Hero’s daring raid cut short First World War
HE is the Midland hero who snatched a cache of papers during a daring Great War raid – papers so important that they shortened the war.
More than that, they around half a million lives.
Ernest Rollings, a policeman on civvy street, unwittingly helped himself to plans outlining every German defence on the Hindenburg Line.
That act made Midland-born Rollings, born in 1893, a rich man because, 13 years after the deed, Lucy, Lady Houston – a well-known philanthropist of the day – gifted Rollings £5,000. Today, that windfall would be worth around £200,000.
Lady Houston wasn’t short of a few bob. She also financed a 1933 expedition to conquer Everest, which failed, and donated £100,000 to aviation company Supermarine to develop the Spitfire.
She, and this country, had every reason to be proud of quiet, unassuming Rollings.
Born in Hereford, the lieutenant, who served as a bobby in Neath, Glamorganshire, was brave to the bone. Welsh papers referred to him as “killing Germans by the score”.
But his August 8, 1918, behindthe-lines swoop on the German HQ surpassed anything Rollings saved achieved before – and earned him a second Military Cross.
He delivered such a hammer blow to the Kaiser that General Erich Ludendorff referred to the raid as a “black day for the German Army”.
His mission was to lead two armoured cars to the German nerve centre, ten miles from Amiens.
A member of a 17th (Armoured Car) Tank Battalion, Rollings grasped his Webley service revolver and burst through the door of the enemy HQ – a farmhouse at Framerville, nine miles behind German lines.
He found the rooms deserted and papers strewn all over the place. The 25-year-old grabbed as many sheets as he could.
It was years later that he learned that the bundle included detailed plans of the Hindenburg Line. Every machine gun nest, mortar battery and fortified position was revealed.
In 1931, the Sunday Express newspaper tracked down Rollings and told him of the true significance of his find.
“Our orders were short and to the point,” Rollings told the newspaper. “We were to wait behind the line until the Australians had made a break in it, then race through, search for all German headquarters, raid them for documents and shoot every German on sight.
“The Australians went over like men possessed and 15 minutes later we received the signal – they were through!
“Framerville was seven-and-ahalf miles away. In the distance we could see the German rearguard still retreating but fighting desperately.
“I knew that if the break in the line was filled, that would be the end of us. But I decided to make a bid for it and we raced at top speed along the Amiens-St Quentin road.
“We found we had to fight our way through the retreating Germans but they were completely disorganised and we killed them in scores.
“By noon we had fought our way through to Framerville, with the German rearguard behind us being dealt with by the Australians.
“I remember there were three steps leading to the door because I mounted them slowly, revolver in hand.
“What were my feelings when I walked into that farmhouse? I would be a very foolish man to say that I didn’t have any butterflies in my stomach.
“But my control over such occasions stood me in good stead, apart from the fact that, however fright- ened I may have been, I show it in front of my men.
“Besides, having got so close to my objective, I had to take the remaining few steps and damn the consequences.
“Turned out the German staff had fled a few minutes before. So complete was their panic that they had not stopped to burn their papers.
“I could not read German and, in any case, I had no time to read any of the documents, so every little torn-up scrap went into the sandbags.
“I recall making three journeys back to the car at the door with material I thought might be useful, even including the telephone!
“I didn’t go upstairs but made a daren’t thorough search downstairs, being quite satisfied to leave it at that.
“They were sent on to General Headquarters for examination and after that I heard nothing, except that I got a bar to my Military Cross.”
Rollings citation states simply: “He sent back reports of great value.”
“That was the last I heard about it until 1931 when the value of the documents I captured was revealed,” he said.
“They included a complete plan of the Hindenburg Line defences.”
His glittering Army career came to an end only days later.
He was shot in the head. Though he survived, he would never fight again.