Best and Bravest

by Glyn Harper

  The Zulu opened fire on the mounted men and several were unhorsed, including Trooper Raubenheim. As he had done at Hlobane, D’Arcy immediately went to rescue the trooper. D’Arcy managed to get Raubenheim on his horse behind him. The horse then kicked them off, hurting them both. Raubenheim was a large man and so badly hurt now that he could not get up on the horse again, even with D’Arcy’s help. When D’Arcy had fallen he had landed on his pistol, injuring his back. This got worse as he tried to lift Raubenheim onto the barely controlled horse. It was not until he was completely exhausted, and barely able to mount himself, that D’Arcy was forced to leave the wounded man. He was only just able to escape his immediate attackers and even then had to fight his way clear. The Zulu tortured Trooper Raubenheim, and his cries were heard throughout the night by his comrades. D’Arcy was so badly injured that he could not take part in the final battle the next day, which effectively ended the war.

  D’Arcy was again nominated for the VC, along with Captain Lord Beresford who had similarly attempted to rescue a fallen sergeant. That man had been concussed and refused help until Sergeant Edmund O’Toole came forward to forcibly assist. However, O’Toole was not recommended for a VC and D’Arcy refused to be nominated unless O’Toole was also recognised, so only Beresford’s name was forwarded. Beresford received his decoration personally from the Queen at Windsor on his return to England. Evidently at that time he intimated personally to the Queen that he preferred not to be decorated unless the man who shared the danger, O’Toole, was also recognised. She must have agreed, so that the London Gazette of 9 October 1879 announced the award of the VC to both D’Arcy and O’Toole. This resolved a number of awkward issues and makes Cecil D’Arcy the first New Zealand-born man to earn a Victoria Cross.

  Unfortunately, D’Arcy’s life after that was short. He was promoted to command the Cape Frontier Light Horse and later fought in the Basuto uprising, but resigned shortly afterwards because of his health. He was staying in the Amatola Highlands when he disappeared during the night of 6–7 August 1881, possibly during a period of delirium. His remains, identified by his watch and ring, were found sitting upright in a cave in the Amatola Forest of Cape Province early the next year. He was buried with full military honours in King William’s Town. For many years, rumours persisted that D’Arcy was still alive and had faked his death. The rumours, unfortunately, were untrue.

  For Saving Life

  FARRIER SERGEANT MAJOR WILLIAM HARDHAM

  William James Hardham was a larger-than-life character in many ways. He was born in Wellington on 31 July 1876 and attended Mount Cook School. He later trained as a blacksmith. As a rugby player he represented Wellington 53 times between 1897 and 1910 and the Hardham Cup was named after him. William joined the Petone Company of the Naval Artillery in 1894 and continued to serve in Territorial army units until the outbreak of the First World War. His service in South Africa was the highlight of his military career.

  William first enlisted to fight in the South Africa War in the Fourth New Zealand Contingent (Rough Riders) on 24 March 1900. After nearly a year in South Africa, he was made the Farrier Sergeant Major, responsible for keeping the contingent’s horses’ shoes in good order. This was especially important, as by then the war had moved into a very mobile phase.

  At the start of the war, the Boers had outnumbered the British, defeating them in several battles. However, they were now outnumbered themselves. The cities of the independent Boer republics had been taken and their fighting forces were now operating as mobile commandos. These commandos were all mounted and moved fast across their native terrain, attacking isolated British forces and preventing them from controlling the countryside. To deal with these tactics, the British had brought a significant number of cavalry units to South Africa, as well as accepting contingents from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These troops were really mounted rifles, who used their horses to chase the Boers, but would then dismount to fight them.

  On 28 January 1901, a section of the New Zealand Rough Riders was ambushed by about 20 Boers near Naauwpoort. No one was hit by the first shots, and it looked like they might get away unhurt. But Trooper John McCrae’s horse was killed from under him and John was wounded. Most of the New Zealanders were too far ahead and searching for cover so they could dismount and fight back, but William had seen what had happened. He turned his horse around and, despite still being shot at, he went back. When he reached McCrae, the man was too badly wounded to simply jump up behind him and escape. William got down from his horse, which was frightened by the bullets being fired at them. While keeping the horse under control, William managed to lift McCrae into the saddle. Rather than waste time trying to get up himself, William then ran alongside, controlling the horse and keeping the wounded man on its back until they were all out of immediate danger.

  Lord Kitchener forwarded a recommendation for William to receive the Victoria Cross, and this was eventually notified in the London Gazette on 4 October 1901. The field commander, General Sir Ian Hamilton, in fact felt Hardham’s actions deserved the Distinguished Conduct Medal, but Kitchener had upgraded the citation, along with two others. Lord Roberts, VC, the Commander in Chief in London, was to decide the matter. He wrote:

  I would give the VC as recommended by Lord Kitchener. He is not likely to do this unless he is satisfied that it was deserved. Moreover it seems to me desirable to show the Colonials that we appreciate their gallantry and their coming forward to help us. We may require them to do so again perhaps ere long.

  William Hardham therefore became the first New Zealand soldier serving in a New Zealand force raised for combat overseas to be awarded the Victoria Cross. Lord Roberts’ comments were not the only interesting element in his award. William’s VC was presented to him on 1 July 1901 in South Africa by the Prince of Wales, who was visiting at the time, before the award was officially announced in London.

  William enlisted again to go back to South Africa, but arrived there after the fighting had stopped. At the outbreak of the First World War, William was made a captain in Queen Alexandra’s Squadron of the Wellington Mounted Rifles. He landed with them at Gallipoli in May 1915 and he led several trench raids in the fighting there. Then on 2 June 1915 William was badly wounded in the chest and hand and had to be returned to New Zealand. Instead of accepting he had done his part, William waged a continuous campaign to return to the front. After a year as Commander of Queen Mary Hospital at Hanmer Springs, promotion to major and getting married, William was declared fit again. He rejoined the Wellington Mounted Rifles in Palestine, but now his health was not good and he was often sick. Still, he managed to stay to the end of the fighting.

  When he returned to New Zealand, William tried to get into the regular army as an officer, but he was rejected because of his poor health. Unfortunately, William never really recovered from his war service and he died in 1927. William was given a funeral with full military honours and is buried in the Karori Soldiers’ Cemetery, Wellington.

  THE FIRST WORLD WAR

  The First World War was a crucial event in world history. It lasted for four years and caused millions of casualties. So important and vast was the war that it was initially called The Great War. As part of the British Empire, New Zealand became involved automatically when King George V declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914. New Zealand was keen to participate and sent more than 100,000 soldiers to fight in the war. Several hundred New Zealanders also fought in the air war and the war at sea.

  New Zealand’s first major battles were at Gallipoli, which holds a special place in the military history of Australia, New Zealand and Turkey. For Australia and New Zealand, Gallipoli was their first major campaign of the war. For the Ottoman Turks, Gallipoli became one of their few military victories and they successfully defended their homeland. Gallipoli was meant to be a short, victorious campaign for the Allies. That it lasted nine months and achieved nothing but heavy casualties was a tragedy for them. But Gallipoli did have a strong influence o
n the national identity of both Australia and New Zealand. Because of this, it is one of the best-known military campaigns in both nations and is commemorated every year on 25 April, the day of the landings.

  New Zealand’s war effort then shifted to the Western Front, which was the name given to the line of trenches, mostly in France, that stretched all the way from the English Channel on the Belgian coast to the Swiss border. This was where the front had settled after the first German attacks into France were stopped in 1914. For the entire rest of the war the opposing armies would fight in a quite narrow area. The infantry fought from increasingly elaborate trench systems, fortified by deep dugouts, barbed wire and machine-guns while they were supported by heavy artillery.

  The First World War also saw many new types of fighting. Aircraft were employed and developed into fighters and bombers. At sea, traditional war ships and cargo ships were challenged by the new submarines.

  More Victoria Crosses were awarded in this war than any other — some 663. Eleven of these were to New Zealand servicemen, mostly on the Western Front.

  GALLIPOLI

  A Heroic Signaller

  CORPORAL CYRIL BASSETT

  Cyril Royston Guyton Bassett was born in Mount Eden, Auckland, in 1892. After he left school he worked as a bank clerk. When he was 17 Cyril joined the Territorial Force, who were the part-time soldiers who made up most of the New Zealand Army, but because he was short (only 1.62 metres) and not very big he was told he would have to be a bugler. In those days, buglers were used to sound orders on the battlefield. When the war began Cyril wanted to join the Royal Navy, but his mother persuaded him to try for the army. His small size was still a problem and he almost didn’t make it.

  When I went to join up, the Doctor said to me ‘Well, you’re too small.’ So I went to the end of the line and came up again. He put the tape around my chest and said ‘No.’ So I went around again. The third time he let me in.

  After the war Cyril Bassett used to joke that he survived because he was so short, saying: ‘I was always too close to the ground to be hit.’

  Corporal Bassett was with the New Zealand and Australian soldiers (the Anzacs) who took part in the famous landings at Gallipoli, in Turkey, on 25 April 1915. Watching the other soldiers going ashore and knowing it would be his turn soon, he was worried about what it would be like once he got into battle.

  When I got ashore at Gallipoli there was a line of dead and wounded as far as the eye could see. Our troops hadn’t got far inland and we were having a hell of a time from the Turks, who could see everything that was happening and were well entrenched.

  There wasn’t much time for thinking and Cyril was put to work laying telephone cables with the other signallers. By the end of his first week there, his bravery was already being talked about.

  On 7 August Cyril kept communications working between the Auckland Battalion and New Zealand brigade headquarters further down on Rhododendron Spur. It was dangerous work. The Spur was heavily guarded by the Turks and there was almost no cover. It was very important that communications were kept open to the soldiers fighting up ahead. While he was trying to do this, Cyril was hit in the boot by a bullet, but luckily it didn’t go into his foot.

  The next day, 8 August 1915, was to be Cyril Bassett’s moment of glory. When Brigadier Johnston, who was in charge at headquarters, heard that New Zealand troops under Colonel William Malone had taken a ridge called Chunuk Bair, he sent a small group of signallers to establish communications with the men. Cyril was in charge of the group.

  When he reached the Wellington Battalion on Chunuk Bair, Cyril could see the situation was desperate. He sent a man back to headquarters with an urgent request for reinforcements. Meanwhile, Cyril stayed on Chunuk Bair trying to lay telephone cables so the men there could talk to headquarters.

  Laying and repairing telephone cables was dangerous work. Cyril and the other signallers had to climb the bare slopes and work under rifle and machine-gun fire. They carried coils of telephone wire and their repair kits and were armed with a revolver and bayonet. For three days they worked under constant threat of death or injury. On 9 August Cyril made three repairs to the damaged wire while under fire and less than 90 metres from the Turks. One of his old schoolmates was lying wounded in a crater nearby: ‘I dreaded his [Cyril’s] approach because I knew it would bring all hell from the Turkish guns.’ Sergeant George Skerrett was a medic in the Otago Battalion and witnessed the rare sight of a VC being earned in action.

  He was laying telephone wires under fire. Why he didn’t get hit I don’t know — but he wasn’t still for a second. He was moving around all the time fixing wires, running them clear and getting them in the right place.

  After the war Cyril Bassett described what happened:

  We were there practically until the morning of August 10th on those lines. Well, what we should have done really was to run out new lines but we didn’t have [any] . . . All day on the 8th we were working on those lines, mending breaks, and on the 9th we did a bit of mending, but we were really tired. We were really worn out. One of the signallers who’d been allotted to look after the telephone on the CB [Chunuk Bair] was badly wounded. We got that news, and then on the night of the 9th we laid a new telephone wire across to the Wiltshires, who had relieved our boys, and then we brought this wounded boy in. We couldn’t get a stretcher and we had to bring him in on a blanket — four of us — and he had been wounded from the waist downwards . . . He had been out there a day and a night.

  It was a miracle that Cyril Bassett survived. As well as a bullet hitting his boot, another passed through his tunic collar and a third tore off his right-hand pocket. He was scared on the slopes of Chunuk Bair, and at one stage he wished he was one of the flies buzzing around instead of a soldier. But he got over his fear, believing that ‘if the lines hadn’t gone through, the losses would have been even greater’.

  On 13 August Cyril Bassett was evacuated from Gallipoli. Like many of the soldiers there he became very sick with dysentery, a serious disease that caused diarrhoea. In October 1915, while he was recovering in hospital in England, he was told he had been awarded the VC at Chunuk Bair. It was the only VC awarded to a New Zealander at Gallipoli, and is still the only award made to a signaller in any Commonwealth army.

  The Anzac Hero

  CAPTAIN ALFRED SHOUT

  Another New Zealand-born soldier was awarded the VC at Gallipoli. He was Captain Alfred John Shout of Wellington, who was serving in the 1st Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force. Even though he was a New Zealander, he was Australia’s most decorated soldier of the Gallipoli campaign. He can be described as a true Anzac hero — one with strong ties to both countries.

  Alfred Shout earned his VC at Lone Pine on 9 August 1915. He had served with the New Zealanders in South Africa during the Boer War, several years earlier, where he had been wounded twice. In 1907 Alfred moved to Sydney, where he worked as a carpenter. When the war started in 1914, Alfred volunteered and, because of his military experience, he became a junior officer. He was one of the first officers ashore at Gallipoli on 25 April and fought all that day. Two days later he carried more than a dozen wounded men out of the firing line even though he was wounded several times.

  For this act of bravery, Alfred Shout was awarded the Military Cross and while he was recovering from his wounds, he was promoted to captain, just 11 days before the attack at a position called Lone Pine.

  The Australian infantry took Lone Pine very quickly on 6 August, but then they had to suffer five days of non-stop counter-attacks by the Turks. Losses on both sides were heavy. At Lone Pine Alfred Shout was always in the middle of the action and led several bayonet charges on the first two days. On 9 August he earned the VC while he was trying to clear the Turks from one of the trenches. He was fatally wounded when one of his own bombs exploded, causing horrific injuries. Both his hands were blown off, his left eye blown out, his cheek gashed and his chest and one leg burnt.

  Alfred stayed
cheerful as he was taken away on a stretcher, telling his men he would soon recover. It was not to be. Captain Alfred Shout died of his wounds three days later, just after his thirty-third birthday. He was buried at sea from the hospital ship Euralia.

  An Australian historian, Les Carlyon, described Alfred Shout:

  Shout was the casual hero with the cheery manner; he made hard things look easy and made men around him feel better. He deserves to be seen as one of the larger figures of the Gallipoli campaign, and it doesn’t much matter whether Australia or New Zealand claims him.

  THE WESTERN FRONT

  The Somme VC

  SERGEANT DONALD BROWN

  Sergeant Donald Forrester Brown was awarded New Zealand’s first VC on the Western Front. He was born in Dunedin on 23 February 1890 and went to school in South Dunedin and at Waitaki Boys’ High School, Oamaru.

  Before war began in 1914, Donald Brown was farming at Totara. He sold his farm and enlisted in the army, and by May 1916 he was in France with the 2nd Otago Battalion, which was part of the New Zealand Division. He described his arrival in France:

  On arrival we had to wait about 24 hours before disembarking, but once off we entrained straight away for our place in the north. We passed through some great country, and were altogether some 55 hours in the train, and as we were all in a great mood, styled ourselves Massey’s tourists. We reached our destination about 10.30 p.m., and found to our disgust that we had ten miles to march to reach our billets. That perhaps might not have been so bad, but it was cold as cold could be, and raining cats and dogs, and after the heat of Egypt we were feeling it pretty bad. Well, on we marched in full pack, then the Colonel lost his way, and we had to retrace our steps, and arrived at our destination at 4.30 a.m. Some were so beat that they lay down by the way, not caring what became of them. Where we are now we can see the cannon sending their shells to the enemy lines. Aeroplanes of all sorts and sizes fly about.