Midland VC hero who captured 200 German prisoners Soldier won Victoria Cross for a remarkable example of courage in the First World War
GEORGE Onions’ heroism was the kind usually displayed in the movies. And on the big screen, the Black Country soldier’s daring deed would be considered too tall a tale to swallow.
With all the swagger of a Hollywood action hero, Lance Corporal Onions almost single-handedly captured over 200 Germans – then marched them back to his trench.
On August 22, 1918, the 35-yearold was sent out with Private Eades under the cloak of heavy fog at the Somme.
The pair, serving with the 1st Devons, were to act as scouts, searching for a battalion south of Achiet-lePetit who, hampered by poor visibility, had become separated from colleagues.
Onions and Eades fumbled in the thick fog until they came across an old, empty trench.
They crawled into the muddy crevice and waited to again move across open ground.
But before they could make their move, a “crowd of Germans appeared from nowhere” and jumped into the same trench.
They, too, were hopelessly lost : the Germans had been ordered to counter-attack a New Zealand division, but had become disorientated in the pea-souper.
Onions and Eades could have skulked silently to safety. Instead, they opened fire – with astonishing results. Without firing a shot in return, the Germans raised their hands in surrender.
In itself, that shows bravery above and beyond the call of duty.
Now consider the number of enemy soldiers wedged in that trench. One report put the strength of the enemy at “around 200”, another refers to 242, yet another refers to a 250-strong force.
Onions, from Bilston, formed the group into fours and marched them to the platoon officer.
Comrades at Battalion HQ were stunned to see the ranks of Germans, hands in the air, marching through the mist, Lance Corporal Onions leading the way, Eades keeping a watchful eye at the back.
This act of remarkable gallantry earned Onions the Victoria Cross for “magnificent courage and presence of mind”. Private Eades received the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
But it was an honour that came at a high cost. On the very same day that Onions earned the VC, he was injured in a gas attack and transported to Liverpool to convalesce.
During a visit to the 1st Battalion at Le Quesnoy on December 8, 1918, the King presented Onions with his medal. The award and citation were published in the London Gazette on December 11, 1918.
Onions was born on March 2, 1883, in High Street, Bilston, the son of ironworks manager Zachariah Webb and Amy Onions, from Edgbaston. He had six sisters and a younger brother.
Onions was only one year old when his mother died and his father married Jane M Farquhar in 1887.
According to the 1901 census, the family moved to Abersychan, Mon- mouthshire, Onions found assistant.
In 1904, George emigrated to Australia, where he met and married Florence Macfarlane Donaldson. They had a son, George Zachariah, born in 1909. The family later moved back to Scotland, eventually settling in Sale, Cheshire.
In 1915, Onions enlisted with the 3rd Hussars Reserve and served at Dublin’s Easter Rising of 1916. He later switched to the 3rd King’s Own Hussars Cavalry Regiment and was then attached to the 1st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment serving in Belgium and France.
After the war Onions served as a major in the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary which existed from 1920 to 1922. He then gained where work as 18-year-old a chemist’s work as publicity agent for the Colliery Guardian Company, who published a London journal,
In 1929 he attended the VCs dinner, hosted by the Prince of Wales at the House of Lords.
In 1936 he moved to Birmingham and three years later became a captain in the Royal Defence Corps attached to the Warwickshire Regiment. He resigned in 1941 due to ill health and died on April 2, 1944, in Dudley Road Hospital from complications following a car accident a few weeks earlier. At the time of his death, Onions was living at 4 Hagley Court, Hagley Road, and was a member of the Bilston-based South Staffordshire Home Guard.
He was buried at Quinton and his medals are on display at the Keep Museum in Dorchester.