War Story: VC
Peter Duckers reveals the story of a Private who won the Victoria Cross in the deserts of Palestine
Peter Duckers reveals the story of a Private who won the Victoria Cross in the deserts of Palestine in WWI.
This particular War Story can be told because the recipient’s Victoria Cross and associated militaria are on display at the Shropshire Regimental Museum located in Shrewsbury Castle.
Prior to 1914, the King's Shropshire Light Infantry had won five VCs. All were to officers and men of the old 53rd (Shropshire) Regiment and all were for gallantry in the Indian Mutiny. During WWI, although greatly expanded, the KSLI won no VCs and neither did the Shropshire Royal Horse Artillery. This meant that the only VC to be awarded to a soldier of a Shropshire regiment was that conferred upon Private Harold Whitfield of the Shropshire Yeomanry. Amalgamated with the Cheshire Yeomanry and converted to infantry in Palestine in 1917, it served as the 10th (Shropshire and Cheshire Yeomanry) Battalion, KSLI, in 1917-18 - so both the Yeomanry and KSLI can claim his VC!
Harold Edward Whitfield was born in the Shropshire market town of Oswestry in June 1886. Like his father before him and many of his rural colleagues, Whitfield enlisted in the Shropshire Yeomanry (in 1908) and went on to serve after World War I, reaching the rank of Squadron Sergeant Major before retirement in 1936, after 28 years service.
He was working on the family farm, Pool Farm at Middleton, near Oswestry, when war broke out in August 1914 and the Yeomanry was mobilised. Only four days later they left Shropshire ready for active service but to their disappointment were to spend the next two years in the UK as part of the eastern coast defence forces. It wasn’t until 3 March 1916 that they were posted to Alexandria in Egypt.
Their first active service came in the scorching heat of the Western Desert of Egypt, based at Minia camp during the Senussi Campaign of 1916. Losing a few men as volunteers to the Imperial Camel Corps, the SY became part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force advancing across the Suez Canal into Palestine in November 1916 and played a full part in Allenby's campaign to liberate Jerusalem and drive the Turks northwards out of Palestine. After being engaged in the Second and Third battles of Gaza in April and August 1917, the Shropshire
Yeomanry (by then designated 10th
KSLI) took part in the advance on Jerusalem - which fell in December 1917, to become the Christmas present Allenby had promised to Lloyd George.
By May 1918, the Shropshire
Yeomanry was part of the famous 74th Yeomanry (‘Broken Spur’) Division and was engaged in the advance towards Nablus, north of Jerusalem. On 7 March, the 10th KSLI was directed to attack Turkish positions at Selwad, as part of the larger battle of Tel Asur. After taking the Turkish positions there by the 9th, the 10th KSLI was ordered on the next day to seize the hill of Birj-el-Lisaneh to their north. Attacking Turkish defences soon after midnight, the 10th carried the position but was then subjected to extremely fierce counter-attacks and faced very severe fighting, which was to last nearly three hours. At one stage, the Turks appeared to be just about to turn the left flank of the British position when Private Whitfield launched himself into the action. Alone and on his own initiative, he attacked a Turkish machinegun post which was doing great damage. Killing or bayoneting the entire crew, he then turned the gun on the advancing Turks, driving them back singlehandedly. He then led grenade attacks against another nearby Turkish machinegun position and destroyed it, holding the advanced post until reinforced.
This individual initiative materially helped to break up the Turkish attack, though two others had to be defeated before the enemy was finally driven off and Birj-el-Lisaneh held. It was to be just about the last real action the 10th KSLI saw in Palestine; shortly afterwards, they were dispatched to France.
The award of the VC was announced in the London Gazette of 8 May, 1918: ‘For most conspicuous bravery, initiative and absolute disregard of personal safety. During the first and heaviest of three counter attacks made by the enemy on the position which had just been captured by his battalion, Pte. Whitfield, single-handed, charged and captured a Lewis gun which was harassing his company at short range. He bayoneted or shot the entire gun team and turning the gun on the enemy, drove them back with heavy casualties, thereby completely restoring the whole situation on his part of the line. Later he organised and led a bombing attack on the enemy who had established themselves in an advanced position close to our lines and from which they were enfilading his company. He drove the enemy back with great loss and by establishing his party in their position saved many lives and materially assisted in the defeat of the counter-attack.’
Promoted to Lance Corporal after the 10th KSLI landed in France on 7
May 1918 and to Sergeant on 10 May, Whitfield was decorated in the field with the ribbon of the Victoria Cross on 10 May 1918 by the General Officer Commanding the 74th Division and received the medal itself from King
George V in a ceremony of investiture in Leeds on 31 May 1918. Needless to say, he was welcomed as a local hero on his return to Oswestry on leave in
June 1918 and received civic honours and private gifts of all kinds. Recently, a commemorative plaque was unveiled on the house in Oswestry where he was born
A farmer and later a dairy worker in civilian life, Harold Whitfield was a familiar guest at many local functions and at regimental reunions and formal occasions in later years. Like many other winners of the VC, he was a modest, reticent and unassuming man who simply went about his daily work and never made much of his heroism or celebrity. It is sad to relate that he died in December 1956 at the age of 70 as a result of a road accident. He was hit by an Army jeep, of all things, whilst making his way home from work and was buried in Oswestry.
Sergeant Whitfield's Victoria Cross, the replica he often wore, his medal group, and the rifle and bayonet he used in the VC action are on public display in the Shropshire Regimental Museum in Shrewsbury Castle.