Hero schoolboy soldier who rushed into a hail of bullets VC winner went from hell of Western Front to near destitution
DREAD is a rare emotion for today’s teenagers. It usually begins and ends with impending school exams.
But Roland Edward Elcock endured dread and fear on a daily basis.
At just 15 years old, he was engaged in hard fighting on the front in World War I.
After one battle, Elcock was one of less than a dozen comrades left to answer the roll-call in his 6th South Staffs Regiment company.
Now 100 years after Elcock earned a Victoria Cross – his home city of Wolverhampton has honoured their hero.
A memorial paving stone was unveiled and the first wreath laid by Wolverhampton mayor Councillor Phil Page.
Wreaths were also placed by Elcock’s grandchildren, Dominic Owen and Christine Kinsella.
Elcock’s story is one of incredible bravery and nearhomelessness. He enjoyed the highs of being Wolverhampton’s only VC hero and endured the lows of financial disaster.
In fact, Elcock felt so disappointed over what he perceived as a snub by his home town that he moved to India.
In 1939, Roland joined the Indian Army as a major, but illness prevented him seeing active service in world War Two. That mystery illness would eventually claim his life on October 6, 1944.
Elcock was educated at Causeway Lake Infant and Junior School before finding work as a junior clerk at the Labour Assembly Rooms, Queen Street, Wolverhampton.
However, his focus was on one thing – joining up to fight for King and Country, as one of his three older brothers, George Henry Elcock, had already done.
Half a dozen times Roland attempted to enlist ; half a dozen times he was caught out by the army doctor.
One day, the exasperated recruiting officer even threatened to “put the policeman on his track”.
Undeterred, Elcock heard later that same day that a fresh doctor was in charge of examinations and he managed to get drafted into the 6th South Staffs.
After training at Himley Park, the battalion was sent to Egypt to provide protection for the Suez Canal.
After that, it was planned for the battalion to head to Gallipoli.
They never made it, instead being moved to the trenches of France, where they engaged in bloody fighting.
But in August 1916, top brass discovered Private Elcock was a child soldier and he was immediately discharged.
Returning to his home in Alma Street and his two sisters and widowed mother, he did clerical work at Wolverhampton Corporation Electricity Department until he was 17.
Roland was called up in June 1917 but told he could not rejoin his original regiment due to manpower shortages and sent to The Royal Scots (Lothian) Regiment, eventually joining its 11th Battalion.
He was sent to France in February 1917, and was immediately in the thick of the action.
In one of his first engagements, Elcock’s watch was blown off his hand.
In the summer of 1918, he was awarded the Military Medal, as had his brother George, a lance-sergeant in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
Before enlisting, George had been an assistant master at Fox Street School in Aston, and lived at 451 Lichfield Street, Aston.
With the end of the war in sight, many would have been forgiven for focusing on survival. Not Roland Elcock.
His medal citation explained later that he won the Victoria Cross: “For most conspicuous bravery and initiative south-east of Capelle St Catherine on the 15th October, 1918, when in charge of a Lewis gun team.
“Entirely on his own initiative, Cpl Elcock rushed his gun up to within ten yards of enemy guns, which were causing heavy casualties and holding up the advance.
“He put both guns out of action, captured five prisoners, and undoubtedly saved the whole attack from being held up.
“Later, near the River Lys, this non-commissioned officer again attacked an enemy machine gun and captured the crew. His behaviour throughout the day was absolutely fearless.”
Elcock’s commanding officer had been so impressed by the Black Country lad’s bravery that he had recommended him for the Victoria Cross.
In a letter, proud Roland told his family: “You ask me what I have been doing to get recommended again.
“Well, if I tell, you will fairly guess what I am going to get for it. So I will leave it till the decoration comes out.
“I am expecting the DCM but, as rumours go in the battalion, I am in for the VC. So I hope I get it.”
On hearing of the award, the Mayor of Wolverhampton, Councillor Jeffs, visited Elcock’s home to congratulate Roland’s proud mother.
In February 1919, Roland Elcock was one of six Victoria Cross recipients presented to the King, including Bilston-born George Onions.
The investiture at Buckingham Palace also involved over 320 other medal recipients, including Red Cross nurses.
The following month, in March 1919, Elcock was presented with “gifts from the townspeople” of Wolverhampton of £500 of War Savings Certificates and £30 in cash.
Then, on June 26, 1920, Roland was again at Buckingham Palace as one of 300 VC holders invited to a garden party.
On November 11, 1920, he was one of the VCs paraded at the new stone Cenotaph on Whitehall.
His brush with royalty did not end there, as one the King’s sons, the Duke of York, specifically requested to be introduced to Elcock during the 1922 royal visit to Wolverhampton. THE schoolboy soldier may have become a national hero – but back home in the Black Country civvy street was not paved with gold.
The Birmingham Daily Gazette of July 21, 1921, carried a shocking report : “Corporal Elcock, Wolverhampton’s only VC, is to be turned out of the home in Alma Street in which he was born and reared, for yesterday an ejectment order was obtained by the owner Edward Neachell, a dairyman, against the VC’s mother, Mrs Fanny Elcock, on the ground that occupation of the house was required for the cultivation of the adjoining land.
“In support a certificate from the County Agricultural Committee was produced.”
A month later, the Birmingham Daily Post revealed: “Wolverhampton’s only VC is just now the centre of a little episode which is engaging plenty of attention and, though there is the possibility of him being homeless very shortly, the public do not know whether to treat the case as a tragedy or a comedy.
“Corporal Elcock VC lives with his mother in Alma Street, the house in which he was born, but recently a new owner succeeded in an action for possession of the premises, under an agricultural clause, which did away with the necessity of offering alternative accommodation.
“In the few weeks at their disposal, Mrs Elcock found the house shortage as acute as ever, and looked like being turned on to the street with her VC son.
“A further short respite was secured, however, and meanwhile the case had been brought to the notice of the authorities, and the Housing Committee, stretching a point in such an exceptional case, offered the VC’s mother one of the new Corporation houses.
“Then came the anti-climax. This house proved so circumscribed that Mrs Elcock’s furniture, which is certainly not massive, would not go in, and now the police are trying to find someone who will exchange a suitable house for the new one offered by the Corporation.
“The time is nearly up, and so far no volunteer has come forward.”