VCs of the First World War 1915 The Western Front

by Peter F Batchelor

  Thomas Kenny was born at South Wingate, Durham on 4 April 1882. After he left St Mary’s Roman Catholic School at Wingate he worked as a quarryman and, later as a miner at Wheatley Hill Colliery. He enlisted in August 1914 on the outbreak of war with the 13th (Service) Bn DLI, and on 16 September 1914 the recruits entrained at Newcastle upon Tyne, their destination being Bullswater Camp, near Pirbright in Surrey. Despite the rain, mud and cold the men lived in tents until the end of November before completing their training and receiving one week’s leave in late July 1915. Private Thomas Kenny, ‘B’ Company, 13th (Service) Battalion DLI, landed at Boulogne with his battalion on 26 August 1915. Initially the battalion was supplying many working parties as many of the men were miners, but in early October the DLI went into the line at Bois Grenier, which, although thought of as a ‘quiet’ section, casualties occurred on a daily basis. This is illustrated by the following letter written home by a DLI officer, Lieutenant Philip Anthony Brown:

  About 12.30am, a man came and said he could hear moaning over the parapet. I was afraid that this meant that some of my men, who had just started on a listening patrol, had been hit …. I went down with my observer, a very nice Irishman frm County Durham, who goes with me everywhere, and crept along … a very shallow trench. We soon came on one man down in the bottom of the ditch. It was difficult to move him, but finally my observer got him on his back. Poor fellow had a bad wound in the side.

  This was the first night of the battalion’s first tour of duty in the trenches and the observer was Private Thomas Kenny.

  He was married with seven children, five girls and two boys; the eldest was ten and the youngest just two months old when he came home on leave in December 1915 for the first time since winning the VC a month earlier on 4 November. He was decorated by King George V at Buckingham Palace on Saturday 4 March 1916. Mrs Brown, the mother of Philip Brown, was there to meet the man who had tried so hard to save her son’s life. A few days later, Thomas Kenny returned home to his wife and family. At the Palace Picture Theatre, with the local Boy Scouts and Prize Band as escort and before a capacity audience, he was presented by the manager of Wingate Colliery with £50 in War Bonds, a gift from local people. The next morning, 11 March, Thomas Kenny went to his old school to be presented with a marble clock, pipe and tobacco and to listen to a poem specially composed for the occasion and read by one of the children. Kenny returned to his battalion in France as a lance-sergeant, saving one Sgt Moody’s life during the Battle of the Somme; Moody lost a leg during the fighting, but was carried to safety by Kenny. The unit left for Italy in November 1917 but returned to France in March 1918 in time for the German offensive; by then Kenny was CSM. He was discharged in 1919 and returned home to Wingate. He attended the garden party for VC winners held at Buckingham Palace on 26 June 1920.

  In 1927 Kenny moved to Darlington Street, Wheatley Hill, and was employed at this time as a ‘stone hand’ at the nearby Wheatley Hill Colliery. Despite financial difficulties he was able to go the British Legion’s dinner held at the House of Lords on 9 November 1929. During his stay in London he met Mrs Brown, the mother of Lt P.A. Brown. He and his wife had met Mrs Brown more than once, and one of Kenny’s daughters was in domestic service with the officer’s brother. The following month he was present at the first annual dinner and reunion of the 13th Bn DLI, at which he met again Sgt Moody, whose life he had saved on the Somme. Thomas Kenny died in Durham on 29 November 1948, aged sixty-six, and was buried at Wheatley Hill Cemetery, County Durham on 2 December. Following an appeal by members of The ‘Faithful’ Inkerman Club, his unmarked grave was finally given a headstone in August 1994.The stone was unveiled by Captain Richard Annand VC, during a simple ceremony.

  A bronze statue of Captain Annand VC stands at South Shields Town Hall. The statue along with that of Pte Thomas Kenny VC was unveiled in May 2007. Capt. Annand, who died in 2004, ignored enemy fire to rescue his badly wounded batman, using a wheelbarrow, during the retreat to Dunkirk in May 1940.

  J. CAFFREY

  La Brique, Belgium, 16 November

  The 2nd York and Lancaster Regt (16th Bde, 6th Div.) moved into the Ypres salient on the night of 31 May/ 1 June, at which point ‘trench casualties almost doubled immediately’. On 30 July 16th Bde was prepared for immediate movement, and the next day was located around ‘Goldfish Château’, half a mile north-west of Ypres, as a precautionary measure, to support the 14th Div. positions at Hooge which had been severely attacked the previous day. On the night of 5/6 August the 2 York and Lancasters relieved the 9th King’s Royal Rifles (42nd Bde, 14th Div.) in the Hooge trenches. The following three days were used to prepare for an attack to be launched on 9 August to restore the line at Hooge. The battalion remained on duty in the salient though changes took place to the composition of units of the 6th Div. during November. Maj.-Gen. W.N. Congreve, the commander of 6th Div., was promoted to command XIII Corps on 14 November and was replaced by Maj.-Gen. C. Ross. By the end of August the battalion had received four drafts of replacements numbering 340 men, bringing it back up to strength after the attack at Hooge.

  On 13 November the 2nd York and Lancasters returned to the trenches, this time at La Brique. HQ and A and B Coys were driven by motor bus to Brielen, while D Coy and two platoons of C Coy went by train to the track crossing at ‘Goldfish Château’. The relief was completed by 22.50 hours that night and the situation was described as ‘quiet’.

  The next day, 16 November, was fine and bright, and as the light grew Pte John Caffrey spotted a badly wounded man lying between 300 and 400 yards in front of the German trench, totally exposed to the Germans’ view. At about 09.00 hours, in broad daylight, Caffrey, together with Cpl Stirk of the RAMC, set out from their trench in a rescue attempt but they were beaten back by shrapnel fire. Within a short time they made a second bid to reach the wounded man, all the while under close rifle and machine-gun fire. They successfully reached the man, who was from the West Yorkshire Regt, and bandaged his wounds, but just as Cpl Stirk lifted the wounded man on to Caffrey’s back for the return to their lines, Stirk was shot in the head. Caffrey lowered the soldier to the ground and bandaged Stirk’s wound and helped him back to safety. He then went out for a third time to bring in the casualty. He had shown the ‘utmost coolness and bravery’ throughout the rescue. The battalion War Diary notes that they suffered ‘a good deal of hostile shelling throughout the afternoon’. The battalion was relieved by the 8th King’s Royal Rifles on the night of 18/19 November.

  Caffrey’s Victoria Cross was awarded for this rescue and was gazetted on 22 January 1916. It was the first to be awarded to a member of the 6th Div. and he was decorated by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 23 February 1916. It appears that Cpl Stirk received no official recognition for his part in the rescue, beyond being mentioned in the citation of Caffrey’s award. In a way Caffrey’s deed was a repeat of an earlier act of heroism which earned him the Russian Order of St George 4th Class, awarded on 25 August 1915 when he brought in a seriously wounded officer under heavy fire.

  John Caffrey bore the same name as his father and he was born at Birr, King’s County (later Offaly), Ireland, on 23 October 1891, though some sources suggest he was born on 21 December that year. He left Ireland at an early age and settled in England and was educated at St Mary’s Catholic School, Derby Road, Nottingham. He joined the 12th Nottingham Company of the Boys Brigade, and appears to have been popular.

  He enlisted in the army in 1910 and joined the 7th Bn, the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regt. At his own request he transferred to the 2nd York and Lancasters, in which his father had served. With the coming of war he was mobilized on 4 August 1914. The battalion moved by train from Limerick, where it was stationed, to Queenstown, embarking on the SS Sleive Bawn on 14 August, bound for Holyhead. They sailed for France on the SS Minneapolis on 8 September 1914, arriving at St Nazaire at 05.15 hours on 9 September. Caffrey went into action with his battalion on 21 September east of Vailly on the Aisne. He served w
ith the 2nd Bn, York and Lancaster Regt, throughout the war. Shortly after winning the VC Caffrey was promoted to corporal and later, while on leave, he married Florence, daughter of Mr and Mrs Avery, on 24 March 1917 at St Barnabas Church, Cambridge.

  Caffrey was discharged from the Army in 1919 with the rank of sergeant. In addition to his VC he held the 1914 Mons Star with clasp (5 August– 22 November 1914), the War Medal, the Victory Medal, and the Russian Order of St George 4th class. He also received the King George VI Coronation Medal, 1937 and held two medals for the cross-country championships of the Irish Army, and one medal for the Aldershot cross-country championship. He was present at the garden party for VC winners given by the King at Buckingham Palace on 26 June 1920.

  Following his discharge Caffrey became a member of the Sunderland fire brigade, afterwards working with Messrs Cammell Laird at the ‘Metropolitan Carriage and Wagon Company’s Works’ until 1931. On Armistice Day, 11 November 1929, Caffrey was photographed selling poppies in London.

  On 26 June 1931 Caffrey found himself ‘on the dole’ owing to the closure of Cammell Laird’s works. He spent the next three months seeking work but found that not even his VC could help; he was reported in a newspaper dated 19 October 1931: ‘What do they say when you tell them you are a VC?’ ‘Very sorry.’ Caffrey told the interviewer that he found the trauma of trying to find work ‘a heart-breaking job’. During the interview the reporter found that Caffrey was drawing 15s 3d each week. Of that sum 15s went on rent and other ‘pressing items’, leaving Caffrey with a mere 3d. Beyond this sum his wife earned 10s a week at office cleaning and he drew £2 10s a quarter as a VC. This penury seemed a world away from the reception he and other Victoria Cross holders had received at the British Legion Dinner at the House of Lords on 9 November 1929.

  The local newspaper drew Caffrey’s plight to the attention of Mr Norman Birkett KC, the Liberal candidate for East Nottingham. Outraged that such a situation should befall one of Nottingham’s ‘bravest war heroes’ he immediately engaged Caffrey as one of his staff for the duration of the election, promising to use all means to find him more permanent employment later. The result of all this was that the reporter could write on 27 November 1931 that John Caffrey would be given ‘a responsible post at Shakespeare Street under the Public Assistance Administration’.

  In 1933 ‘Mr Jack Caffrey VC was the marker’ for the November parade of The Nottingham Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association on Armistice Day. A year later he was one of five VCs attending the ceremony at the Cenotaph on Armistice Day. According to newspaper reports the men – Messrs O’Leary, Caffrey, Moffitt, O’Neill and Wilkinson – found the battery of cameras nerve-wracking. Sgt John Caffrey VC attended the funeral of an old friend, RSM Frank Parr MC, DCM, who was buried with full military honours, at Wilford Hill Cemetery, Nottingham, on 2 April 1936. In November that year he was selling poppies for Armistice Day, being photographed in Nottingham with the local Mayor, who bought a poppy from him. He had been one of two representatives of his regiment, the 2nd York and Lancasters, invited to witness the royal procession from a first-class position in The Mall, London, which Caffrey stated ‘was a wonderful sight and I shall never forget it’. This was the second coronation procession he had seen. He had been among the soldiers who had lined the route of George V’s coronation procession in 1911.

  Soon after the outbreak of the Second World War Caffrey rejoined the Army, enlisting in Nottingham. He was appointed CSM in the Home Guard in November 1939. After the war he attended the Victory Parade on 8 June 1946 and the dinner at the Dorchester Hotel that followed.

  After the war John Caffrey became a ‘sergeant’ at one of Butlin’s holiday camps. On 28 September 1952 he was on parade with five other VCs at the annual rally of the Distinguished Conduct Medal League held at Horse Guards Parade, London.

  John Caffrey died on 26 February 1953, aged 62 years, at Derby. A bearer party from the regimental depot was present at his funeral service which was held at St Patrick’s Church, London Road, Nottingham. He was buried in Wilford Hill Cemetery, and his VC is held by the regimental museum, the York and Lancaster Regt, in Rotherham.

  On 23 May 2007, after fund-raising by two local men, Sean Westerby and Ron Booth, a new headstone was unveiled in Wilford Hill Cemetery, Nottingham, the previous headstone recognised Caffrey’s parents but did not display his name. John Caffrey’s name also appears on the Memorial to Nottingham’s VCs at Nottingham Castle.

  S. MEEKOSHA

  Near the Yser, France, 19 November

  From 1 October two of the four battalions forming the 146th Bde, 49th Div., were from the West Yorkshire Regt. They were the 1/6th and 1/8th West Yorks and had been in the line north and north-west of Ypres between Norteldje Estaminet and Wyatts Lane. After the Battle of Loos and subsequent actions at the Hohenzollern Redoubt the general situation was one of preparation for the next assault. During this period of relative inactivity No. 1147 Cpl Samuel Meekosha was to win the West Yorkshire Regt its first Victoria Cross.

  Cpl. Meekosha was with a platoon of about twenty NCOs and men of the 1/6th West Yorks, holding an isolated section of trench at ‘the Pump Room’, about 2 miles north-north-east of Ypres (see map on page 264). The trench was held for forty-eight hours at a time. All movement had to be carried out in the hours of darkness owing to the fact that the positions were visible from the German line. On the 1/6th’s second day the Germans laid down a bombardment with heavy artillery. The War Diary notes that 6 men were killed and 7 wounded, and that all were more or less buried by the debris. Cpl Meekosha immediately took command as the only uninjured NCO. He first sent ‘three of the fellows who were only recruits back to headquarters’ to apprise them of the situation. The few remaining men helped dig the buried and wounded men out. As Meekosha told a reporter in 1929: ‘We had to dig in full view of the German trenches, and they machine-gunned us from about 2 o’clock to 4.30.’ The citation also notes that ‘no less than ten more big shells [fell] within twenty yards of him’ during his efforts to dig the wounded and dead out. Three privates, Johnson, Sayers and Wilkinson, who remained and helped Cpl Meekosha, were each rewarded with the DCM. Meekosha is reported as having said that they got ‘four of the chaps out’; the citation for his VC is more generous in stating he had saved ‘at least four lives’. He had certainly shown scant regard for his personal safety during the rescue of his fellow platoon members. The battalion was relieved by 1/5th West Yorkshire Regt that night and went into Divisional Reserve near Poperinghe.

  Samuel Meekosha was born on 16 September 1893 at 3 High Street, Leeds, Yorkshire. His mother, Mary (née Cunningham) was of Irish descent and had married Alexander Meekosha in Leeds, late in 1892. Alexander was a Russian-Polish immigrant from Warsaw and a tailor by trade. It seems the family moved to Bradford in about 1895 as Samuel’s brother Martin was born there in the latter part of that year. When the 1911 Census was taken his surviving siblings; Martin, Joseph, Mary and Eleanor (his sister Elizabeth and brother Bernard both died very young in 1897 and 1907 respectively) were at home with their mother at 7 Bramby Street, Bradford.

  Mrs Meekosha is not recorded in the Electoral Register for the period 1914–15, nor in the Bradford Directory for 1916. However, there are records stating that his brother Joseph became a private in the 2nd Bradford Pals and his brother Martin was preparing for the Catholic priesthood in Belgium.

  La Brique area

  Samuel went to St Joseph’s Roman Catholic School in Bradford, the family residing at this time at 91 Tennant Street, West Bowling, Bradford. He also attended Bradford Technical College. Before enlisting in the Army Samuel Meekosha was an office worker for a Bradford manufacturing company. On 20 February 1911 he enlisted in the 1/6th West Yorkshire Territorial Regt. No. 1147 Pte Samuel Meekosha was mobilized on 5 August 1914. At this time the 1/6th, together with the 1/5th, 1/7th and 1/8th battalions of the West Yorks Regt formed the 1st West Riding Bde of the 1st West Riding (Territorial) Div. On 10 August 1914 the brigade was
concentrated at Strensall and York, followed by duty on the Lincolnshire coast until 9 April 1915 when it was moved to Gainsborough where the men were prepared for service overseas.

  Samuel Meekosha served with the 1/6th West Yorks in France and Belgium throughout the war. He arrived in France on 15 April 1915, his first twenty-four hours in trenches being spent on 27 April, 1 mile east of Laventie; the 1st Bn enjoyed the dubious distinction of being the first of the 1st West Riding Bde to assume sole responsibility for a section of the line. Meekosha was promoted to the rank of corporal on 13 February 1915. It seems that he re-signed on 15 December 1915.

  Meekosha’s VC was gazetted on 22 January 1916 and he was decorated by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 4 March 1916. During 1916 Samuel Meekosha married Bertha Elizabeth Charlotte, the youngest daughter of Mr and Mrs G.F. Duval of Bradford, who was later to bear him three children; the eldest son, Felix, was born in 1919, and the younger son Sidney and daughter Mary followed.

  Returning to his regiment Meekosha took part in the Battle of the Somme. Later, on 26 June 1917, he was commissioned second lieutenant and served again in France and Belgium from 15 August 1917 to 19 December 1917. He was promoted to lieutenant on 27 December 1918 and to captain on 15 May 1919. He remained in the Army, transferring to the Corps of Military Accountants on 19 November 1919. He was ranked captain and account officer 6th class on 31 January 1920. A few months later he attended the garden party given for VC recipients at Buckingham Palace on 20 June 1920. He eventually retired from the Army on 17 March 1926.