The first line of A Coy climbed over the British parapet at 03.16 hours (Stockwell delayed his men for one minute until the British artillery fire had lifted), followed shortly afterwards by the other half of the company. Machine-gun fire from the right, where 2nd Queen’s (Royal West Surreys) were advancing and rifle fire from in front, took its toll of the RWF but, as Stockwell recorded: ‘the remaining men went straight on to the enemy trenches, where half an hour’s strenuous hand-to-hand fighting took place in a frightful tangled system of trenches’. It was in this fighting that No. 3902, CSM Frederick Barter, won his VC.
Having crossed the 120 yards of no-man’s-land and gained entry to the German front line, Barter collected together eight men and bombed down the trench to the right forcing the surrender of the German occupants; he continued bombing until in total he cleared some 500 yards of trench. Besides being responsible for the surrender of 105 of the enemy, including three officers, Barter also discovered and cut eleven enemy mine leads. His actions considerably helped the advance of the 2nd Queen’s as well as giving great assistance to the men of his own battalion. Barter was awarded the VC for his part in the attack. When interviewed later Barter praised the eight men with him in the action, in particular Pte Thomas Hardy who, when wounded in the right shoulder 10 yards from the German line, ignored Barter’s order for him to retire, saying he was left-handed. After application of a field-dressing, Hardy, attached from 2nd Queen’s for bomb training, ran forward, bombing nearly 30 yards of trench before being killed, shot in the head.
There was confusion in the enemy trenches, men from various battalions being mixed together. Capt. Stockwell collected a party of men from four battalions and eventually reached Canadian Orchard but his force, numbering fewer than 100 men, was not strong enough to capture this position and returned late in the day to the original British line.
The battalion was relieved on 18 May after recovering the bodies of four officers and more than 100 other ranks of the RWF from the former no-man’s-land. The strength of the battalion on 16 May was 25 officers and 806 other ranks; 6 officers and 247 men came out of the battle.
Barter’s VC was gazetted on 29 June and he was presented with his medal by the King at Buckingham Palace on 12 July 1915.
Frederick Barter was born at 60 Daniel Street, Cathays, Cardiff, on 17 January 1891, one of three children born to Mr and Mrs Samuel Barter. He went to school at Crwys Road Board School, Cardiff, and after working as a collier and later as a porter on the Great Western Railway, enlisted in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (RWF) on 4 December 1908. On completion of his term of service Barter transferred to RWF Special Reserve and was working as a stove repairer for the Cardiff Gas Light & Coke Company when war broke out.
He was mobilized with 1st Bn RWF on 5 August 1914. The battalion landed at Zeebrugge on 7 October and by the 30th of the month they were reduced to 86 men and one officer after heavy fighting at Zonnebeke and Zandvoorde.
When Barter returned to his native Cardiff before his investiture, he was received at the railway station by the Lord Mayor and other dignitaries. A procession through the main streets was greeted by thousands of cheering people and later, after addressing a recruiting meeting, he was driven home in a flag-bedecked motor car. He suffered almost embarrassing attentions at subsequent recruiting meetings when the ladies of Cardiff lavished cigarettes and other gifts upon him. An impromptu collection at the Cardiff Coal Exchange raised £11 4s. to purchase War Bonds on his behalf, while his old school gave him a cheque at a enthusiastic reception by the children, and the Cardiff Gas Light & Coke Company presented him with shares in the Company and the Cardiff Coal Exchange and £50 in War Bonds.
Immediately after receiving his VC on 12 July 1915, Barter, together with three other recipients of the award (nine other VCs were awarded), Sgt Ripley (see page 134), Cpl Keyworth (see page 161) and Bandsman Rendle, hailed a taxi-cab to evade the attentions of autograph hunters and female admirers, the latter anxious to bestow kisses on the VC winners outside the Palace.
When 2/Lt Barter left Cardiff to return to the front, having been commissioned into the RWF on 26 August 1915, there were moving scenes when he bid farewell to his elderly father, sister and brother Robert.
After a further period in France, on 10 May 1916 Barter was appointed Instructor at the Western Command Bombing School, Prees Heath, Shropshire, with the rank of temporary lieutenant, a position he held until the end of that year. In February 1917, after a few more weeks in France, he was seconded for service with the Indian Army and sailed for India in March. He was stationed at Kohat, on the north-west frontier with 4/3rd Gurkha Rifles. On 30 March 1918 his battalion War Diary recorded that he was awarded the MC by the C-in-C EEF, Gen. Allenby. The citation for this award, published in the London Gazette of 26 July 1918, reads:
For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when ordered to make a flank attack [at El Kefr, Palestine]. He led his two platoons up a precipitous hill, and turned the enemy’s flank. Then placing one platoon with two Lewis guns to command the enemy’s lines of retreat, he gallantly led an attack with the other platoon from the rear and flank, killing and capturing practically the whole garrison.
Barter’s life was saved at El Kefr on 10 April by Rfn Karanbahadur Rana who was also subsequently awarded the VC for this act.
Barter received a permanent commission in the Indian Army on 6 May 1918 and in January 1919 was invalided to England with fever. He retired from the Army with the rank of captain in 1922. During the 1920s Barter was involved in a few private enterprises and on 13 May 1925 he married Catherine Mary Theresa Maclaren (née Wright) a divorcee and the owner of the Heathfield Hotel, Waldron, Sussex. In 1928 he began work as a labour manager with AEC at Southall, Middlesex, a position he retained until his death. As a major in the Second World War he commanded a company of 4th Middlesex Home Guard, and his wife died in 1944.
On 15 May 1953 Barter died in St Ann’s Nursing Home, Canford Cliffs, Poole, Dorset, and his cremation took place at Bournemouth Crematorium, where his ashes were scattered in the Garden of Remembrance. Barter Road and Barter Court at Hightown, Wrexham, Clwyd, were named after him.
His medals were acquired by a private collector in North America at some point but reappeared early in 1992 in Kent. The RWF Regimental Museum was determined to acquire the medals but feared that the price would be forced up if it were known the Museum was actively interested. Prior to the auction, stories were circulated to the effect that the Museum could not afford the purchase. When bidding began in London on 27 March 1992, the Museum curator, Capt. Bryan Finchett Maddock, in civilian dress, kept a low profile and ‘a balding man in a green duffel coat’ eventually made the successful bid; as revealed later, he was acting on behalf of the Regimental Museum, acquiring the medals for them at the sale price of £18,500. The medal set comprised the VC, MC, 1914 Star and Bar, BWM, BVM(MID), Order of St George (Russia) and 1937 Coronation Medal. The Regimental Museum holds ten of the fourteen VCs won over the years by men of the RWF.
J.H. TOMBS
Near Rue du Bois, France, 16 May
A second VC was awarded on 16 May when L/Cpl Joseph Tombs, 1st Bn, King’s (Liverpool) Regt (6th Bde, 2nd Div.), put the lives of wounded men before that of his own. The battalion was on the right of 6th Bde in assembly trenches a few yards north-west of Rue du Bois and 400 yards to the right of the Cinder Track which ran at right angles from the road (see map on page 147). These assembly positions were 500 yards behind the front line, which was held by 1/7th King’s, one of the battalions that advanced when a surprise attack began at 23.30 hours on 15 May. There was no artillery support as the leading companies moved silently across the 300 yards of no-man’s-land and on 6th Bde front the attack was successful, and most of the German front line taken. The 5th Bde on its left was less fortunate and only a small section of the allotted trench was captured.
The 1st King’s moved two companies forward by 01.00 hours and prepared to advance with the remaining companie
s at 03.30 hours, the planned time for the next phase of the attack. The first platoon of B Coy attempted to cross no-man’s-land but was mown down by enemy machine-gun fire from the right; the second platoon suffered a similar fate before it could be stopped from going forward. The remaining platoons were ordered not to advance. The enemy commenced an artillery bombardment on the British front and communication trenches which inflicted many casualties on the battalion and this bombardment continued, with varying intensity, throughout the day.
No-man’s-land was littered with dead and wounded men when No. 10973 L/Cpl Tombs was given permission to leave the front line and assist the wounded. As many of the men were from his own B Coy he had an additional incentive to help them. He climbed over the battalion’s parapet and ran to the nearest wounded man whom he helped back to the line, at one point carrying the man on his back. Within a few minutes Tombs repeated his journey with a second man amid heavy enemy fire, and then went back across the ground between the lines to where another injured man was calling for help. It was some time before Tombs was seen making his way back from his third rescue attempt; this man was seriously wounded and Tombs had used rifle slings around his own neck and under the man’s arms to drag him back. In total he rescued four men while under fire the whole time, and was wounded himself, hit in the stomach by shrapnel.
The 1st King’s were in action again on the next day when an attempted attack on a forward position resulted in heavy losses for the company involved. On the night of 19 May the battalion was relieved, by which time its casualties totalled over 650, including 14 officers.
Tombs was recommended for an award by his CO, and the London Gazette on 24 July published his VC citation, but incorrectly dated the action as 16 June 1915. He was later promoted to corporal and with that rank was presented with his medal by the King at Buckingham Palace on 12 August 1915. Only two other soldiers were presented with the VC this day; Private Henry May, 1st Bn The Cameronians and Private William Mariner, 3rd KRRC (see page 166).
Joseph Harcourt Tombs was born in Melbourne, Australia, on 23 March 1888, and was the son of an army officer. He was educated at the Naval College, Williamstown, before the family moved to England where he continued his education at King’s School, Grantham, Lincs. (was Grantham Grammar School until 1909), from 1902 to 1906. According to a newspaper interview in 1929, Tombs stated that he ran away from home when he was 13 and sailed to Hobart on Inverest, a windjammer, and was employed in a variety of jobs including a short period in Peru as a mercenary before working on steamers along the west coast of South America. He made his way to Philadelphia in the United States after involvement on the Panama Canal in a dredger, before returning to England. Employed at the works of Joseph Crosfield & Son on their wharf in Warrington, he lodged at 17 Rowley Lane, off Church Street. Tombs next worked at the British Aluminium Company at Bank Quay as a sheet metal roller.
On 5 March 1912 Tombs enlisted in the King’s (Liverpool) Regt when it was stationed in barracks at Warrington; when war began the battalion was stationed at Aldershot and landed in France on 13 August 1914. It is not certain that Tombs went to France with his battalion for a letter was received from him by a Warrington newspaper in January 1915 when he was part of a Mobile Field Force based on the east coast of Scotland. At about this time he spent some time in Craigleigh Military Hospital so it is possible he had been in France but had returned to England, wounded. He rejoined his battalion in February 1915 and was with it on 10 March when heavy casualties were incurred in a diversionary attack at Givenchy.
When news of Tombs’s gallantry was published in Warrington newspapers, prior to the publication of his citation, doubt was raised over his identity. Mr Stewart, an official from the British Aluminium Company, corresponded with Tombs and in a letter Tombs replied:
I am pleased to say I am the Tombs referred to in the papers. My Commanding Officer did send for me the other day and told me he’d recommended me for the VC.
It appears that Mr Stewart was not completely convinced he had the right man, for in a later letter Tombs again confirms he is the right man, and giving the names of his CSM and company commander who could be contacted for verification. In this letter Tombs also advised of his promotion to corporal.
Tombs returned to Warrington unexpectedly on 28 July and, accompanied by Mr Stewart, visited the offices of the Warrington Guardian, British Aluminium Company and the mayor before he was ‘sent away from the town for a brief rest’. He was given a public reception in Warrington on 31 July, followed by a procession through the town where he was cheered by large crowds. Tombs was later presented with an illuminated address and after a few days embarked on a recruiting campaign in Liverpool, St Helens, and Bolton. He continued with recruiting after his investiture and on 25 August was awarded the Order of St George 4th Class (Russia).
Tombs returned to his battalion and later received a wound which necessitated the removal of a toe on his right foot. During 1916 he was transferred to 54th Anti-Aircraft Coy, RGA, and served as a gunner on the Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CPR)’s liner Minnedosa for a time. He was discharged from the Army in January 1920 with the rank of corporal, his last posting being with the Woolwich Ordnance School where he trained as a mechanic.
He emigrated to Canada in 1921 after working on several CPR ships, including the Minnedosa, and was employed in the mailing department of the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada at Montreal, where in 1928 he was promoted to the post of special messenger.
Tombs married Minnie Sylvia Gooding in 1925 and together they attended a VC reunion in Canada organized by Lt-Col. W.H. Clark-Kennedy VC, and in November 1929 attended the VC Parade and Dinner in London. The CPR arranged free return transport to England on one of their ships, the ubiquitous Minnedosa, and Tombs’s sister was waiting at the dock in Liverpool to welcome her brother.
Tombs was a guest at the banquet in Montreal in honour of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1939. On 4 January 1940 he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and served for five years at the Flying School, Trenton, Ontario, and was discharged with the rank of sergeant. During his service Tombs gave notice to his employers and after his return to civilian life was hospitalized several times. He never fully recovered from an operation to remove shrapnel from his stomach in 1952 and suffered a stroke in 1964, after which he was confined to bed. Tombs lodged with Mrs Frederica Johnson and her family, including Tombs’ nephew William Wheaton and his daughter Sheila, on Second Avenue, Toronto, during his Air Force service and stayed on after the war.
Tombs died on 28 June 1966 and was interred in the War Veteran’s Plot, Section K, 1056, Pine Hill Cemetery, Toronto, on 2 July. The funeral was organized by Major Geary VC, who also won his medal in 1915 (see page 72), in conjunction with the Royal Regt of Canada which was affiliated with the King’s Regt. His six medals, comprising the VC, 1914 Star, BVM (MID), BWM, Merchant Marine Medal and Order of St George 4th Class (Russia), lay on a velvet cushion on the coffin throughout the service, and a 22 man guard of honour was provided by the Royal Regt of Canada.
After the funeral, Mrs Johnson’s granddaughter, Mrs Sheila Wallace, who had grown up in the house with the quiet-spoken man known to her as ‘Uncle Joe’, told a reporter, ‘He hardly ever talked about the war. He hated it. He lost too many of his friends who never came back.’ Joseph Tombs’ VC and medals were inherited by his nephew William Wheaton, and on 27 October 1966, at a ceremony in the City Hall at Toronto, the medals were presented to the Royal Regiment of Canada. It was agreed that as an affiliation existed between the Royal Regiment of Canada and the King’s Regt, the medals would be shared between the two regiments and consequently have travelled between Canada and England on numerous occasions. At the time of writing it is planned that a memorial blue plaque be unveiled in honour of L/Cpl Joseph Tombs VC at The King’s School, Brook Street,Granthamon 17 May 2011. A similar plaque will be unveiled at the same time to Captain Albert Ball VC DSO MC
J.G. SMYTH
&nb
sp; Near Richebourg l’Avoué, France, 18 May
The only British officer in the Indian Army to win the VC on the Western Front in 1915 was Lt Smyth (15th Ludhiana Sikhs, Sirhind Bde, Lahore Div.) at the Battle of Festubert.
During the night of 17 May the Sirhind Bde took over part of the line held by 2nd Div.; relief was very difficult as communication trenches were knee-deep in water and blocked with wounded. One company of 15th Ludhiana Sikhs under Lt Hyde-Cates and one company of 1st Highland Light Infantry (HLI) moved forward under cover of darkness and relieved men in 200 yards of captured trench 500 yards south-east of Rue du Bois and to the right of the Cinder Track (see map on page 147). The ground between the front line and this isolated trench was near where L/Cpl Tombs had won his VC a few hours earlier, and Smyth later described this scene as ‘littered with the unburied dead of many battalions, stinking to high heaven’.
Enemy attacks on the captured trench, known later as the Glory Hole, began early in the morning and efforts were made to supply the two forward companies with further ammunition and bombs. Two separate parties were sent forward by the HLI but were shot down before they covered half the distance; the same fate befell groups sent back by both of the forward companies.
Smyth watched these attempts from the front line parapet over 250 yards away and, as bombing officer, was not surprised when his CO, Lt-Col. Hill, asked if Smyth could get a party across to the beleaguered position as Bde HQ was demanding that assistance be sent. Smyth told him he did not think it was possible but would try if ordered. Hill failed to persuade Bde HQ to cancel the order, and Smyth’s company commander, Maj. Hughes, a ‘stickler for discipline’, begged him to disobey the order but he refused.
VCs of the First World War 1915 The Western Front Page 15
