VCs of the First World War Gallipoli

by Stephen Snelling

  Frank Edward Stubbs was the only member of that gallant band to be killed during the battle for W Beach. A Londoner, he was born in Walworth, near the Kennington Oval, on 12 March 1888.

  He enlisted as a boy soldier in London and served with the Lancashire Fusiliers in India. Sgt. Stubbs has no known grave and is commemorated on the Helles Memorial, one of 20,752 names carved on the tall, honey-coloured obelisk which overlooks the entrance to the Straits.

  Stubbs never married and his mother received his Cross at a Buckingham Palace investiture in May 1917. Many years later, his elderly spinster sister sold the medal to the Regimental Museum at Bury for £300.

  William Kenealy, whose surname appeared in regimental papers as Keneally, was born at 38 Parnell Street, Wexford, in Ireland, on Boxing Day 1886. He was one of five sons born to John Kenealy, a colour sergeant in the Royal Irish Regiment. The family moved to Wigan, Lancashire, at the end of his father’s military service, where he worked as a check-weigher at Bryn Hall colliery. The journey proved an eventful one. The SS Slavonia was wrecked but the Kenealy family, including four-year-old William, were all saved.

  Educated at St John’s School, Wigan, and St Oswald’s School, Ashton-in-Makerfield, William joined the Low Green Collieries as a pit boy, aged thirteen. A prominent member of the local football team, he spent ten years in the mines before deciding to pursue a military career, like his father before him. In September 1909 he enlisted for seven years. All his service was spent with the 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. Returning from India after the outbreak of war, he re-enlisted and spent four days leave at his parents’ home in Stubshaw Cross.

  Like the majority of men in his battalion, the landing at W Beach on 25 April 1915 represented his baptism of fire. Promoted lance corporal, Kenealy survived the three battles of Krithia which decimated his unit. He was mortally wounded in the Battle for Gully Ravine on 28 June, when the battalion was commanded by Maj. Bromley, and died the following day. His grave is located in the Lancashire Landing Cemetery where his rank is given as lance sergeant, although there is no record of this promotion.

  News of his death did not reach his family until October 1915, long after they had celebrated his Victoria Cross award and after plans had been made by the local council to honour him.

  Some ninety-four years later, and almost a century after Kenealy set off to join the army, civic dignitaries joined relatives and representatives of the Lancashire Fusiliers and Royal British Legion to pay belated tribute to the Gallipoli hero who never made it home. On 2 October 2009 a commemorative plaque was unveiled in Stubshaw Cross Heritage Garden in honour of a ‘very brave man and fallen hero’. Addressing the gathering, Ian McCartney MP said: ‘In the short time that he was a soldier William Kenealy experienced the full horror of war. He showed exceptional bravery on several occasions and eventually made the ultimate sacrifice …’.

  Cuthbert Bromley, the adjutant and later temporary commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, was widely recognised as one of the unit’s most outstanding personalities.

  He was born, the second son of John and Marie Louise Bromley (née Bowman) on 19 September 1878. Most references give his birthplace as Sutton Corner, Seaford, in Sussex, though the 1881 Census has him being born at 6 Earls Terrace, Shepherd’s Bush, London. His father was a senior civil servant whose distinguished career included appointments as Principal Clerk in Charge of the Audit of Army Accounts (1901) and Accountant General of the Board of Education (1903–09) and which culminated in him being knighted in 1908.

  Cuthbert entered St Paul’s School, Barnes, in September 1890 and earned a reputation as an enthusiastic athlete and rower. School reports reveal his intended occupation to have been the ‘medical or civil service’. However, his last report, in July 1895, was scarcely that of an outstanding scholar: ‘Science: weak; fair worker. French: very moderate … General Remarks: good in Divinity and English, only moderate in other subjects.’ Not surprisingly, Cuthbert Bromley, one of four brothers to be educated at St Paul’s, decided against a medical or civil service career. Instead he chose the Army, gaining a commission in the Lancashire Fusiliers in May 1898, after serving a spell in a militia unit, the 3rd King’s Liverpool Regiment.

  Promoted lieutenant the same year, he was gazetted captain and volunteered for the West African Frontier Force in 1901. He saw a good deal of active service in Eastern Nigeria and qualified for the Aro Expedition clasp to his African General Service Medal. Bromley returned to the Lancashire Fusiliers, then stationed in India, and served as transport officer, before being appointed superintendent of Gymnasia in Ireland in 1906.

  A man of immense physical strength – on one occasion he performed the notable feat of swimming from Malta to Gozo – he seemed well-suited to his new role, but he chose to rejoin the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers before his appointment expired. The Gymnasia’s loss was evidently the Fusiliers’ gain. According to Regimental records:

  His influence for vigorous endeavour in every form of competition work, sport or play, was extraordinary. Under his energy, skill, tact and powers of management the 1st Battalion became famous throughout India as the champions of Army football, boxing and cross-country running.

  Bromley also made his mark in the social life of the battalion, where he was noted for writing comic verse.

  Barely three months before the outbreak of war in August 1914 he was made adjutant of the battalion which had become his life. And such were his organizational abilities, that he was appointed ship’s adjutant on the SS Arcadian during the 29th Division’s passage to the Dardanelles.

  Injured in the back during the landing at W Beach, Bromley refused to leave the unit until a bullet wound just above his knee, sustained during the first advance on Krithia on 28 April, necessitated hospitalisation. Writing home to his mother on 29 April , he played down his injuries: ‘I’m laid up with a bullet wound, nothing serious at all. Clean through the flesh (thigh) and am as fit as can be. The Regt. suffered rather heavily in the recent fighting. I quite enjoyed myself and hope to be about again very shortly.’

  He returned to the battalion on 17 May, as soon as he was able to hobble, and his quiet, indomitable spirit helped lift the men to meet each new challenge. He remained confident of winning through despite the deadlock. In a letter to his mother written on the eve of the next major assault on Krithia on June 4, he commented: ‘We’re close up to brother Turk now. Only 50 yards away in places. The show has changed from open work to trench warfare but we shall get them out soon …’. In fact, the attack gained little ground and Lancashire Fusiliers again suffered heavy losses. With so many wounded lying out in the open, permission was granted for a party to venture out into no-man’s-land under a Red Cross flag. On the morning of 6 June it was raised above the fusiliers’ trench, but before the stretcher parties could move, shots were fired from a British battery. The Turks immediately replied. However, when the firing ceased, the flag was hoisted aloft again and the shooting stopped. The regimental annual stated:

  Captain Bromley bravely mounted the parapet and stood fully exposed in front of it. This action drew a spatter of bullets from the enemy’s trenches which struck the parapet on either side of him, so he returned into the trenches. At 80 yards the Turks could hardly have missed him, but Bromley of his own initiative took the risk.

  Promoted temporary major, he was given command of the depleted battalion ‘until anyone senior returns’ on 13 June when the CO fell ill. He was still commanding a fortnight later when he prepared for what would be his last action on the peninsula, the Battle of Gully Ravine, on 28 June.

  Before leading his men over the top, Bromley delivered a stirring speech which appears to have galvanised them as they staged one of the most successful attacks of the entire campaign. Wounded early on in the foot, he insisted on carrying on. Struggling forward with a couple of Turkish rifles as makeshift crutches, he eventually ordered two stretcher bearers to carry him. Only after ensuring the captured position was consolidated the
following morning did he go back for treatment. The wound proved serious enough for him to be evacuated to the Anglo-American Hospital in Cairo from where he wrote his mother: ‘Here I am safe and comparatively sound. I got a shrapnel bullet in the ankle. It went nearly through and they cut it out. It’s not done much damage … It might be a 3 week job or possibly 6 or 7 but I think the former as I heal so quickly …’.

  In fact, it took nearer six weeks. By 23 July, he was up and about, convalescing on Cyprus, where he reported his foot was ‘improving daily’. Passed fit by a medical board on 9 August, he wasted no time in wangling a return trip to Gallipoli aboard the next available troopship, the converted liner SS Royal Edward, on which he sailed as senior military officer. Two days before leaving Egypt, he wrote his mother: ‘I am very fit and my foot is absolutely cured. I’m very lucky to get off so lightly each time …’.

  But that good fortune was about to run out. On 13 August, while crossing the Mediterranean, the 1,117-ton vessel was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine UB-14 with the loss of 866 lives. According to some reports, Bromley was seen in the water in a semi-conscious state and was drowned after being struck either by one of the rescue boats or a piece of wreckage. Arguably the most reliable account of his final moments, however, was provided by his great friend and commanding officer Lt. Col. WB Pearson who conducted his own investigation by interviewing survivors among the 46-strong draft of Lancashire Fusiliers who were aboard the Royal Edward. In a letter to Lady Bromley, written on 9 October ‘amid muddy and unpleasant surroundings in the trenches’ near Suvla Bay, he stated:

  The Royal Edward was struck by one or two torpedoes about 9 a.m. and went down in about 4½ minutes. Your son was not well that morning - a touch of fever and had not come down to breakfast as usual. As far as I can gather he was one of the last to jump overboard but must have either jumped on some floating wreckage or some had fallen on him for he was seen swimming in the water in a half-unconscious state with his forehead damaged. One of our men who knew him helped him on to a collapsible boat but which kept turning over as people tried to climb on. So the awful hours passed until the hospital ship ‘Soudan’ was seen in the distance and your son and this man started to swim for it - but your son was by this time very feeble and told the man to go on and he turned back after about 20 yards and swam back towards the upturned boat crowded with men.

  The next details I have is from a semi-official source and says a man – one of ours, who knew him well, who had been rescued in one of the hospital ship boats – was in this boat as it cruised about picking up any survivors. They found your son’s body floating in the water and took it on board and tried to revive him, but it was some hours after the original tragedy and he was dead and so his body was consigned once more to the deep, for the boat was nearly filled to the gunwale and there were still some survivors struggling in the water.

  So passed one of the bravest officers I have known – my friend for years and the most popular man in the Regiment …

  The Revd Oswin Creighton, chaplain of the 86th Brigade, wrote of him: ‘He had an absolutely cool head and never seemed in the least perturbed or worried … In my opinion, he was one of the finest soldiers in the Division.’

  Alfred Joseph Richards’ part in the Gallipoli Campaign was as short-lived as it was distinguished. Wounded in the first rush, he was evacuated as soon as the beach was secured and did not return.

  He was born on 21 June 1879 in Plymouth, Devon, one of six children, to Charles and Bridget Richards. It could almost be said that he was born into the Lancashire Fusiliers; his father had served twenty-one years with the 2nd Battalion, rising to the rank of colour sergeant.

  A Catholic, Alfred Richards was educated at St Dominic’s Priory School, near Byker Bridge, Newcastle. On 6 July 1895 he followed his father into the Lancashire Fusiliers as a bandboy, giving as his trade musician. He served with the 1st Battalion in Ireland and was appointed a full drummer. In 1899 the battalion embarked for Crete, where Richards undertook training as a mounted infantryman in the hope of being accepted for service in South Africa, where the conflict with the Boers was raging. He passed the course, but did not reach South Africa as he later noted: ‘The Adjutant … kept me for my musical abilities, and made me Lance Corporal, my first step.’

  The battalion’s Mediterranean service continued, with spells at Malta, Gibraltar, and Alexandria in Egypt. During these years Richards gained a reputation as one of the battalion’s best footballers and helped his team win the Gibraltar Garrison Cup in 1904. When the battalion returned to England in 1907, Richards, at the end of his period of engagement, took his discharge. He was still a lance corporal and his Army record referred to him as being ‘of sober habits, intelligent, honest and hard-working’. Civilian life, however, did not appeal, and two months later, on 26 July 1907, he re-enlisted and was sent with a draft back to his old battalion which was then stationed in India. He remained there, serving at a variety of Army stations, until the outbreak of war. He later noted: ‘We were very joyful at the news, and chance of at last seeing the real thing.’ By then he was a sergeant serving in C Company, and it was with this company that he disembarked into HMS Euryalus’ cutters for the landing at W Beach.

  A month after sustaining his terrible wounds on the peninsula, surgeons in Egypt amputated his right leg above the knee. Evacuated to England, he was discharged from the Army on 31 July 1915, as ‘being no longer fit for war service (but fit for civil employment)’. He had served twenty years and six days with the Colours, all of that time with the Lancashire Fusiliers, and had been awarded the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.

  He was living at the Princess Christian Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home in Woking when news reached him of his VC award. He told journalists that he could remember little about the landing. Of his award, he said: ‘I am proud to learn that my comrades chose me as one of three of the bravest, but we all did our duty even though luck may have helped some to more noticeable acts. I don’t know how the vote was taken, but had it been a comrade selected instead of myself I should feel just as proud.’ He ended on an optimistic note: ‘I am going to fit myself for a new occupation. I have come here to learn carpentry.’

  Newspapers referred to him as the ‘Lonely VC’. His parents had emigrated to Australia and two of his brothers were serving with the Anzacs. One newspaper account stated: ‘Outside the regimental circle he has no friends in the world, no relatives to welcome him home, no townsmen to do him honour, though any city might be proud of him.’

  In fact, he did not remain alone for long. A year after he received his Cross at Buckingham Palace ‘looking very ill’, he married Miss Dora Coombs at Weybridge on 30 September 1916. They had met while he was recovering from his wounds at a nearby hospital.

  Throughout the remainder of his life he maintained strong ties with his old regiment. A leading member of the Southern Branch, Old Comrades Association, he was also connected for many years with the Lord Roberts memorial scheme for the employment of disabled soldiers.

  During the Second World War he joined the Home Guard and served as provost sergeant of the 28th County of London Battalion at Wandsworth. His son, Harold, saw service with the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment in Northern Europe and the Middle East.

  Alfred Richards died at his home, 69 Astonville Street, Southfields, London, on 21 May 1953, after a short illness. He was seventy-three. At his funeral were survivors of the Gallipoli landings. He was buried in Putney Vale Cemetery and fourteen years later, when it was reported that his grave was in a neglected state, the trustees of the Lancashire Fusiliers paid for a new headstone carrying the regimental crest and inscription. His medals, consisting of the VC, 1914–15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal, Defence Medal (1939–45), Coronation Medal (1937) and Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, have appeared at auction on at least two occasions in recent years. They now form part of the Lord Ashcroft Victoria Cross collection displayed at the Imperial War Musuem and which
includes an extensive array of Gallipoli-linked VC’s.

  A correspondent, writing in the Regimental Gazette, said of Richards:

  Everyone who met him was impressed by his sympathetic and kind nature and his true modesty. He was indeed a great Regimental character, and few people realised the continual pain and discomfort which he bore silently throughout his life as the result of his amputation.

  Like Richards, Richard Raymond Willis had spent his entire service career in the Lancashire Fusiliers.

  He was born on 13 October 1876 at Woking in Surrey, the son of R.A. Willis, and was educated at Harrow and the RMC Sandhurst. Gazetted to the Lancashire Fusiliers on 20 February 1897, he joined the 2nd Battalion at Quetta in India and accompanied it to Egypt in January 1898, where it formed part of Kitchener’s Army for the reconquest of the Sudan.

  Promoted lieutenant on 20 July, he was engaged in a number of patrols, on one occasion being accompanied by the famous Slatin Pasha, who had been a prisoner in the hands of the dervishes. Willis took part in the campaign’s climactic battle at Omdurman, after which he transferred to the 1st Battalion, serving with them in Crete, Malta, Gibraltar and Egypt. During those years he played an active part in the life of the battalion, representing the unit at polo and hockey. For several years he held the title of champion revolver shot. He was also an excellent linguist and a gifted musician. In 1907 Willis, by then a captain, married Maude Temple, the daughter of Col. J.A. Temple.

  At the time of the Gallipoli landings, Willis held the unique distinction of having commanded C Company for fifteen consecutive years. Three days after going ashore at W Beach, he led a small force which seized a fir wood on the outskirts of Krithia. It appeared momentarily as if his advance would compel the Turks to withdraw, but no support arrived and his party was forced to pull back. On 2 May, when the Turks launched a major attack on the beachhead, Willis figured prominently in the defence. During a night of bitter fighting, four men were killed beside him, a bullet passed through his cap, and another smashed his periscope without harming him.