VCs of the First World War Gallipoli

by Stephen Snelling

  Not long after the 1st Battalion completed their relief of the 3rd Battalion, the Turks renewed their attack, recapturing a stretch of Sasse’s Sap, the scene of Owen Howell-Price’s desperate stand earlier in the day. To allow such an incursion to remain uncontested within his battalion’s sector was an anathema to Shout. His response was swift and wholly in keeping with his reputation. With his friend Capt. Cecil Sasse, he gathered three men to carry sandbags with which to build trench blocks and then helped himself to a supply of bombs before charging the hapless Turks. They scarcely knew what hit them. In one short section, Shout bombed and killed eight and routed the remainder. Sasse, armed with a rifle, was credited with shooting a dozen. Their advance, conducted in short hops, won back approximately 20 yds of the sap, strewn with dead and wounded Turks. Then they halted and established a new trench barricade. Sasse was elated by their success, and that afternoon, after talking with Shout, they decided to repeat the operation and extend the Australian grip on the sap. For their second foray they took eight men to carry sandbags and an extra supply of bombs. In a report of the action written shortly afterwards, Bean stated:

  They started together, Captain Sasse with a rifle and Captain Shout with bombs. Captain Shout had a good look round to see the position, and then pushed the barricade down.

  They went forward two abreast, Captain Sasse shooting and Captain Shout bombing. As Captain Shout’s bombs fell those following could hear the bustle of accoutrements and cries.

  Finally, they reached a point where they decided it was suitable to build a last barricade. Captain Shout, who all the time was laughing and joking and cheering his men on, resolved to make a big throw before the final dash. He tried to light three bombs at once, so that they might be quickly thrown, and the Turks prevented from hindering the building of the barricade. He ignited all three bombs, and threw one. Then either the second or third burst as it was leaving his hand, and shattered one hand and most of the other, destroying one eye, laid his cheek open, and scorched his breast and leg.

  Captain Shout nevertheless, remained conscious, talked cheerfully, drank tea and sent a message to his wife.

  Immediately afterwards, he was evacuated, but two days later and three days after his 33rd birthday, he succumbed to his terrible wounds aboard the hospital ship Euralia and was buried at sea. Tragically, a clerical mix-up led to his wife being informed that Shout was alive and returning to Australia for treatment. More than a fortnight passed before the matter was cleared up. A cablegram from Cairo dated August 24 explained: ‘By a chain of unfortunate circumstances he was wrongly reported as having sailed for Australia by Themistocles fifteenth August. The officer who so sailed is Lieutenant A. J. Shirt and not A. J. Shout of same battalion. Error much regretted and those responsible suitably dealt with.’ Shortly after, Shout’s widow received a formal apology for ‘such conflicting tidings’.

  Meanwhile, Lt. Col. A.J. Bennett, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion throughout the Lone Pine fighting, wrote to Shout’s widow:

  I desire to express to you, though quite inadequately, our very deep sympathy with you in the loss of your husband, the late Captain Shout, as true a gentleman and as brave as ever wore the uniform of his King. Numerous acts of conspicuous brilliant conduct had already brought Captain Shout into favourable notice, and he had already, though so short a time in the field, had the Military Cross conferred upon him. In the storming, capture, and defence of the enemy’s stronghold, known as Lone Pine, this brilliant officer was again unapproachable in his splendid leadership, and it was while in the act of again bombing the enemy out of their trenches that he sustained the injuries from which he subsequently died. So outstanding was Captain Shout’s devotion to duty that I had recommended him for the most glorious distinction of the Victoria Cross, before he was wounded, and this recommendation has been approved by the general officer commanding, and, melancholy satisfaction though it be, I hope to see his name honoured by enrolment in the band of heroes who have won the VC.

  Col. Bennett’s original recommendation was clearly based on Shout’s exploits during the morning of 9 August. Following his death, the recommendation was redrafted. It is clear, however, from Bennett’s letter that he considered Shout to have earned his VC even before he embarked upon his final, fatal charge along Sasse’s Sap.

  The posthumous award was gazetted, together with the other Lone Pine VCs, on 15 October. The citation read:

  For most conspicuous bravery at Lone Pine trenches, in the Gallipoli Peninsula. On the morning of 9th August, 1915, with a very small pary, Captain Shout charged down the trenches strongly occupied by the enemy, and personally threw four bombs among them, killing eight and routing the remainder. In the afternoon of the same day, from the position gained in the morning, he captured a further length of trench under similar conditions, and continued personally to bomb the enemy at close range, under very heavy fire, until he was severely wounded, losing his right hand and left eye. This most gallant officer has since succumbed to his injuries.

  Capt. Cecil Duncan Sasse, Shout’s gallant companion on both his bombing missions, received the Distinguished Service Order for his courageous leadership at Lone Pine, although, strangely, his citation referred only to his actions on 6–7 August and made no mention of the events of 9 August in which he shared. Sasse’s Sap was never fully recaptured.

  On 20 November 1915 the governor general, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson, unveiled a memorial plaque in honour of Shout at Darlington Town Hall, Sydney. Even as he did so, however, the epic story of heroism was being matched by a bewildering bureaucratic saga of confusion and misunderstanding. Not only did the army authorities in Australia fail to take note of Shout’s last promotion, resulting in an inferior pension being initially paid to his cash-straitened family, they failed even to recognise his last great honour. Writing to Shout’s widow the day before the governor general performed his civic duty, a captain in the army’s base records department insisted there was no record of her husband having been awarded the Victoria Cross!

  Leonard Maurice Keysor was born in Lanhill Road, Paddington, London, on 3 November 1885, the second son and third child of clock importer Benjamin Kyezor and his wife Julia (née Benjamin). According to his family’s historian, Benjamin and his family changed their name to Keyzor around 1890. Leonard’s service records spell his name variously with an ‘s’ and a ‘z’ and it was only after the First World War and as a result of the constant misspelling of his surname, that Leonard officially adopted the name Keysor on his return to England.

  Educated at Tonnleigh Castle, Ramsgate, Keysor emigrated to Canada in 1904. He settled there for ten years until his restless spirit led him to Australia, where he had a sister. He had been in Sydney, living with his relatives in Bayswater Road, Darlinghurst, for barely three months when war broke out. He enlisted in the 1st Battalion on 18 August 1914, the day after the unit was formed at Victoria Barracks, Sydney, and gave his occupation as a clerk. Keysor embarked with the 1st Battalion on 18 October, bound for Egypt. He took part in the landings on 25 April 1915, and was promoted lance-corporal in June.

  After his VC award, he was transferred to the Bulford depot on 8 June 1916 before rejoining the 1st Battalion in time to take part in the heavy fighting around Pozières on the Somme that same summer. Transferred as acting sergeant to the 42nd Battalion on 20 November, he proceeded with his new unit to France five days later and was promptly promoted to sergeant and, then, on 13 January, second lieutenant. In April 1917, Keysor was invalided to England suffering from neuralgia, though the root cause of his problems was a fall in early February while walking along a duckboard trail while in the line at L’Eppinette. Having soldiered on with increasing pain for ten weeks, he had finally reported ‘sick’ on 14 April, though it would be another three weeks before an X-ray revealed he had broken his right shoulder. The injury kept him out of action for the rest of the year, during which time he was promoted lieutenant and spent more than four months as adjutant of a tr
aining depot at Weymouth. Finally passed fit for active service, he rejoined the 42nd Battalion on 21 February 1918 and the following month was hospitalised again after being shot in the left arm on 27 March. Evacuated to England, where his wound healed quickly, Keysor returned to his unit on 11 May only to fall victim to gas poisoning following a mustard gas bombardment on the Somme. Sent back to England once more for treatment, Keysor’s robust health finally showed signs of collapsing. A medical board on 15 August reported ‘his eyes are still hypersensitive and he is a stone below his usual weight’. His war was over. Nine days later, he was slated for furlough and on 30 August was officially struck off his battalion’s strength. Returning to Australia as part of a recruiting drive, Keysor, a pro-conscription campaigner, had little time to make an impact before the armistice was signed. Discharged on 12 December as medically unfit, he resumed his work as a clerk.

  Two years later he returned to London to join his father’s business, and on 21 July 1921 married his cousin Gladys Benjamin, with whom he had fallen in love during his convalescence from wounds, at the Hill Street synagogue. In 1927 Keysor was persuaded to re-enact his bomb-throwing exploits for a film called For Valour. The venture, however, went awry when one of the bombs filled with flash powder exploded near to Keysor. He had to be treated in hospital for cuts and burns. It was an incident wholly out of keeping with his post-war life. A shy man, he ventured only reluctantly into the public sphere. In a rare interview given during the 1940s, Keysor, by then white-haired and deaf, described himself as a ‘common or garden clock importer’, and insisted that ‘the war was the only adventure I ever had’.

  Leonard Keysor died of cancer on 12 October 1951, aged sixty-five. He was cremated after a memorial service at the Liberal Jewish synagogue in St John’s Wood, London. His Victoria Cross was bought by the Australian Returned Services League in 1977 and it now forms part of the collection at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

  William John Symons was born on 12 July 1889, at Eaglehawk, Victoria, the eldest son of William Samson Symons and Mary Emma (née Manning). His parents were of Cornish descent, and his father, who was a Methodist lay preacher, worked as a miner.

  The family lived in Tarriff Street, and William, known to his friends as ‘Curley’ Symons, attended Eaglehawk State School. He was a member of the Eaglehawk West Methodist Band of Hope, and the church played a big part in his formative years. He was also a teetotaller. Tragedy struck in 1904 when his father died suddenly at the age of forty-two, leaving William, at fourteen, as head of the family. To help support them, he took a job driving a grocer’s cart and, together with his old grey horse, he became a familiar figure in Eaglehawk. Two years later, he moved with his mother and four brothers to Brunswick, Melbourne. He joined the militia and soon all his spare time was devoted to soldiering, firstly in the 5th Australian Volunteer Regiment and then in the 60th Infantry, where he held the rank of colour sergeant.

  When war broke out, he was living with his family at 8 Burkett Street, East Brunswick. On 17 August 1914 he left his job, working behind the counter at Messrs McDougall and Sons’ grocery stores in Sydney Road, and enlisted. Posted to A Company of the 7th Battalion as colour sergeant, he embarked with his unit for Egypt on 18 October.

  Symons was promoted to acting regimental quartermaster sergeant sixteen days before his unit landed at Anzac beach. He came through the initial fighting unscathed and later recorded:

  The fire was terribly hot, and, as soon as we had advanced a certain distance, Colonel Elliott sent back a message, ‘We are digging in’, but he received an order to press on at once, and so on we went. As a matter of fact, we went up straight in the face of a point-blank fire from Turkish machine-guns and artillery. Of 1,100 odd who landed, we mustered, after two days’ continuous fighting, only 300, and a good number of these were wounded.

  As a result of the heavy losses, Symons was commissioned second lieutenant on 26 April. He came through the ill-starred Second Battle of Krithia, in which his unit again suffered heavily, and was promoted lieutenant on 2 July. During the defence of Lone Pine, Symons commanded D Company, of whom four-fifths were volunteers from Bendigo. Having recovered from his bout of gastroenteritis, he was struck off the strength of the 7th Battalion in January 1916 and, being considered unfit for general service for three months, he embarked, at his own expense, for Australia, where he arrived in March to rapturous receptions throughout Victoria. A contemporary newspaper report described him as ‘tall and well-built, but a trifle thin as the result of his illness. He has a quiet, active manner, and talks freely with the people he knows, but is absolutely silent when approached on the subject of how he earned the coveted VC’. At Bendigo he was greeted at the railway station by relatives together with the Citizens’ Band, who provided a musical escort to the Town Hall where 300 townspeople and fifty returned ex-servicemen were waiting to honour him.

  Symons did not return to the 7th Battalion. In April 1916, he was posted to a newly raised Victorian unit, the 37th Battalion, which formed part of the 10th Brigade. Made captain, he was given command of D Company, consisting largely of farmworkers who felt proud to be led by a man they considered a ‘dinkum’ soldier. According to that unit’s history, ‘Symon’s free and easy devil-may-care attitude appealed to all ranks’. The 37th Battalion arrived in France in November 1916 and Capt. Symons was wounded during the 10th Brigade’s so-called ‘Big Raid’ carried out on 27 February 1917. Back with his unit by April, he narrowly escaped death a month later when two shells hit his dug-out without harming him. On 7 June, however, he was gassed as he led his company forward for the assault on Messines Ridge. Following a spell in hospital in Etaples, he was evacuated back to 3rd London General Hospital where he remained until September. He rejoined his battalion on 18 January 1918 and served with it throughout the bitter fighting which followed the March German offensive. His frontline service ended in June when he returned to England to attend a musketry course at Hayling Island.

  On 15 August, having adopted the surname of Penn-Symons, he married Isobel Anna Hockley, eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs H.E. Hockley, of Kenton, Hayling, at St Mary’s Church, South Hayling in Hampshire. An artist of note, his bride could claim descent from the Spanish aristocracy. The day after their wedding, they sailed for Australia, arriving in October. Capt. Penn-Symons VC was discharged from the Australian Imperial Force on 7 December 1918, although he continued to serve as a captain in the 59th Infantry Regiment until transferred to the reserve of officers in July of 1922. They then returned to England and settled close to his wife’s family home in Kenton.

  Penn-Symons began a successful business career, gathering a clutch of directorships in a number of firms ranging from fur dyeing to sport stadium management. During the Second World War, with Britain threatened by German invasion, he was one of thousands of First World War veterans to enlist in the Local Defence Volunteers. He was given command of the 12th Battalion, Leicestershire Home Guard, and held his appointment until 1944. He also served, during this period, on the Leicestershire Military Interviewing Board.

  Lt. Col. William Penn-Symons VC died on 24 June 1948 in London as a result of a brain tumour and was survived by his wife and three daughters. In December 1967 his widow, claiming poor circumstances, sold his decorations at public auction for £800. The 7th Battalion Association persuaded the Australian Returned Services League to launch a public appeal and the Victoria Cross was purchased and presented to the Australian War Memorial at Canberra.

  Alexander Stewart Burton was twenty-two when he was killed in the act of winning the first posthumous Victoria Cross to an Australian serviceman.

  He was born on 20 January 1893, in Kyneton, the son of native-born Victorians Alfred Edward Burton and Isabella (née Briggs). His father was a grocer and an elder of the Presbyterian Church.

  At an early age, Alex Burton and his family moved to Euroa, where he attended the state school, acquiring a reputation as a keen sportsman and useful member of the church choir
and town band. After leaving school, he joined the firm of A. Miller & Co., where his father was a partner, taking a job in the ironmongery department. In 1911, aged eighteen, he began his period of compulsory military service. Among his circle of friends was a farmer from the nearby town of Longwood by the name of Fred Tubb. When war broke out Tubb led twenty-seven men from the district to Seymour to enlist. Among them was Alex Burton. They travelled to Broadmeadows, on the outskirts of Melbourne, and two months later Burton embarked with his unit, the 7th Battalion, for Egypt, where he underwent more training in preparation for the Dardanelles operations.

  A throat infection kept him out of the landings on 25 April. He eventually joined his unit on the peninsula in May and, according to Press accounts, he remained in the trenches for all but two weeks of the last three months of his life. Slightly wounded on 22 June, he was promoted lance corporal on 10 July for his role as a volunteer in helping clear and occupy a troublesome post, known as ‘saphead D21’, from where the Turks were digging a tunnel beneath the Australian lines. Shortly afterwards, he was made full corporal.

  His courageous actions alongside his friend and company commander, Fred Tubb, at Lone Pine won him universal praise. Tubb later said of him:

  He was a bonny boy and always did what he was told. With his quiet smile he was always there. I made him lance corporal [sic] at Lonesome Pine, and for four or five days he did responsible work well. In the ‘show’ there was not a better man on the Peninsula than Burton. Just before he died he looked up at me, smiled quietly, and was then killed. His was a fine death, and I almost wish I had died too.