James Somers was hailed as Tipperary’s first VC winner of the war. In fact, although his family moved to Cloughjordan before the war, he was born in Church Street, Belturbet, County Cavan on 12 June 1894, the son of Robert and Charlotte (née Boyre) Somers. Somers’ father was sexton of the town’s Protestant church and his mother had previously been employed as a parlour maid.
Variously described as ‘a light, wiry fellow’ and ‘a well-built, good-looking young fellow’, Somers’ first job was as a footman in Bantry House. Domestic service, however, appears not to have been to his liking, and on 14 January 1913 he joined the Special Reserve of the Royal Munster Fusiliers. During the early days of the war he served with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in Belgium and France. He was severely wounded during the great retreat from Mons. The precise nature of his injuries are unclear. One report refers to a shrapnel wound to his knee and another quotes him as having ‘stopped three bullets’. Whatever the truth, they were serious enough for him to be evacuated, and he spent Christmas, 1914 at home with his parents. Later, he returned to Ireland as a member of a party detailed to guard German prisoners of war.
Transferred to the 1st Battalion, Somers went through all the early fighting on the peninsula, surviving unscathed until the action of 1–2 July. Like so many VC winners, the announcement of his award brought him brief fame. Among the many gifts presented to him were an illuminated address and £240 raised by the people living in and around Tipperary. The climax of his triumphant homecoming came on 14 October 1915, when he travelled to Buckingham Palace to receive his Cross from the king.
Little is recorded of Somers’ subsequent career. There are no references to him in any accounts concerning the Inniskillings after 1915. On 1 April 1917 he transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps and was given a new Army number, M/39117. It can only be speculated that this was a consequence of his injuries sustained at Gallipoli. What is certain is that he served for a spell on the Western Front. By the spring of 1918, however, Sgt. Somers was back in Ireland. From the flimsy evidence available, it would appear that he had suffered a breakdown in health, almost certainly as a result of gas poisoning while in France. Conjecture remains, however, as to the precise cause of his death, on 7 May 1918, at his parents’ home in Cloughjordan. Local newspapers reported his ‘death was due to lung trouble contracted in France some months ago’. His former regiment listed him as dying from ‘the effects of gas poisoning in France’. His family, however, maintained that he was the victim of an accident. Some months prior to his death, they said he had returned to Ireland as an instructor. And they claimed it was while demonstrating the use of gas that his lungs were irreparably damaged due to a leaking cylinder.
Sgt. James Somers was buried with full military honours in Modreeny Church of Ireland cemetery. His coffin was draped in a Union Jack and carried to its last resting place on a gun carriage. Shops were closed and blinds drawn as the funeral procession, led by the Pipe Band of the Cameron Highlanders, made its mournful way through the streets. Three years earlier those same streets had been crowded with well-wishers, welcoming home their local hero. The Nenagh News recorded that an immense number of people ‘of all classes and creeds’ attended the funeral. A firing party fired a final salute as the coffin was lowered into the ground, beneath a headstone bearing a simple inscription taken from the Second Book of Samuel:
He stood and defended. The Lord wrought a great wonder.
L.M. KEYSOR, W.J. SYMONS,
A.S. BURTON, F.H. TUBB,
W. DUNSTAN, J. HAMILTON
AND A.J. SHOUT
Lone Pine, Anzac sector, 7–9 August 1915
In the days following the landing at Anzac, the Turks began constructing an elaborate system of trenches on the southern crown of 400 Plateau. Protected by scattered wire entanglements, the frontline trenches were deep and almost entirely covered by heavy baulks of timber.
The ridge, which had seen much heavy fighting during the first month of the campaign, was known by the Turks as Kanli Sirt, or Bloody Ridge. The Australians, however, had their own name for the position which emerged some 60–150 yds in front of them. Shortly after the landing, artillery observers searching for landmarks had noticed a solitary pine tree standing in splendid isolation on the scrub-covered ridge. Adapting the title of a popular song, they called it the ‘Lonesome Pine’, and the name, in its abbreviated form, had stuck. So formidable was the Lone Pine position, that the sector’s Turkish commanders considered it impregnable to direct assault. Yet in August 1915 the Australian commanders were preparing to do just that. The capture of the Lone Pine position became one of the main objectives for a series of attacks to be delivered against the Turks at Anzac with the intention of diverting Turkish attentions and reserves away from the new landings at Suvla Bay, a few miles to the north.
In the late afternoon of 6 August the Australians launched one of the campaign’s most boldly conceived attacks. Rushing across the open, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Battalions, all from the 1st (New South Wales) Brigade, took the Turks by complete surprise. Within half an hour they had achieved, at a fearful cost, their objectives. The seemingly secure Lone Pine position had indeed fallen to direct assault. But the real test was yet to come. By 7.00 p.m., as the initial wave of frenzied fighting subsided, a number of scattered posts were established in the heart of the captured position. The brigade’s reserve unit, the 1st Battalion, was ordered forward in readiness for the counter-attacks which the operation was designed to provoke.
Capt. H. Jacobs took the leading company over the open and into Lone Pine. They were met by Lt. Col. R. Scobie, commanding the 2nd Battalion, who directed most of the new arrivals to the right of the position. Among the reinforcements was L/Cpl. Leonard Keysor, a much-travelled, 29-year-old Jewish Londoner who had arrived on the peninsula by way of Canada and Sydney, Australia. Keysor’s company was divided among the barricaded posts at the head of a depression towards the rear of the Lone Pine network, known as The Cup. These hastily erected posts, many of them named after the senior officer responsible for their defence, represented the furthest Australian incursions and became the focus of the fiercest fighting of the battle. The bombing duels which characterised the sanguinary struggle started during the night and were directed chiefly at the posts overlooking The Cup.
Although in better-sited positions, the Australians here, as elsewhere in Lone Pine, were at a serious disadvantage when it came to the quality and quantity of bombs. While the Turks were well-supplied with spherical steel grenades the size of cricket balls, the Australians had to make do with their home-made missiles, the so-called jam-pot bombs which frequently proved as dangerous to the thrower as their intended victims.
During his time on the peninsula, Leonard Keysor had become well versed in the art of bombing, and was widely acknowledged as an expert in this form of fighting. Throughout the night of 6/7 August he and his fellow bombers held their own against the uncoordinated Turkish probing attacks. However, pressure on the advanced posts on the right flank intensified during the morning. The Turks succeeded in establishing themselves in a hollow between two of the Australian posts and from there they began to shower bombs on the defenders. The deficiencies in the supply of bombs and the technique of bombing were being felt by the Australians. Even so, they succeeded in beating off one Turkish attack, and in the lull that followed Col. Scobie toured the threatened sector. Preparations were made to link the isolated posts into one trench-line, but before this could be done the Turks launched a second major attack.
The assault was supported by artillery fire which caused a number of casualties. One shell burst in the trench, killing the post commander, Lt. F.J. Cox of the 1st Battalion, and the men beside him. An hour later, at noon, the full weight of the attack fell upon two barricaded positions known as Cook’s and Youden’s posts. The two junior officers in command quickly became casualties and bombs began raining on the defenders from all directions. It was then that L/Cpl. Keysor’s gallantry re
ached a peak. Scorning what little shelter existed, he worked miracles in nullifying the effect of the bombs, smothering the exploding missiles with sandbags and his own coat. When the burning fuses appeared long enough, he adopted the riskier though more satisfying course of returning the bombs to their owners. Frequently, he astonished his comrades by catching Turkish bombs in mid-flight and hurling them back. It was an extraordinary feat and it put fresh heart into the defenders at a most critical moment.
The more exposed posts, however, could not hold out indefinitely, and Col. Scobie ordered a retirement to the main position while he remained to cover the withdrawal. A few moments later, the gallant CO of the 2nd Battalion was killed by a grenade burst. The Turks swept past the demolished barricades to be halted by Capt. Jacobs just short of the main position. His men occupied a barricaded trench, later known as ‘Jacob’s Trench’, and resisted a succession of Turkish attacks which lasted into the evening. Bombing continued throughout the night, and the following day, 8 August, the weary survivors, by then commanded by Capt. Cecil Sasse of the 1st Battalion, withstood more attacks in which the irrepressible Keysor again figured prominently.
Although he had been wounded in the face on the 7th and was hit again on the 8th, Keysor had refused to leave until the 9th when his unit was relieved during the afternoon by the 7th Battalion. Admitted to No 3 Field Ambulance dressing station, he was evacuated the same day to Mudros for treatment to his bomb wounds. Thus ended what has been described as ‘one of the most spectacular individual feats of the war’.
Keysor’s deed had been one of sustained gallantry over a period of fifty hours of unrelenting and nerve-sapping Turkish pressure. His resourceful resistance in the face of repeated bombing attacks had materially influenced the outcome of the fierce fighting in the southern sector. That he survived with only two wounds must have been as much a surprise to himself as his comrades. Not long after the battle, Keysor fell victim to enteric fever and was hospitalised on Mudros in late September before embarking for England on 2 October. He was convalescing when the London Gazette of 15 October announced that his courage had been recognised by one of the seven Victoria Crosses to be given to the defenders of the captured Lone Pine position. The citation read:
For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty at Lone Pine trenches, in the Gallipoli Peninsula. On August 7th, 1915, he was in a trench which was being heavily bombed by the enemy. He picked up two live bombs and threw them back at the enemy at great risk to his own life, and continued throwing bombs, although himself wounded, thereby saving a portion of the trench which it was most important to hold.
On August 8th, at the same place, Private Keysor successfully bombed the enemy out of a position from which a temporary mastery over his own trench had been obtained, and was again wounded. Although marked for hospital, he declined to leave, and volunteered to throw bombs for another company which had lost its bomb-throwers. He continued to bomb the enemy till the situation was relieved.
Keysor received his Cross from George V at an investiture in Buckingham Palace on 15 January 1916.
Relief came to the exhausted survivors of the 1st and 2nd Battalions on the afternoon of 8 August. Lt. Col. Harold Elliott, a peacetime lawyer noted for his great energy and explosive temper, led the 7th (Victoria) Battalion into Lone Pine at about 1.30 p.m. and by 3.00 p.m. he had taken charge of the southern half of the captured trench system. The transfer went smoothly and Elliott took advantage of the lull to tour the position. He had brought three companies, A, C, and D, with him, leaving a fourth, B Company, under the command of Capt. Fred Tubb in reserve at Brown’s Dip in the old Australian frontline. Elliott divided his sector into two with the left flank, running from Goldenstedt’s to Woods’ post, under the command of Lt. William Symons, and the more isolated Jacob’s Trench position on the right, commanded by Lt. G.J.C. Dyett.
Jacob’s Trench consisted of three posts and was partially covered with a wire-mesh screen and timber roof. The defenders, many of them recently arrived drafts, had two machine-guns with which to counter any Turkish infantry assault. It was upon them that the next blow fell. A short, violent bombardment was followed by a bombing attack which took a heavy toll of the defenders crowded together in the trench. Intermittent bombing developed into a major attack launched at about 7.00 p.m. and which threatened to swamp the southern sector.
Lt. Symons, the D Company commander in charge on the left, was engaged in a desperate fight at Goldenstedt’s Post with its commanding view of The Cup. The Turkish bombers were able to shelter beneath a few wooden beams, and Australian losses were heavy as the Turks repeatedly forced their way over the low barricade into the main trench. Each time, however, they were ejected by a counter-attack force which Symons wisely held in reserve in a small dug-out, the entrance of which was covered by wire mesh to keep out Turkish bombs. The struggle went on for much of the night until around 2.00 a.m., when the Turkish bombers were finally driven from their head-cover.
Meanwhile, the number of casualties sustained in Jacob’s Trench had compelled Elliott to bring up his reserve company, with Capt. Tubb taking over from the wounded Lt. Dyett. By the early hours of 9 August, as the Turks moved forward to renew their assault, the southern sector of Lone Pine had been split into three sub-units; Lt. Symons, after his gruelling contest at Goldenstedt’s, still held the left flank posts, with Capt. Tubb’s B Company in the middle and Lt. J.M. West commanding the isolated right flank position.
The attack, when it came at 4. 00 a.m., was furious and extended from Sasse’s Sap in the north to Jacob’s Trench in the south. In Lt. Symons’ sector the fighting was of a frenzied nature. Once more the Turks concentrated their efforts on dislodging the Australians from Goldenstedt’s. Symons, leading his men by personal example, succeeded briefly in subduing the Turks by hurling Lotbinière bombs, a missile which consisted of slabs of gun-cotton tied to small wooden boards and which were more familiarly known as ‘hair-brush bombs’.
As the Turkish waves lapped along the southern perimeter, Elliott’s chief concern was for his exposed right flank, where the Turks had succeeded in wiping out the garrison of a newly constructed trench designed to protect Jacob’s Trench. At the second attempt, the Turks drove the survivors out of this vital position and resisted an effort to recapture it. With his entire position thus threatened, Elliott turned to Lt. Symons, whose cheery optimism had deeply impressed him. Handing the company commander his revolver, Elliott ordered him to retake Jacob’s Trench with the words: ‘I don’t expect to see you again. But we must not lose that post.’
Accompanied by Cpl. G. Ball and Cpl. J.H. Wadeson, Symons led a rush which cleared Jacob’s Trench. Two Turks fell to his borrowed revolver and Symons barely had time to reconstruct the trench barricade before a counter-attack was launched. Beset from three directions, Symons requested and was granted permission to withdraw his men beneath a portion of overhead cover at the western end of the trench. The Turks occupied the remaining 15 yds of open trench and then began their relentless efforts to eject Symons’ party. Twice they set fire to the timber roofing, but on both occasions Symons countered with a charge which sent the Turks scurrying away and allowed time for the flames to be extinguished. In one of his forays, he brought back a machine-gun which had been abandoned.
The Turks, knowing the importance of the position, made one last effort to overwhelm the defenders. However, their attempt to encircle Symons’ men was foiled when their movement across a stretch of ground in what had been no-man’s-land was spotted by Australians in the old frontline and elsewhere in Lone Pine. It was just as well, for casualties had reached alarming proportions among Symons’ party. By 6.30 p.m. the heaviest Turkish counter-attack of the battle for Lone Pine had died away, leaving the Australians in their hard-won position.
On 11 August, three days after the remnants of his battalion were relieved, Lt. Symons wrote to his mother:
Since last writing I have had a rough time, as you will perhaps have heard. The New
South Wales boys charged the enemy’s trenches, and by the dint of hard and strenuous fighting captured them. It was simply grand watching them bayonetting and shooting the Turks. They were standing on the top of the enemy’s trenches and prodding Abdul with the bayonet, just like a woman putting a hatpin in her hat or a butcher boning a roast. They then dropped into their trenches … Two nights after, the Turks attacked and tried to recapture their trench, but were driven out again. Our battalion was sent to assist them and I went in with a company of 141 men, and the other companies had about a similar number. Anyway, Abdul decided to take his trench at all costs, but in vain. They came once and dropped about 1,000 bombs in our trenches, and I am sorry to say they did a great deal of damage, but I think that we did decidedly more with ours, for we were better throwers than they were, and more accurate. They were in greater numbers.
The first attack was at about 3.30 a.m. They came at us in hundreds, and made a special point of my position. I only had about 40 men with me in the firing line, the others being in reserve or else casualties. We had to set our teeth and drive them back, which the lads did with great credit. When I came to muster we had only about 15 left, and I got some of my reserve in and made up the strength again. It was just in time for another attack, which was equally unsuccessful. They were sent away with great loss, but I had to build up again.
By this time the bottom of our trench was filled in some places four or five feet deep with dead and wounded Turks and our brave lads. They were just coming for a third time, when a couple of shells were distributed among them by our artillery, and they must have thought discretion was the better part of valour, as they ‘imshied’, leaving us still masters of the position. I was left with about 40 men of my company, and I don’t think one of the remaining men was unwounded.
VCs of the First World War Gallipoli Page 20