Yorkshire VCs

Alan Whitworth

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781781599020
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: History Reference
• Index: History

Today the Victoria Cross remains the supreme British award for bravery. It takes precedence over all other awards and decorations. During its 160-year history, since the first of these medals were given for gallantry during the Crimean War in the 1850's, 1, 357 have been won, and no less than 69 of them have gone to Yorkshiremen. Alan Whitworth, in this carefully researched and revealing account, describes in graphic detail the exploits and the lives of this elite group of heroes.

Yorkshire Victoria Cross Holders

AARON, Arthur Louis [1943]

Rank/Service: Flight Sergeant; 218 Squadron, RAF Volunteer Reserve

Other Decorations: DFM (Gazetted 19 October 1943)

VC Location: Leeds City Museum

Date of Gazette: 5 November 1943

Place/Date of Birth: Leeds, Yorkshire; 5 March 1922

Place/Date of Death: Bone, North Africa; 13 August 1943

Grave: Bone War Cemetery, Algeria

Memorial: St Mary’s Church, Bexwell, Norfolk

Town/County Connections: Leeds, Yorkshire

Account of Deed: On 12/13 August 1943, during a raid on Turin, Italy, Flight Sergeant Aaron’s Stirling bomber was attacked by a night-fighter^a and very badly damaged, with one engine put out of action. The navigator was killed, and other members of the crew were wounded. Flight Sergeant Aaron’s jaw was broken and part of his face was torn away; he had also been hit in the lung and his right arm was useless. As he fell forward over the control column, the aircraft dived several thousand feet; control was regained by the flight engineer at 3,000 feet. Unable to speak, Aaron gestured to the bomb aimer to take over the controls. A course was then set southwards in an endeavour to fly the crippled bomber to Sicily or North Africa. Aaron was assisted to the rear of the aircraft and treated with morphine. After resting for some time he rallied and, mindful of his responsibility as captain of the aircraft, insisted on returning to the pilot’s cockpit, where he was lifted into his seat and had his feet placed on the rudder bar. Twice he made determined attempts to take control and hold the aircraft to its course but his weakness was evident and he was persuaded, with difficulty, to desist. Although in great pain and suffering from exhaustion, he continued to help by writing instructions with his left hand. Some five hours after leaving the target, and with the fuel tanks beginning to run low, the flare path at Bone airfield was sighted. Aaron summoned his failing strength to direct the bomb aimer in the hazardous task of landing the damaged aircraft in the darkness with its undercarriage retracted. Four aborted attempts were made under his direction; by the fifth attempt Aaron was so near to collapsing that he had to be restrained by the crew and the difficult landing was completed by the bomb aimer. Aaron died nine hours after the aircraft touched down.

Biographical Detail: Born in Leeds on 5 March 1922, Arthur ‘Art’ Aaron was the son of an Englishman, Benjamin Aaron, who had married a girl originally from Switzerland, who had come to Scotland before 1914 to work for the family of the Rector of Aberdeen University, Adam-Smith.

Educated at Roundhay School, Leeds, he won an art scholarship in 1939 and entered Leeds College of Architecture with a career as an architect in mind. Keen on both mountains and rock-climbing and flying, his first encounter with flight was as a boy with a short jaunt in one of Alan Cobham’s travelling aerial circuses near Penrith. He joined the Leeds University Squadron of the Air Defence Cadet Corps (later renamed the Air Training Corps (ATC)), and eventually enlisted in the RAF for pilot training on 15 September 1941. In early December Aaron was sent to the USA and began flying instruction at No. 1 (British) FTS, Terrell, Texas, graduating as a sergeant pilot on 19 June 1942.

Returning to England, Aaron underwent further advanced instruction at No. 6 (P) AFU and No. 26 OUT, before being sent to No. 1657 Heavy Conversion Unit (HCU) to acquire experience in handling the giant four-engined Short Stirling bomber. Finally, on 17 April 1943, Aaron joined his first operational unit, 218 Gold Coast Squadron based at Downham Market in East Anglia.

Promoted to flight sergeant on 1 May 1943, his constant aim was crew efficiency during operations, and to that end he insisted that all the crew members gained some knowledge and experience of one another’s jobs.

An early indication of Aaron’s streak of determination came on the night his aircraft was partly crippled by flak on the approach to an enemy target. Undeterred by the damage, which resulted in his Stirling being only partially controllable, he continued his sortie, bombed the objective and then brought his aircraft safely home. His actions that night in October 1943 earned him a Distinguished Flying Medal (DFM).

Arthur Louis Aaron was buried with full military honours in Bone Military Cemetery. On 25 February 1944 his parents received their son’s medals at an investiture at Buckingham Palace, and shortly afterwards Benjamin Aaron, his father, was present at a mass parade of ATC cadets in Wellington Barracks, London, where the ATC Commandant, Air Marshal Sir Leslie Gossage, read out the VC citation of their most distinguished ex-cadets.

Two years later, in August 1946, his parents’ home was burgled and all Aaron’s medals were stolen; after a police appeal, the medals were returned anonymously through the post. In December 1953 Benjamin Aaron presented his son’s medals to Leeds City Museum for permanent public display.

ALLEN, William Barnsley [1916]

Rank/Service: Captain (later Major); Royal Army Medical Corps, attached 246th (West Riding) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery

Other Decorations: DSO, MC and Bar

VC Location: Army Medical Services Museum, Mytchett

Date of Gazette: 26 October 1916

Place/Date of Birth: Sheffield, Yorkshire; 8 June 1892

Place/Date of Death: Bracklesham, Nr Chichester, Sussex; 27 October 1933

Grave: Earnley Cemetery, Bracklesham Bay, Sussex. ‘In loving memory of Joe William Barnsley Allen, VC, DSO, MC, MB, Ch.B, RAMC died 27th August 1933 aged 40 years. At Rest. Also of his dear wife Gertrude, died 28th July 1953, aged 59 years. In Peace’

Town/County Connections: Sheffield, Yorkshire; Hounslow, Middlesex

Account of Deed: On 13 September 1916, near Mesnil, France, when gun detachments were unloading high explosive ammunition, the enemy suddenly began to shell the battery position. The first shell fell on one of the limbers, exploded the ammunition and caused several casualties. Captain Allen at once ran across under heavy shell-fire and started attending to the wounded. He himself was hit four times by pieces of shrapnel, but he went on coolly with his work until the last man had been attended to and removed. He then went to tend a wounded officer and only then reported his own injuries.

Biographical Detail: William B. Allen was born in Sheffield on 8 June 1892 at 14 Botanical Road, Sheffield. His father Percy Edwin Allen was a successful commercial traveller, and his mother Edith was the daughter of Joseph Barnsley of Taptonville Crescent, Sheffield. His elder sister Edith was born on 27 July 1890 and his younger sister Barbara was born four years after him on 13 September 1896. The address for the family at the time of Barbara’s birth is given as 42 Southgrove Road, Ecclesall, Sheffield; sometime after this date the family moved to Endcliffe Vale Road.

William was educated at what was then St Cuthbert’s College, Worksop. In 1908, at the age of seventeen, he went to Sheffield University, graduating with an honours degree in June 1914. During his time at the University he was awarded the Gold Medal in Pathology (1913), the Kaye Scholarship for the highest marks in physiology and anatomy, and three bronze medals.

While at Sheffield University William was a member of the Officers’ Training Corps, and he is still honoured today there. Just off the main mess in the Somme Barracks in West Street, Sheffield there is an ante-room named the ‘Allen VC Room’, which proudly displays on the wall a framed photograph of William, his VC citation, and a copy of his VC and several of his other medals.

He joined the Royal Hospital as an assistant house physician but within weeks had enlisted with the 3rd West Riding Field Ambulance. In fact his date of enlistment is given in the records as 8 August 1914, four days after the outbreak of war. He was soon in France.

In May 1916, while on leave, he married at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, Mary ‘Mollie’ Young, the younger daughter of Mr W.Y. Mercer. In August 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross and ten months later, in June 1917, he was awarded a bar to the MC. He was invalided back to England the same month. In January 1918 he was appointed acting major but on 18 February 1918 he was transferred to the regular RAMC with the rank of captain, the rank he held at the conclusion of the war. In October 1918 he was wounded for the third time and sent back to England for the second time. This time he was awarded the DSO. Altogether he had served in France for three years and two months.

Hardly anything is known about William’s life after 1918, beyond the fact that he stayed on in the army. There are suggestions that he divorced his first wife Mary and married Gertrude Craggs in 1925. However, a court case in July 1932 in Chichester revealed a number of personal problems that William had faced in the intervening years.

He was charged, as Major Allen, with driving a motor car while under the influence of drink. His defence stated that Major Allen had ‘suffered as no other man in England had suffered’. He had been wounded in the chest and afterwards in the eyes. He was blind for a total of six months. In total he had been wounded seven times during the war. After the Armistice he went to India, where he contracted malaria and dysentery. On his return to England these diseases were exacerbated by bouts of sleeping sickness and pleurisy. He took to drugs and whisky to combat these ailments and by 1932, although he was no longer on drugs, he still took the whisky. Unfortunately, his defence had no effect whatsoever on the Bench; Major Allen was fined and had his licence suspended for five years.

William did not live to complete the ban. Thirteen months later Dr C.R. Sadler was called by phone at 7.15am to attend Major Allen. On arriving at the house he found him propped up in bed, unconscious, blue in the face and breathing very slowly. His pupils were dilated and he had an abnormal temperature. He died within half an hour of the doctor’s arrival. In contradiction to the evidence given in the court case a year earlier, the doctor knew that William was still taking drugs.

An inquest was held in Chichester on 28 August 1933, presided over by the Deputy Coroner for Chichester, Mr F.B. Tompkins. Dr Sadler confirmed that William was taking drugs – Veronal, opium and morphine – but he had no idea of the quantities. It appeared that he had overdosed on opium. The doctor confirmed that he had never heard William threaten to take his life and in his opinion he was not likely to do so. The coroner stated that he was given to understand that the major was in the habit of taking drugs straight from the bottle, without measuring the amount. In such circumstances an overdose could easily occur, and he recorded a verdict of accidental death.

However, the court case in June 1932 and the inquest in 1933 do not tell the whole story. Dr John Lunn, who had recently retired from the department of community medicine, pointed out that far from being in decline after the war, William was fine. An army colleague had met him on Armistice Day in Sheffield in November 1918 and recalled that William was his usual intelligent cheery self. The following year he gave evidence in a murder case involving the colonel of his unit, who had shot and murdered a fellow officer. The Times reported that his testimony was clear and concise. It appeared that he served in the army up until 1923, and then left to go into medical practice in Hounslow, London.

Dr Lunn, firmly believed that what ‘did’ for William Allen was encephalitis lethargica, or the after-effects of sleeping sickness. This disease was first diagnosed in 1918 by Arthur J. Hall, who was Professor of Medicine at Sheffield University. The symptoms are variable, but the illness usually starts with a high fever, headache and sore throat. Double vision, disturbance of eye movements, weakness of the upper body, tremors and strange movements, neck stiffness, intense muscle pains, a slowing of physical and mental response, drowsiness and lethargy soon follow. Unusual brain and nerve symptoms may occur, and the person’s behaviour and personality may change too. Occasionally they become psychotic, with extremely disturbed thinking. Sometimes the illness is mistaken for epilepsy, hysteria or even drug or alcohol abuse. As the body shuts down, patients become increasingly sleepy and some may lose consciousness, slipping into a coma that can last months or even years, which is why the disease is sometimes referred to as sleeping sickness.

William contracted the illness in 1924, but how he caught it is a mystery. The court case in 1932 refers to his service in India, where he certainly contracted malaria and dysentery, but even today the causes of the illness are not known. The condition is not curable and even now treatment is only targeted at supporting the person through their illness and dealing with symptoms as they occur.

William’s obituary appeared in The Times on 29 August 1933. In January 1933, a few months before his death, the London Gazette announced: ‘Major Allen, Royal Army Medical Corps, ceased to belong to the Reserve of Officers on account of ill-health.’

His parents Percy Edwin Allen and Edith Barnsley were married in the December quarter of 1889 (PRO REF Ecclesall Bierlow, vol. 9C, p. 477). Confirmation of his birth can be found in the PRO registers for the June quarter of 1892 (Allen, William Barnsley, Ecclesall Bierlow, vol. 9C, p. 455). William attended the Victoria Cross Reunion Dinner on Saturday, 9 November 1929 in the Royal Gallery, House of Lords, Palace of Westminster, London.

ANDERSON, Eric [1943]

Rank/Service: Private; 5th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment

VC Location: Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire, York

Date of Gazette: 29 July 1943

Place/Date of Birth: Fagley, Bradford, Yorkshire; 15 September 1915

Place/Date of Death: Akarit, Tunisia; 6 April 1943

Grave: Sfax War Cemetery, Tunisia

Memorials: Beverley Minster; St John’s United Reformed Church, Bradford

Town/County Connections: Bradford, Yorkshire

Significant Remarks: First stretcher-bearer in the Second World War to win a VC

Account of Deed: On 6 April 1943 A Company of the East Yorkshire Regiment made a dawn attack on a strong position on the Wadi Akarit in Tunisia, but very heavy enemy fire forced the Yorkshiremen to withdraw temporarily behind the crest of a hill ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Complete List of Yorkshire Victoria Cross Holders
• A Brief History of Modern British Campaigns
• Yorkshire Victoria Cross Holders
• Appendix
• Concise Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index