VCs of the First World War 1914

by Gerald Gliddon

  Horlock had been treated like royalty for a few days and went back to his unit the next day. The whole welcome home period had been a very light-hearted affair but once again a winner of the nation’s highest military honour had been used for propaganda purposes.

  Horlock served with 113 Battery until February 1916 when he was promoted and posted to D Battery, 119th Brigade RFA where he was not happy. He thought the battery ‘an unruly mob’ and was keen to get back to his old battery even if it meant losing his rank. In September 1916, Sgt. Maj. Horlock was sent to Salonika with 301 Brigade SAA Column 60th (London) Division and in July was posted to the Base Depot in Egypt. By this stage of the war, one of his brothers who had been serving with the Dorset Regiment had died at Kut in the Middle East.

  On 13 October 1917 Horlock was married in the town of Littlehampton, Sussex, and his bride was Miss Ethel May Hasted of Climping who was described as ‘winsome’ by a local reporter. Houses and streets were decorated and in the Congregational church the pulpit was covered with a huge Union Jack; there were also flags hanging from the church galleries. A large party of wounded soldiers, dressed in their hospital blues, was present. When the couple emerged from the church the wounded soldiers formed an archway with their crutches. The reception took place at No. 60 High Street, and the couple left for East Meon for the start of their honeymoon.

  Horlock returned to Egypt at the end of November travelling by land to Marseilles where he boarded RMS Aragon. On 30 December within 10 miles of Alexandria the ship was hit by two torpedoes and after thirty minutes she capsized and sank. A large number of people were saved by local minesweeping trawlers and torpedo boat destroyers although a destroyer was also torpedoed. Horlock was one of the 610 casualties out of a total number of 2,500 people on board. His body was retrieved though and buried at the British Military Cemetery at Hadra, close to Alexandria. His grave reference is F.171.

  Ernest George Horlock (usually known as George) was born at Beech Farm, Alton, Hampshire, on 24 October 1885, although a census form suggests he was born in 1886. He was the son of John and Emily Horlock, one of five brothers and sisters. He attended Hartley School near Alton. After his schooling ended he became a groom. The family later moved to Langrish and lived in Laundry Cottage. His father worked on the Talbot-Ponsonby Estate and his mother was laundress to the family. He enlisted on 22 February 1904 using the name of Harlock and this was the spelling that the army used; it is assumed that he tried to join up under the name of Horlock but was rejected. His service records were destroyed in the Second World War but it is assumed that he probably joined 113 Battery as early as 1907; the Battery had been formed in 1900 in Colchester. He was made up to Bombardier by 1914 and prior to the Battle of the Aisne the battery had been involved in the retreat towards the River Seine. In September, after he had won the VC, he was made up to sergeant.

  In 1920 Mrs Horlock attended the unveiling and dedication of the Royal Artillery Victoria Cross Memorial at the garrison church of St George’s, Woolwich. Unfortunately Horlock’s name had been left off the memorial but this error was soon rectified and apologies made to Mrs Horlock. The church was hit by a V1 in 1944 but fortunately the memorial was saved.

  In 1967 attempts were made to find out more about the life of Ernest Horlock and Mrs Horlock was traced by the Royal Artillery. She presented many of her husband’s possessions to the 10th (Assaye) Battery and three of her husband’s medals, including the mention in despatches on 8 October 1914. This handing over took place at the Napier Barracks, Dortmund. Mrs Horlock flew there for the ceremony; at the age of eighty it was to be her first flight. She was accompanied by her seventy-six-year-old sister. The 10th (Assaye) Battery was formerly the 113th Battery.

  A great deal of this short biography would not have been possible without painstaking detective work by Maj. A.S. Hill whose findings were published in The Gunner in January 1969.

  In 1974 Mrs Horlock of Hillsboro Road, Bognor Regis, gave her husband’s VC to the Royal Regiment at a special ceremony. At the luncheon she said, ‘I have been told that the Victoria Cross alone would be worth over £2,000 to collectors, but I am not interested in money. My husband was a regular, and very proud of his regiment.’

  In 1982 the wording on Horlock’s grave was changed. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission had printed his name as Harlock. Horlock is also commemorated at Langrish church in Hampshire with two memorials including a Roll of Honour and a memorial tablet unveiled on 24 May 2001. Members of his family and of 10 Assaye Battery (successors of 113th Battery) also attended the dedication service. His name is also included on the Littlehampton War Memorial in Sussex as well as that of his brother John. The family once had a home at 5 Fitzalan Road in the town.

  H.S. RANKEN

  Hautvesnes, France, 19/20 September

  After Bombardier Horlock had earned his Victoria Cross on 15 September the next to gain the coveted award was Capt. H.S. Ranken of the RAMC. Unfortunately there is conflicting evidence about his activities in September 1914. He was attached to 1st King’s Royal Rifle Corps and was also awarded the medal of the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (France) for gallant conduct during the operations of the retreat from Mons in the last part of August.

  On 10 September Ranken was at a place called Hautvesnes which is a few miles to the south-east of Villers Cotterêts. The official Victoria Cross citation says that he was here on 19 and 20 September tending the wounded in the trenches under rifle and shrapnel fire. Ranken was certainly here according to the battalion War Diary. He tended the wounded at Hautvesnes but ten days earlier than the VC citation records. The simplest explanation is that there was a clerical error at some point which changed 9/10 September to 19/20 September. An alternative suggestion is that the citation should have read ‘close to Soupir’ on the Aisne and not Hautvesnes.

  The action at Hautvesnes came at the end of the Battle of the Marne which began on the 6th and ended four days later. The Allied retreat ended on 5 September and the enemy was driven back to the Aisne heights where the Germans made a stand. The 2nd Division History tells the story of the action on 10 September in the following way:

  The 1st Royal Berks. (6th Brig. 2nd Div.) were ordered to make good the northern exits of Hautvesnes, whilst the 50th Battery came into action immediately south-west of the village. The time was about 9.30 a.m. A second column of German infantry was then discovered moving northwards along the Vinly road, evidently acting as rearguard. The guns immediately opened fire at 1,500 yards, and the 1st KRRC at the head of the main guard deployed to attack. The enemy lined the side of the road, which at this point ran through a cutting forming a natural trench. C Company was ordered to attack, starting with their left on the right of 50th Battery, and advanced across an open stubble field to a position about 400 yards in front, on the slope of a hill. B Company was deployed on the left of C Company, and D Company kept in reserve in a sunken lane until another battalion was deployed on our right. As soon as our guns opened fire, the enemy brought four guns into action from high ground just north of Brumetz.

  Casualties in the KRRC were four officers wounded, ten other ranks killed and sixty other ranks wounded, whom Ranken tended.

  The KRRC War Diary (WO 95/1358, NA) for 12 September shows that the battalion had got as far as the village of Braine close to the River Aisne where they halted for an hour in order to obtain supplies and to bury the dead the Germans had left behind after earlier fighting.

  On the 14th the battalion left their billets at 03.30 hours and marched via Pont D’Arcy, crossing the Aisne by pontoon bridge near Verneuil. The battalion was then split up with C and B Companies being sent to the right to get in touch with 5th Brigade. A and D Companies were sent to the left of La Bouvette Wood in order to make contact with the 4th Guards Brigade; they thus became flanking units. La Bouvette Wood was to the east of a farm called La Cour de Soupir to the north of the village of Soupir. A and D Companies of the KRRC suffered casualties from German snipers and subsequently re-for
med halfway down La Bouvette Wood. They were on the right and their former colleagues, the 1st Irish Guards, were on their left. They advanced through the wood driving the enemy out on the far side. However, they became so far ahead that they were shelled by the British artillery. A little later the Irish Guards retired halfway down the wood and the Rifles followed them, leaving behind them frontal posts. The KRRC spent the next four days very exposed at the edge of La Bouvette Wood, receiving support from 1st Royal Berks. and 2nd O and BLI (of the 2nd Division). Early in the afternoon of the 19th the enemy began to shell the whole line much more vigorously and began a regular attack bringing up infantry and machine guns. Lt. Alston was wounded and while tending him Capt. Ranken had his leg shattered by a shell from the British artillery. Another officer was also hit by a ‘friendly’ shell but he escaped with only a bruise. The enemy attack petered out at nightfall and in the small hours of the 20th A and D Companies of the Rifles were relieved and went down to Soupir and on to Verneuil. Their casualties in the previous week had been 27 killed, 141 wounded, and 18 missing.

  Capt. Ranken, by all accounts, had done marvellous work in tending the wounded in exposed positions. In newspaper accounts he was said to have had to cross a ravine in order to reach the wounded and in time was mortally wounded by a shell from a Jack Johnson which shattered his leg. As he was tending the wounded he bound up his own wounds and arrested the bleeding but refused to leave the trenches; he went on with his work until he was too weak to continue. He was later taken away by stretcher-bearers to a dressing station at Braine where he died of his wounds on 25 September at No.5 Clearance Hospital, Braine. In his will he left £1,400 gross.

  There is an anonymous account of an operation carried out on Ranken which was quoted in the Press in 1914: ‘Only last night I amputated poor Ranken’s leg above the knee-joint, a terrible shell wound it was, but he will probably get a VC for his behaviour. Although the leg was only hanging on by a very little, he continued to dress the wounded in the firing line.’

  A little-known diary kept in the National Archives (WO 95/1407, NA) throws further light on Ranken’s final hours. It was written by Lt. H. Robinson RAMC serving at the time with No. 8 Field Ambulance. The date was around 23 September:

  It was one of those days at Braine that I came across Captain Ranken RAMC. When I saw him he was lying on a stretcher at Braine Station platform, he was smoking a cigarette and talking with animation. He had recently had his leg amputated somewhere above the knee and said he was in no pain and was quite comfortable and well. We were all horribly shocked to hear a day or two later that he had died suddenly of an embolism but he had already received the award of the VC for his work at the time when he had received his injuries.

  Ranken was buried in the Braine Roman Catholic Communal Cemetery in grave A 43. He is in a group of four officers and he was one of many doctors who were to give their lives in the Aisne fighting. His VC was gazetted posthumously on 16 November and was presented to his father on 29 November.

  Harry Sherwood Ranken was born in Glasgow on 3 September 1883. He was the eldest son of the Revd Henry Ranken, who was the minister of the parish church at Irvine, Ayrshire, and Helen, daughter of Mathew Morton, who lived at The Manse. Harry Ranken went to school at the Irvine Royal Academy and later attended Glasgow University where he graduated as Bachelor of Medicine (MB ChB) ‘with commendation’ in 1905. He was appointed House Physician and House Surgeon to the Western Infirmary, Glasgow. Later on he became the assistant medical officer to the Brook Fever Hospital in London. He entered the RAMC on 30 January 1909, gaining top place in the entrance examination. He was particularly interested in tropical medicine and won the Tulloch Prize in Military Medicine. His real inclination was towards research. He became a member of the Royal College of Physicians and passed his examination for Captaincy in 1911 and took that rank on 30 July 1912. He joined the regular army when commissioned in 1909 and served with the Egyptian Army in Sudan, carrying out research into sleeping sickness. He made a study of his patients while researching at the same time. He also wrote several scientific papers based on his researches. He was a great favourite of all who knew him. He was a big-game hunter, a scratch golfer and a member of the Automobile Club.

  Ranken returned home in July 1914 and immediately volunteered for active service with the British Army in August 1914. He went to the front in France with the 1st KRRC as part of the BEF. Within a month he was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honour by the French for his gallant behaviour during the retreat from Mons. He was also awarded the Croix de Chevalier. Just a few weeks after he had left for France he was mourned not only as a hero and saver of life but also as a friend and scientist.

  Ranken was the very first war casualty to be reported in the Kilmarnock Standard on 3 October 1914. Like Ross Tollerton (see earlier chapter) he had a road named after him in the town. It is called Ranken Drive. It was a considerable coincidence that two men from the same Scottish town should win the VC within two weeks of each other. Today Ranken Drive, like Tollerton Drive, has houses with well-tended gardens but some houses are derelict and boarded up.

  His home address was the Manse in Irvine, and after his death his name was commemorated on the local war memorial, on the family headstone in Irvine Cemetery, with a memorial in Irvine Old Parish church and finally with a prize named after him at the University of Glasgow. His medals are held by the RAMC.

  F.W. DOBSON

  Chavonne, Aisne, France, 28 September

  The 2nd Coldstream Guards was one of four battalions in the 4th (Guards) Brigade that in turn was part of the British 2nd Division. It had been involved in the rearguard action at Villers Cotterêts on 1 September 1914 and a week later at Le Petit Morin after the German Army had been turned back on the River Marne to the north of Paris. On the 13th the Guards were at Chavonne with the aim of crossing the River Aisne. They crossed by way of a trestle bridge and advanced towards the northern heights. Unfortunately they subsequently came under very heavy artillery fire and had to return to the south bank of the river. During the next two weeks the Guards were heavily involved in the attempt to win command of the heights of the Chemin des Dames. They had a particularly hard time fighting for the farm called La Cour de Soupir, to the north of Soupir and close to the ridges which the enemy tenaciously hung on to, and both sides suffered heavy casualties.

  The main Battle of Aisne took place in the middle of September and by the end of the month the whole operation was petering out. In early October the BEF moved northwards for what was to be known as the first Battle of Ypres, as the line extended towards the sea.

  The seventh Victoria Cross award of the Battle of the Aisne was gained for saving life by No. 6840 Pte. F.W. Dobson. At the front or eastern part of the sector allocated to the 2nd CG the ground was very exposed and sloped gradually upwards towards the enemy. The range or field of fire varied from 50 to several hundred yards and there were three dense woods, which at one point came as close as 20 yards from the British trenches, opposite Tunnel Post, near La Cour de Soupir Farm, not far from the village of Soupir.

  Monday, 28 September, began with a thick mist, and a patrol of three men from Capt. Follett’s company was sent out towards the German lines. The mist suddenly lifted and the three men became an easy target. One of them got back to his lines with only a scratch, and Pte. Dobson immediately volunteered to go out across the exposed battlefield by crawling over the ground, under heavy fire to see if he could help the remaining two men. When he reached them he found Pte. Haldenby dead and Pte. S. Butler wounded in three places. He rendered first aid with First Field Dressing and then returned for a stretcher and assistance, crawling back the entire way. This time Dobson was accompanied by Cpl. A. Brown and using a stretcher they brought the wounded Private back to safety. Fortunately the mist had partially returned giving them some protection. These two men from the patrol were the only casualties of 2nd Division that day. Dobson was recommended for the VC and Brown the Distinguished Conduct Meda
l (DCM). However, in WO File WO 32/4993 there is a note from Sir Douglas Haig dated 30 September: ‘I am not in favour of this coveted award being created for bringing in wounded officers or men in European warfare.’

  Haig, therefore, recommended the DCM instead. He was, however, overruled by the King. Dobson’s award was gazetted on 9 December, and he was decorated by the King at Buckingham Palace on 3 February 1915.

  Frederick William Dobson was the son of Thomas and Elizabeth Dobson and was born at Nafferton Farm, Ovingham, near Newcastle-on-Tyne on 9 November 1886. The farm is just off the eastbound carriageway of the A69, west of Horsley between Newcastle and Hexham. It is now managed by Newcastle University.

  Dobson joined the army at the age of nineteen on 7 July 1906, and was discharged on expiration of his service on 7 July 1909. He was mobilised on 6 August 1914 and posted to the 2nd Battalion on the 14th of that month. He went with them to France as part of the BEF. After he gained his VC he was promoted to lance-corporal on 28 November but on 1 July 1917 he was discharged as ‘No longer physically fit for War Service’. He had sustained several injuries in the war and was to spend many months in hospital. He suffered constant pain for the rest of his life for he had been permanently maimed by shrapnel.