"For most conspicuous bravery. On the night of July 1st-2nd, 1915, in the southern zone of the Gallipoli Peninsula, where, owing to hostile bombing, some of our troops had retired from a sap, Sergeant Somers remained alone on the spot until a party brought up bombs. He then climbed over into the Turkish trench, and bombed the Turks with great effect. Later he advanced into the open, under heavy fire, and held back the enemy by throwing bombs into their flank until a barricade had been established. During this period he frequently ran to and from our trenches to obtain freshsupplies of bombs. By his gallantry and coolness Sergeant Somers was largely instrumental in effecting the recapture of portion of our trench which had been lost."
"For most conspicuous bravery. On the night of July 1st-2nd, 1915, in the southern zone of the Gallipoli Peninsula, where, owing to hostile bombing, some of our troops had retired from a sap, Sergeant Somers remained alone on the spot until a party brought up bombs. He then climbed over into the Turkish trench, and bombed the Turks with great effect. Later he advanced into the open, under heavy fire, and held back the enemy by throwing bombs into their flank until a barricade had been established. During this period he frequently ran to and from our trenches to obtain freshsupplies of bombs. By his gallantry and coolness Sergeant Somers was largely instrumental in effecting the recapture of portion of our trench which had been lost."
Recounting his experiences, Sergeant Somers said that the Turks advanced to the trenches and compelled the Gurkhas and the Inniskillings to retire. He alone stopped in the trench, refusing to leave. He shot many Turks with his revolver, killed about fifty with bombs, and forced them to retire. The enemy, however, rushed into a sap trench, and he commenced to bombard them out of it, but twice he failed. Just before dawn he stole away for the purpose of getting men up to the trench to occupy it. Some of the officers said it was impossible to put the Turks out; but Somers returned to the position, taking with him a supply of grenades, under rifle and Maxim-gun fire, and eventually succeeded in bombing the Turks out of the sap trench. He had one narrow escape on the morning of July 2nd—a splinter struck him across the spine, but he rained in the bombs until he fell from loss of blood and fatigue in the afternoon. By that time, however, the trench had been recaptured. The Turks retreated crying, "Allah! Allah!" and "We gave them La La," said Somers with great glee. Somers tells all about it with great enthusiasm, and constantly recurring in his stories is the phrase, "I did my duty," or "General Sir Ian Hamilton told me when he made me King's Sergeant on the field that I did my duty"; and again, "I want to get back to duty." That was the main idea in this young Irishman's mind.
"For helping to bring the guns into action under heavy fire at Nery, near Compiègne, on September 1st, 1914, and, while severely wounded, remaining with them until all ammunition was exhausted, although he had been ordered to retire to cover."
"For helping to bring the guns into action under heavy fire at Nery, near Compiègne, on September 1st, 1914, and, while severely wounded, remaining with them until all ammunition was exhausted, although he had been ordered to retire to cover."
This is the brief and cold official account of the thrilling deed for which the Victoria Cross was given to Sergeant David Nelson, L Battery, Royal Horse Artillery, a native of Derraghlands, Stranooden, county Monaghan. In all retreats the artillery is seriously handicapped, and it was so with the British artillery in the retreat from Mons. Still, they made many a gallant fight. One which stands out most conspicuously is that of L Battery, which fought for hours with one gun, and although outnumbered eight to one, succeeded in silencing the German artillery.
The battery of six guns had camped for the night by a farmhouse. At dawn, as they were watering their horses before continuing the retirement, they were shelled by a German battery of eight guns posted on a height overlooking the farm, not 700 yards away. This hill had been evacuated during the night by French cavalry without having given notice to the British. So fierce and destructive was the fire of the Germans that four guns of the L Battery were disabled, and many of the men and officers were stricken down within a few minutes. The survivors rushed to the two other guns and brought them into action. The fifth gun was quickly silenced by the killing of its entire detachment. It was the sixth gun, served by Nelson and three other men—Sergeant-Major Dornell, Gunner Derbyshire, and Driver Osborne—that, despite all the painful and distracting incidents happening in the farmyard, was worked with such speed and cool and deadly accuracy that the Germans were compelled to depart. The British gun was crippled and almost completely shattered, but it was saved. All the heroic gunners were badly wounded, and all were decorated. Nelson had one of his ribs so crushed in that it pressed upon his right lung. On his recovery he was promoted to a second lieutenancy.
The official record of the services of the 1st Canadian Division in Flanders shows that the late Company Sergeant-Major William Hall, 8th Canadian Infantry, who won the Victoria Cross near Ypres, was a native of Belfast. Hall was awarded the coveted distinction in the following circumstances: "On April 24th, 1915, in the neighbourhood of Ypres, when a wounded man who was lying some fifteen yards from the trench called for help, Company Sergeant-Major Hall endeavoured to reach him in the face of a very heavy enfilade fire which was being poured in by the enemy. The first attempt failed, and a non-commissioned officer and a private soldier who were attempting to give assistance were both wounded. Company Sergeant-Major Hall then made a second most gallant attempt, and was in the act of lifting up the wounded man to bring him in when he fell mortally wounded in the head." Sir Max Aitken, M.P., who has written the official record, states that Hall was originally from Belfast, but his Canadian home was in Winnipeg. He joined the 8th Battalion at Valcartier, Quebec, in August, 1914, as a private.
Finally we come to the epic of Michael O'Leary, of the Irish Guards, which remains the finest and most amazing feat of the war. I remember well that afternoon of Friday, February 19th, 1915, when the announcement of the award of the Victoria Cross to O'Leary was given to the public. It was sent out in the afternoon, so that it first appeared in the evening newspapers. The record was one of a dozen, each of which told a tale of thrilling adventure. Yet all the London evening papers with one accord seized upon the exploit of O'Leary's capture, single-handed, of two enemy barricades—thus saving his comrades from being mowed down by a machine-gun—and killing eight Germans in the process, as the "splash" line for their contents bills. "HowMichael O'Leary Won the V.C." "How Michael O'Leary, V.C., Kills Eight Germans and Takes Two Barricades." "The Wonderful Story of Michael O'Leary, V.C." Thus the streets of London flashed and resounded with the name of Michael O'Leary—that name which sounds so musically, and so irresistibly suggests the romance and dare-devildom of the Irish race, and under its spell people rushed to read the story of his deed. What appealed to the imagination was the touch of strangeness and fantasy in the exploit. How curious it all is, when one comes to think of it! As one is walking along a London street a name suddenly emerges out of the unknown, and lo! it is fixed in the memory with a halo for ever.
It was in the brickfields at Cuinchy, on February 1st, 1915, that Michael O'Leary won his enduring fame. Taken by surprise, the Coldstream Guards had lost a trench and failed to recapture it. The Irish Guards, who were in reserve, were told to have a try. No. 1 Company, in which O'Leary was Lance-Corporal, formed the storming party. They were only too glad of any excuse to get out of the mud and slush of their trenches. Before the main body advanced across the open ground—a brickfield, with here and there a stack of bricks—O'Leary, who, in fact, was off duty, and need not have joined in the attack at all, slipped away to the left towards a railway cutting. He had set out spontaneously on his own initiative to give the enemy a bit of a surprise. What would be the nature of the surprise, O'Leary himself did not quite know at the moment. It would all depend upon the development of the situation and the actual circumstances when the time came for him to decide. But for days before as he lay in the trenches he had brought his powers of observation into play, and having grasped all the essential details of thegeographical situation and the military position, he reasoned out a plan with himself.
According to that plan, the first thing he had to do was to get into the railway cutting on his left. This he did with all speed, and very soon afterwards he re-ascended to the top of the embankment and found himself almost in a direct line with the first German barricade, one of the brick stacks, about twenty or thirty yards square, and about twenty feet high and solid. With five shots he killed as many of the German defenders. Then seeing the headlong and irresistible dash of his comrades across the field he came to the conclusion that the remaining Germans had no chance of escape. So he quickly disappeared down the railway cutting once more, and again came up to the top on the right front of the second German barricade. Here there was a machine-gun. In fact the officer in command had just slewed round the gun on the Irish Guards still busy at the first barricade, and had his finger on the button to let go the hail of lead upon them when he was dropped by a bullet from O'Leary's rifle. Michael also shot two other Germans, and the remaining five surrendered by putting up their hands to the deadly, unerring marksman on the embankment.
Thus it happened that when the No. 1 Company of the Irish Guards got to the second barricade without a single casualty, instead of, as they had expected, serious loss of life, their surprise was turned into amazement on seeing O'Leary there before them in sole and complete possession of the place, with a German machine-gun and five prisoners as spoil. "How the divil did you get here, Mike!" Such was the exclamation of O'Leary's intimate comrades. Mike only realised that he had done something of importance and value, as well as of splendid gallantry, when officers and men crowded round him to shake hishand. The commanding officer, Major the Hon. J.F. Trefusis, promoted him full sergeant on the field.
There must always be an element of chance or luck in such an abnormal achievement. But it is the man that is the thing. All the good fortune in the world would be without avail if the man were not of an exceptional type, possessed of perfect courage, marvellous self-confidence, and supreme resolution. Not less wonderful than what O'Leary did was the deliberate and efficient way in which he accomplished it. He knew that death might come at any moment. But he put the fear immediately aside lest it might in the least unnerve him in the pursuit of his purpose. Everything showed that he was in full possession of all his faculties.
What the United Kingdom thought of the deed was expressed by London in the tumultuous welcome which it gave to Sergeant Michael O'Leary, when, in his war-stained uniform, he drove through the streets with Mr. T.P. O'Connor, to speak in Hyde Park on Saturday afternoon, July 10th, 1915. There was terrific crushing and rushing on the part of hundreds of thousands of people eager to catch a glimpse of the hero—a slim youth of twenty-five, in khaki, with fair hair, and a pleasant smile lighting up his blue eyes and freckled face. No wonder, indeed. As Conan Doyle, the novelist, remarked: "No writer of fiction would dare to fasten such an achievement on any of his characters." And only a few years before Michael was helping to mind his father's stock on a little farm at Inchigeela, County Cork. So they made him an officer, Lieutenant O'Leary, of one of the Tyneside Irish battalions of the Northumberland Fusiliers. And rightly so, for he proved himself to be possessed of all the qualities of a leader—observation and reasoning, quick to receive impressions, and quick to act upon them—resource, daring, and yetdiscretion, coolness and self-mastery in an enterprise of difficulty and danger. The two most damnable drawbacks on the field of battle are unpreparedness and slowness in officers, and stolidness and lack of initiative in men.
Well, Michael himself was never able fully to appreciate the gallantry of his action. What could be more modest than his letter to his father and mother on the subject:—
"Dear Parents—I know you will be glad to hear that I am awarded the Victoria Cross for conspicuous gallantry in the field. Hoping all are well, as I myself am in the best of health. From your fond son.—Michael."
There is the same simplicity, with a touch of humour, in the remark he made when being seen off at Victoria Station after all his glorification in London:—"It's glad I am to be going back to the trenches for a bit of a rest." And the only man in the whole wide world to show any desire to disparage Michael's exploit was Michael's father himself. The old man was asked if he was surprised at his son's bravery. "Surprised, is it!" he exclaimed. "What I am surprised at is that he didn't do more. Sure often myself I laid out ten Irishmen with a stick coming from Macroom Fair when I was a gossoon like Mick—Irishmen, mind you, an' stout hearty lads at that same. An' it was rather a bad fist Mick made of it that he could kill only eight Germans, and he having a rifle and bayonet." How is that for the old Irish spirit?
Mr. John E. Redmond, M.P., and Mr. R. Barry O'Brien have issued an address in behalf of the Irish Nuns of Ypres, some extracts from which we publish below.
Mr. John E. Redmond, M.P., and Mr. R. Barry O'Brien have issued an address in behalf of the Irish Nuns of Ypres, some extracts from which we publish below.
The story of the Irish Nuns of Ypres is bound up with the story of Ireland. They represent not only a religious Order, but the national ideal as well. They stand for Faith and Fatherland. More than two hundred years ago an Irish Benedictine Community of Nuns was established in Big Ship Street, Dublin. Then came the war of the "Revolution" and the renewal of the international struggle between England and Ireland....The Dutchman whom the English made King offered security to the Irish Benedictine Nuns, should they elect to remain in their own land; but, as if visions of the future passed before them, they trusted him not. They sought an asylum beyond the seas, where, amid the vicissitudes of fortune, they ever turned their thoughts to Ireland, and in the days of her agony ceased not to pray for her redemption.They took up their abode in Belgium; they made Ypres their home; and their convent, in its turn, became the refuge of many Irish exiles driven by injustice and oppression from the land of their birth. Wars swept over Europe. Belgium was desolated, even as she has been desolated to-day. Irish soldiers, too, played their part in those wars as they play their part in the struggle which is now convulsing the world—the part of valour and renown.Fifteen years after the Irish nuns had settled in Ypres a great battle was fought at the other extremity of Belgium, on the famous field of Ramillies. In that fateful fight the Irish Brigade, in the service of France, held the village of Ramillies. The fight surged and raged around it, but the Irish kept their ground. Two of the flags which they had taken from the foe were deposited in the Irish Convent at Ypres, and a part of one of these flags was preserved by the faithful Irish nuns down to our own day....Once more war clouds gathered over Europe. Once more Belgium was fated to become the victim of calamities which she did not provoke. The armies of Germany wantonly invaded her territory and cruelly devastated her homes. Ypres was bombarded and destroyed. The Irish Convent, often destined to escape the fury of the storm, now perished in the general ruin. The charred remains of its hospitable walls alone recall the historic memories with which its name shall for ever be associated.Penniless, bereft of everything except the hope and determination to retrieve their fortunes, the nuns fled from Belgium and took refuse in England....In their trouble, anxiety, and distress they sought counsel with Irishmen to aid them in considering the best way of finding a suitable home in the old land. Providentially such a home offered itself in Merton House, Macmine, County Wexford. Recently the Mother Prioress and one of the nuns visited the place, and were pleased with it. Acting on the advice of their friends they resolved to purchase it. We now venture to appeal to Irishmen and Irishwomen in Ireland and abroad to help us in collecting the necessary funds. We make this appeal with confidence.The nuns have told the story of their flight from Belgium in the book,The Irish Nuns at Ypres, published by Messrs. Smith, Elder, of London. The tale is an epic which will live in the history of those fearful times to the honour of the religious Order and the glory of womanhood. Fidelity to religious and national ideals has been their badge of distinction in every eventuality. They shall have their reward. The heroism, the self-devotion, the religious faith, the Christian zeal and charity of those Irish nuns in a terrible crisis in the history of the Order will, we venture to say, command universal respect and admiration, mingled with pity for their fate, and an earnest desire, among all generous souls, to help them in retrieving their fortunes.J.E. REDMOND, M.P.R. BARRY O'BRIEN.Subscriptions to "The Irish Nuns of Ypres Fund" will be received byJ.E. Redmond, M.P., Aughavanagh, Aughrim, Co. Wicklow;R. Barry O'Brien, 100 Sinclair Road, Kensington, London; the Right Rev.Abbot Marmion, O.S.B., Edermine, Enniscorthy; Mr.M.J. O'Connor, Solicitor Wexford; and theFreeman's Journal, Prince's Street, Dublin.February, 1916.
The story of the Irish Nuns of Ypres is bound up with the story of Ireland. They represent not only a religious Order, but the national ideal as well. They stand for Faith and Fatherland. More than two hundred years ago an Irish Benedictine Community of Nuns was established in Big Ship Street, Dublin. Then came the war of the "Revolution" and the renewal of the international struggle between England and Ireland....
The Dutchman whom the English made King offered security to the Irish Benedictine Nuns, should they elect to remain in their own land; but, as if visions of the future passed before them, they trusted him not. They sought an asylum beyond the seas, where, amid the vicissitudes of fortune, they ever turned their thoughts to Ireland, and in the days of her agony ceased not to pray for her redemption.
They took up their abode in Belgium; they made Ypres their home; and their convent, in its turn, became the refuge of many Irish exiles driven by injustice and oppression from the land of their birth. Wars swept over Europe. Belgium was desolated, even as she has been desolated to-day. Irish soldiers, too, played their part in those wars as they play their part in the struggle which is now convulsing the world—the part of valour and renown.
Fifteen years after the Irish nuns had settled in Ypres a great battle was fought at the other extremity of Belgium, on the famous field of Ramillies. In that fateful fight the Irish Brigade, in the service of France, held the village of Ramillies. The fight surged and raged around it, but the Irish kept their ground. Two of the flags which they had taken from the foe were deposited in the Irish Convent at Ypres, and a part of one of these flags was preserved by the faithful Irish nuns down to our own day....
Once more war clouds gathered over Europe. Once more Belgium was fated to become the victim of calamities which she did not provoke. The armies of Germany wantonly invaded her territory and cruelly devastated her homes. Ypres was bombarded and destroyed. The Irish Convent, often destined to escape the fury of the storm, now perished in the general ruin. The charred remains of its hospitable walls alone recall the historic memories with which its name shall for ever be associated.
Penniless, bereft of everything except the hope and determination to retrieve their fortunes, the nuns fled from Belgium and took refuse in England....
In their trouble, anxiety, and distress they sought counsel with Irishmen to aid them in considering the best way of finding a suitable home in the old land. Providentially such a home offered itself in Merton House, Macmine, County Wexford. Recently the Mother Prioress and one of the nuns visited the place, and were pleased with it. Acting on the advice of their friends they resolved to purchase it. We now venture to appeal to Irishmen and Irishwomen in Ireland and abroad to help us in collecting the necessary funds. We make this appeal with confidence.
The nuns have told the story of their flight from Belgium in the book,The Irish Nuns at Ypres, published by Messrs. Smith, Elder, of London. The tale is an epic which will live in the history of those fearful times to the honour of the religious Order and the glory of womanhood. Fidelity to religious and national ideals has been their badge of distinction in every eventuality. They shall have their reward. The heroism, the self-devotion, the religious faith, the Christian zeal and charity of those Irish nuns in a terrible crisis in the history of the Order will, we venture to say, command universal respect and admiration, mingled with pity for their fate, and an earnest desire, among all generous souls, to help them in retrieving their fortunes.
J.E. REDMOND, M.P.R. BARRY O'BRIEN.
Subscriptions to "The Irish Nuns of Ypres Fund" will be received byJ.E. Redmond, M.P., Aughavanagh, Aughrim, Co. Wicklow;R. Barry O'Brien, 100 Sinclair Road, Kensington, London; the Right Rev.Abbot Marmion, O.S.B., Edermine, Enniscorthy; Mr.M.J. O'Connor, Solicitor Wexford; and theFreeman's Journal, Prince's Street, Dublin.
February, 1916.
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Typographical errors corrected in text: