He fairly revelled in it. He kept joking and cheering us on and was smoking cigarettes all the while. He used his cigarettes to light the fuses of the bombs, instead of striking matches. ‘Keep it up, boys’, he kept saying. We did, although a lot of our lads were killed and injured by the Turkish fire bombs [sic].
Forshaw later explained: ‘I was far too busy to think of myself or even to think of anything. We just went at it without a pause while the Turks were attacking, and in the slack intervals I put more fuses into bombs.’
In a brief lull in the fighting on the first night, Forshaw was surprised to see a young Turkish officer peering over the parapet with his hands above his head. ‘He seemed perfectly dazed and we took him prisoner’, said Forshaw. During the next day, Forshaw’s dwindling force beat off further attacks in which Cpl. S. Bayley and L/Cpl. T. Pickford figured prominently. After twenty-four hours of near continuous fighting without sleep or food and water, they were finally relieved by a detachment drawn from other battalions in the Division. As most of his men marched out of the Vineyard, Forshaw, together with Cpl. Bayley, volunteered to remain, and it was during their second night in the position that the Turks mounted their most determined counter-attack. Three times they threw themselves forward. Twice they were halted before reaching the parapet, but on one occasion they burst in. As they clambered over the barricade and dropped into the darkened trench they were met, almost inevitably, by Forshaw. He recalled:
Three of these big, dark-skinned warriors appeared. Immediately one made a move for a corporal who was digging a hole from which to fire during the night. I saw the Turk make for him with his long bayonet and I straight away put a bullet through him from my useful Colt revolver. My weapon was a very fine friend to me during those thrilling minutes. A second Turk came for me with his bayonet fixed, evidently with the object of covering his pal, who was making for the box of our bombs, but I managed to put them both out of action. They never came over the parapet again; but, realising as they did what the position meant, they kept up a fusilade during the whole night.
The crisis had passed, but the relentless pressure of the past two days’ action had taken their toll on even Forshaw’s powers of resistance. At 9.00 a.m. on 9 August he was relieved by 2nd Lt. Cooke and made his way back to battalion HQ. According to the unit war diary, he was ‘quite done up and covered with bomb fumes. He had been hit by a shrapnel case and had been fighting for two days and nights without ceasing.’ His courageous and energetic defence of the most exposed post made a deep impact on his comrades. The 9th Manchesters’ war diary recorded:
He had shown extraordinary bravery and had by his personal example been the cause of the Vineyard trenches G12 being retained by us … The Brigadier-General of the 126th Brigade personally congratulated the commanding officer on the gallant behaviour of Lieut Forshaw, Second Lieut Cooke and the two platoons under them.
For some days after the action, Forshaw was unable to speak; the combination of shouting and smoking cigarettes had left him voiceless. Sick from the stench of bomb fumes and suffering from shock, he was nevertheless incredulous at his survival. ‘I cannot imagine how I escaped with only a bruise’, he later said. ‘It was miraculous.’ A few weeks after the battle, he stated:
It was like a big game. I knew it was risky, of course, but in the excitement one loses all sense of personal danger. You get frightfully excited, and I think it was the excitement that held me up. You see men knocked out, dead and dying, all around you, but it doesn’t trouble you in the least, except when you see good men and chums hit you feel determined to have revenge. That was why I volunteered to keep on after being relieved.
That the fighting left psychological scars, however, was clearly evident. Cpl. Bayley, who had fought alongside Forshaw during the two-day battle, wrote to his sister on 16 August:
Myself and a few men and the captain held a trench which was almost impossible to hold, but we stuck it like glue, in spite of the Turks attacking us with bombs … Our captain has been recommended for the VC and I hope he gets it, because he was determined to hold the trench till the last man was finished. But we did not lose many. Our captain has not got over it yet, but it is only his nerves that are shattered a bit …
Forshaw was evacuated to Cairo ‘suffering from shock’, and from there he cabled his parents: ‘Not wounded. Nearly fit again.’ While convalescing news reached him on 9 September that he had been awarded the Victoria Cross. The citation read:
For most conspicuous bravery and determination on the Gallipoli Peninsula from 7th to 9th August, 1915.
When holding the north-west corner of the ‘Vineyard’ he was attacked and heavily bombed by Turks, who advanced time after time by three trenches which converged at this point; but he held his own, not only directing his men and encouraging them by exposing himself with the utmost disregard to danger, but personally throwing bombs continuously for 41 hours.
When his detachment was relieved after 24 hours he volunteered to continue the direction of operations.
Three times during the night of 8th–9th August he was again heavily attacked, and once the Turks got over the barricade, but after shooting three with his revolver he led his men forward, and captured it.
When he rejoined his battalion he was choked and sickened by bomb fumes, badly bruised by a fragment of shrapnel, and could hardly lift his arm from continuous bomb throwing.
It was due to his personal example, magnificent courage and endurance that this very important corner was held.
It was the first VC to go to a member of the 42nd Division and letters of congratulation poured in. As well as Forshaw’s award, there were decorations for other members of his gallant company. 2nd Lt. Cooke received a Military Cross and Cpl. Bayley and L/Cpl. Pickford were given DCMs.
Forshaw was invalided home on extended sick leave on 26 September. The following month he was given a hero’s welcome. Fêted by press and public as the ‘Cigarette VC’ on account of the cigarettes he had used to light bomb fuses throughout the Vineyard fighting, he received little peace. His home town of Barrow-in-Furness presented him with a sword of honour at a civic reception, and the proud burghers of Ashton-under-Lyne, home of the 9th Manchesters, made him a Freeman. On 18 October came the biggest ceremony of all, the investiture of his Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace. Through it all, he bore himself with great dignity, even though he was far from fully recovered. Back home, he confided: ‘Shells have affected my eyes to some extent, and my nerves are somewhat out of order. I cannot concentrate my thoughts properly.’
William Thomas Forshaw was born on 20 April 1890, the eldest of two sons to Thomas Forshaw, of Fairfield Lane, Barrow-in-Furness. His father was head foreman at Vickers Shipyard.
Educated at Dalton Road Wesleyan School, Holker Street Boys School and Barrow’s Higher Grade School, he left home at eighteen to train as a teacher at Westminster College. After completing the course, he returned home to study for his intermediate exam. He helped pay his way by taking evening classes at his old senior school and Barrow Technical School, where his students included six Turks stationed in the town while a ship was being built for their government.
In the years leading to the outbreak of war, Forshaw taught at the Dallas Road School, Lancaster, and the North Manchester (prep) Grammar School. He was a fine athlete, played football and rugby, and later became an accomplished golfer and tennis player.
His connection with Ashton grew out of a friendship with a fellow teacher. A fine bass singer, he joined the Ashton Operatic Society, and also enlisted in the Ashton Territorial Battalion of the Manchester Regiment. Commissioned second lieutenant in May 1914, Forshaw was promoted lieutenant on the outbreak of war.
The beginning of hostilities interrupted his studies; he had been due to take his final exam in September. Instead, he found himself sailing for Egypt with the 42nd East Lancashire Division, where for the remainder of 1914 and the early part of 1915, the Lancashire Territorials continued their training. F
orshaw evidently enjoyed himself during the battalion’s spell on the banks of the Suez Canal. At the Divisional sports day he won the 220 yd sprint, and he recorded:
The life there was a holiday for most of the officers and men, but I was acting as quartermaster and had a very busy time trying to get supplies over the canal by means of a hand-worked ferry boat, which averaged an hour and a half per trip. Still, the weather was perfect, and when one could steal an hour off there was some excellent bathing.
Following his services at Gallipoli, Forshaw’s promotion to captain was confirmed. A year later, Capt. Forshaw VC married a nurse in Ashton-under-Lyne.
Transferring to the 76th Punjabis, Indian Army in 1917, Forshaw took part in four frontier campaigns before retiring from the Army in November 1922. Teaching jobs, however, were hard to come by, even for a schoolmaster with a VC. Forshaw therefore decided to take a two-year appointment in the RAF Educational Service, in Egypt.
After leaving the RAF, he returned to England in 1925. He settled at Rushmere St Andrew, near Ipswich, and then Martlesham Hall. At each place he started a preparatory school for boys, but bankrupted himself in the process. Compelled to take a teaching job in an Ipswich council school, he drifted from job to job before deciding to pursue a new career.
Joining Gaumont British, Forshaw went on to specialise in the company’s Industrial Film Production Department. His interest in film and photography dated back to before the First World War. As a subaltern in Egypt and on the peninsula, he was noted as an enthusiastic photographer, several of his off-duty pictures appearing in the Ashton newspapers. After the war he branched out into writing and produced a number of commercial films.
During the Second World War he was a major in the 11th City of London (Dagenham) Battalion of the Home Guard, later serving as a staff officer. In 1941 he and his wife moved to Holyport, in Berkshire as evacuees. It was there, at his home, Foxearth Cottage, that he died on 26 May 1943. He had apparently suffered a heart attack while cutting a hedge in his garden.
Unusually, for an officer recipient of the Victoria Cross, Forshaw was buried in an unmarked grave at Touchen-End, near Maidenhead. There it was forgotten until October 1994, when efforts to trace his last resting place culminated in the dedication of a headstone provided by his old regiment. Two years later, Forshaw received further recognition when an English Heritage blue plaque honouring his memory was placed at Ladysmith Barracks, Ashton-under-Lyne.
Captain Robert Bonner, historian of the Manchester Regiment, who had done much to ensure Forshaw’s courage was remembered, remarked at the time: ‘It is very satisfying to have played a role in achieving for him his rightful recognition. It is something that should have been done many, many years ago. He was a colourful, popular young man at the time of the Great War. But, later, times were difficult for him.’
D.R. LAUDER
The Vineyard, Helles sector, 13 August 1915
Pte. D. Lauder
When Capt. William Forshaw stumbled exhausted into the 9th Manchesters HQ on the morning of 9 August, his bomb-throwing arm hanging limp by his side, it appeared as if his epic defence had finally secured the Vineyard. The most hard-pressed battalions of the 42nd Division were relieved and by the end of the day the 126th Brigade, which included Forshaw’s battalion, were clearing the newly won ground and improving the defences. Sporadic fighting continued over the next three days, but Turkish efforts appeared half-hearted.
They had not, however, given up. In the late evening of 12 August they began a heavy bombardment of the lightly held forward trenches. As the frontline quaked, the CO of the 9th Manchesters sent his orderly forward to find out the situation. Pte. Reginald Potts succeeded in reaching Capt. Kenshaw at the same moment the Turks launched their infantry assault. Potts recounted:
Captain Kenshaw sent me back with word that the Turks were attacking very strongly through the Vineyard and that reinforcements were wanted urgently. Shells were bursting in all directions, and the stretcher bearers were busy carrying ammunition to the firing line, where the Ashton boys, fighting shoulder to shoulder, were keeping the Turks back.
The Turkish tide, however, eventually swamped the Manchesters, forcing them back from the positions won at such a high cost in Lancashire lives. As night turned to day on 13 August the fighting swayed back and forth across this small, disfigured patch of sun-baked ground. Private Potts, of the 9th Manchesters, recalled:
An order came down the line for bomb throwers to go into the sap that extended from one firing line towards the Turkish trenches … I volunteered for the job, and went with Lieutenant Cooke [the same officer who had accompanied Captain Forshaw into the Vineyard on 7 August]. The others in the bomb-throwing place were mostly Burnley lads. I don’t know how I stuck it at all. I never dreamed I should come out alive. Lieutenant Cooke did splendidly, and if anyone deserved the Victoria Cross, he did. He kept the bombs going right merrily, and fought like a trump. It was awful to see the other chaps being knocked out, and to think every moment that it was your turn next. We kept it up for 20 hours, until relieved by a Scottish Division.
There was to be no VC for 2nd Lt. Cooke, although he would, as we have seen, later receive a Military Cross for his part in the battle. The second stage of the fight for the Vineyard would, however, be marked by another outstanding act of individual heroism, on this occasion performed by a soldier belonging to the 52nd Lowland Division, who were sent to relieve the Lancastrians. The Scots had suffered heavy losses in the futile frontal assaults of 28 June and 12 July, and were held in reserve for the August offensive. But the increasingly desperate plight of the weary Lancastrian battalions had made necessary their return to action.
By 11.30 a.m. on 13 August the 1/4th Royal Scots Fusiliers, a Territorial unit largely recruited from Ayrshire, had begun replacing the worn-out remnants of the 9th Manchesters. They immediately took over the firing line and posted a small number of men in the support trenches.
An advance party, consisting of bombers from the 1/4th Royal Scots Fusiliers and the 5th King’s Own Scottish Borderers, occupied a communication trench running along a ditch on the north-western rim of the Vineyard, not far from the post in which Capt. Forshaw had conducted his gallant defence. The Scots had been sent ahead of the main body to find out the lie of the land, but no sooner had they arrived when they were embroiled in stemming a Turkish thrust along the communication trench from the direction of the G12 line. The trench was still being barricaded to form a bombing block and, in the words of the 52nd Divisional History, ‘a furious struggle ensued’, in the course of which Lt. William Maxwell, bombing officer of the 5th KOSBs, was killed together with a number of men from both battalions. The Turks, however, were stung by the ferocity of the defence and fell back in disorder. A small bombing party, led by Capt. J. Howard Johnston, of the 1/4th RSF, followed up, driving the fleeing Turks into a cul-de-sac. Speedily bombed out of that position, they were forced to run the gauntlet of machine-gun and rifle fire across the open. Few reached the G12 line. During the respite won by the bombers, the barricade was completed and half of the Vineyard secured.
By late afternoon the battle was almost over. The mixed party of bombers, numbering less than a dozen men, continued to hurl bombs at the Turks in order to prevent any interference with the work on a permanent barricade. One of the bombers was 21-year-old Pte. David Ross Lauder. To amuse himself Lauder, together with his comrades, most of whom were novices in the art of bomb-throwing, kept a tally of the bombs thrown over the lip of the sap. Lauder’s own score was into its second hundred when accidental disaster threatened to wreak havoc among the small party. Lauder later recalled:
I threw a bomb that fell short. I saw it slip down the parapet and roll towards the bombing party. A three second fuse does not allow you very long for thinking. I recognised the fault as mine and the only course that seemed open to me was to minimise the explosion as much as possible. So I put my right foot on it. The explosion was terrific and the concussion was awful. My
foot was clean blown away, but, thank goodness, my comrades were saved.
Although grievously injured, Lauder was still conscious when he was carried back to the 1/4th RSF fire trench where he received emergency medical attention. Sgt. E. Stalker, of the 5th KOSBs, one of the bombers who brought him out of the sap, remembered his courage twenty-five years later: ‘He sure was a game lad, and I would very much like to congratulate him again. I say “again”, because I have often done so in my thoughts, and thanked him for saving some of my men and myself from death or, at least, a severe peppering.’ Lauder’s self-sacrificial courage was still fresh in the mind of Capt. J. Bruce (1/4th RSF) when he wrote to his family. He described the incident as the pluckiest thing he had seen in Gallipoli. Official recognition, however, was slow in coming.
After initial treatment on the peninsula, Lauder was evacuated to hospital in Malta. Later, when sufficiently recovered, he was transferred to England. Eventually, he was fitted with an artificial leg, just below the right knee. By January 1917 he was able to walk quite freely with only the slightest halt in his stride. Discharged from the Army, he lived with his wife and young child at 674 Gallowgate, Glasgow, and took a job in a munitions factory at Parkhead.
Lauder had received the Serbian Medal for Bravery as a reward for his action, but it was not until 13 January 1917 that the London Gazette carried news of his own nation’s reward for outstanding valour. The citation for his Victoria Cross stated:
For most conspicuous bravery when with a bombing party retaking a sap.
VCs of the First World War Gallipoli Page 27
