencil. The line was against Major James’ name, and that was the first we knew of his record.’

  Fifty years later, Major James’ gallantry was in the headlines again when his medals were sold at auction for £211,725, at that time the second highest figure ever paid for a Victoria Cross group.

  G.R. O’SULLIVAN AND J. SOMERS

  Near Gully Ravine, Helles sector, 18–19 June and 1–2 July 1915

  55 Capt. G. O’Sullivan

  Cpl. J. Somers

  18 June 1915, the hundredth anniversary of Wellington’s victory on the field of Waterloo, was marked by a modest celebration at Sir Ian Hamilton’s headquarters on Imbros. Over a dish of crayfish, Hamilton and his eternally ebullient chief lieutenant, Gen. Hunter-Weston, wallowed in past glories. Suitably inspired, Hamilton sent a wire delivering greetings to all Wellingtonians under his command. Yet try as he might, he was not able to set aside his mounting difficulties on the peninsula. After his meal, the GOC noted: ‘Have just heard that after a heavy bombardment the Turks made an attack and that fighting is going on now.’

  With little sense of history, the Turks had indeed contrived to spoil the party by launching a fierce assault on a recently captured extension of the British line at the eastern edge of Gully Ravine. Approximately 70 yds of ‘Turkey Trench’, a length of the old Turkish frontline that had defied all attempts at capture on 4 June, had been wrested from their grip in a minor operation seven days earlier. But the Turks were not prepared to surrender the position without a struggle. Shortly after 6.30 p.m. on 18 June, heavy shelling was reported by forward units of the 2nd South Wales Borderers manning t
he trench. It was the beginning of what was, by Gallipoli standards, a fearsome bombardment. Later estimates put the number of HE shells directed at the trench at approximately 500 within the space of little more than half an hour. Parapets were shattered and telephone communications destroyed. At 7.30 p.m. an orderly brought out the message: ‘Men all right, trenches and parapets badly damaged’. Then came reports of the first Turkish attack. It was easily driven off, but the second assault, launched shortly before 9.00 p.m., penetrated the north-west sector, killing and wounding most of the occupants. With their senior officer fatally wounded, the survivors fled in the face of a Turkish bomb attack. ‘Turkey Trench’ was in Turkish hands once more and the Borderers’ withdrawal had left a dangerous gap in the line.

  The Turkish threat was felt immediately by the Borderers’ neighbouring unit, the 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. A shower of bombs fell on a position occupied by B Company, forcing them to give up 30 yds of trench. Orders were swiftly issued for the gap ‘to be made good by force and to be maintained by force’. It was at this point in proceedings that Capt. Gerald O’Sullivan intervened. Leading A Company of the Inniskillings, together with one platoon from C Company, he moved forward to the support of the most threatened units. By 9.45 p.m. O’Sullivan and his men, armed with a meagre supply of jam-tin bombs, had regained his battalion’s lost fire-trench and had joined with a party of South Wales Borderers in bombing their way along 30 yds of Turkey Trench. The Turks retaliated with a bombing assault of their own in which they regained roughly 20 yds. As the battle ebbed and flowed along the bomb-blasted trench, O’Sullivan called for help to stem the counter-thrust.