“V.C.” Hughes

On the 24th of June 1916 , the Battle of the Somme began with the British bombardment of the German lines. At the end of this first day , the British Army had suffered 60,000 casualties of which almost 20,000 were fatalities. A Slaughter of men. As the First Battle of the Somme ended in November 1916, each side was preparing for a new offensive in 1917. The British dead on the Somme in the four months since the 1st of July, amounted to 95,675. The French ‘Somme’ toll was 50,729. The total number of Allied dead on the Somme was 146,404. The German death toll was 164,055.

A war correspondent of the ‘Daily Chronicle’ reported:

 “The charge of the Irish troops through Guillemont was one of the most astonishing feats of the war, almost too fast in its impetuosity … a wild and irresistible assault.” 

The Irish troops the reporter was talking about were in fact the 6th Battalion of the Connaught Rangers. A second Victoria Cross for bravery was won by the Irish that day. It was awarded to a Connaught Ranger by the name of Private Thomas Hughes from Coravoo, Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan. His Battalion went over the top screaming and charging at the German lines.

 “A piper went with them blowing as if his cheeks would burst, though pathetically nothing could be heard of the pipes above the screeching din.” 

Private Hughes won his Victoria Cross for taking a German machine gun post while injured in the leg and returning with the German machine gunners as prisoners. The attack on Guillemont was a success in terms of gaining their objective. Over three hundred German prisoners were taken. However, out of an Irish Division of 2,400 men, 1,147 were killed, wounded or missing .

Hughes, a member of the 6th Connaught Rangers, was awarded the V.C. for his actions during the fighting near the village of Guillemont. His citation was published in the London Gazette on October 26, 1916:

Private Hughes own account of the incident simply states :-

 “On the 3rd of September we went over the top. After being hit in four different places, I noticed a machine-gun firing in the German lines. So I rushed up, shot both the chaps on the gun and brought it back. I remember no more until I found myself down in the dressing station. P.S., I forgot to mention I brought four German prisoners with the gun”. 

Rowland Fielding a commanding officer with the Connaughts at Guillemont wrote to his wife,

 “We have our tails up today because we have just heard that Private Hughes, of this battalion, has been awarded the V.C. for his behaviour at Guillemont. It is something to have a V.C. belonging to your battalion!”. “On Sunday of last week there took place in Hyde Park, in full view of a London crowd, a ceremony which was at once very simple and very grand, when the King invested some 350 men with the honours they had won for gallantry and good service during the war. There on the grass and among the trees of Hyde Park the memories of months of selfless devotion walked visibly as in a long procession. The men who had done "great and noble service to their country" received from the King the large and eternal thanks of the Empire. Simple though the investiture was, there was enough to fire the imagination. One by one these men - or, in a more touching moment still, their relatives - came forward, saluted, and went their way again, lost to sight at once in the crowds. One by one, as the slight figures in khaki or blue separated themselves from the small company in front of the dais, ascended the sloping ramp, and stood isolated for a moment before their King and their own people, there was a tense moment which was very keenly felt.

The wounded soldier who is being decorated by the King is Private Thomas Hughes of the Connaught Rangers. Private Hughes won the Victoria Cross at Guillemont on September 3 of last year. He was wounded in an attack but returned to the firing line. Later, seeing a hostile machine-gun, he dashed out in front of his company, shot the gunner, and captured the gun single-handed. Though again wounded, Hughes brought back several prisoners”.

Thomas Hughes was promoted to the rank of Corporal and survived the Great War. Once released from military duty he returned to his native place in County Monaghan. But Ireland had had its Easter Rising, its War of Independence and was now poised on the brink of Civil War. The Ireland Thomas returned to saw little merit in his achievements, an emerging nation still working out its relationship with its closest neighbour and former coloniser. He became a hill farmer and faded quietly from the public eye .His tombstone reads :-

Thomas Hughes V.C.Born 10th Nov. 1885, died 4th Jan. 1942Erected by his family and old comradesIn the british legion“For Valour” 

However, with the cessation of violence in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Peace Accord. Annually now the Irish Government commemorates the Irish War Dead in all wars past and present and with the approach of the centenary of the Great War shortly in 2014, a new awakening to the Irishmen who fought in the Great War is dawning. Thus our “Forgotten Hero” is remembered a-new !

Obituary

Lt. Col. Victor Anderson Haddick M.B.E. who died yesterday at Donaghadee Co. Down was the last man to wear the badge and regimental title of the Old Leinster Regiment which was disbanded 28 years ago. Lt. Col. Haddick was born in 1886 in the Donaghadee district and joined the Prince of Wales Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadian) in 1908, being commissioned in 1914. He saw service in France where he was wounded. In 1915 he took part in the Australian landing at Gallipoli, where he was also wounded. After his recovery he went to the West Frontier of India. He returned to Ireland in 1922 when he received a staff appointment. The Leinster Regiment was disbanded in November 1922 and all the officer’s and men except Lt. Col. Haddick were transferred to other regiments. Lt. Col Haddick retired and was since a one-man regiment as he was still in the Leinster’s. In 1924 he took part in an expedition to Mount Everest. In the Second World War, he was asked to return to the army and commanded the Army Mobile Information Unit until his retirement last April 1950.

Source

Irish Times 1^st June 1950

From Lighthouse Service to War Service

A number of employees of the Commissioners of Irish Lights served with the armed forces during the First World War. Their roll of honour has previously appeared in this journal (Journal 79 – December 2007). Behind the names of each man listed is a unique story of wartime service. Two of these were colleagues, comrades and friends William H. Sargaison and Arthur John England.

William Henry Sargaison joined the Commissioners of Irish Lights in 1912, working as a clerk in their Dublin office. He was born in Portadown, County Armagh, one of five children of Walter and Elizabeth Sargaison. He had received his education at Mountjoy School, Dublin and at Saint George's School, London. With the outbreak of the Great War Sargaison enlisted as a Private (No. 14195) in the 7th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers on the rugby pitch in Landsdowne Road Dublin and served with “D” Company, also to become known as 'The Pals'

The 7th (Service) Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers was formed at Naas in August 1914 as part of Kitchener's First New Army and was attached to the 30^th Brigade in the 10^th (Irish) Division. Whilst the Battalion was being formed, one Company, D Company, was filled by men of professional backgrounds, and many from a rugby playing background. Stationed at The Curragh and later in the Royal Barracks in Dublin, they trained in trench warfare in the Phoenix Park, and in musketry at Dollymount beach. The Battalion then moved to Basingstoke, Hampshire in May 1915.

When the Battalion reached camp in the Basingstoke area, they underwent training for the next three months and during that time the Division was inspected by King George V on 29 May 1915 at Hackwood Park and by Field Marshal Lord Kitchener on 1 June 1915. The divisional order to be in readiness to serve overseas at Gallipoli arrived on 27^th June 1915. Sargaison and the 7^th Battalion embarked on the “Alaunia” at Devonport at about 7am on Saturday 10^th July 1915. They arrived at Alexandria, Egypt 10 days later and the next day sailed on for Mudros Bay on the island of Lemnos where they arrived on 24^th July. The following day they set sail for Mitylene where the Battalion was kept on board for a week until it was joined by the 31st Infantry Brigade.

On 6^th August the 7^th Battalion was transhipped to HMT Fauvette and departed for Suvla Bay in Gallipoli, arriving at 4am the next morning, they disembarked on 7^th August 1915. Off the coast of Gallipoli they could hear the sound and see the flash from the Turkish guns, shells bursting, men landing from the lighters and stretcher bearers bringing down and collecting wounded on the beach. The whole bay was quivering with the vibration. On landing they had to get past the stretcher bearers, wounded, dying and dead, and they took cover under a cliff mixed in with the Inniskilling Fusiliers. Some respite came at nightfall, as the Turks were, for the moment, driven back over the summit. The battalion was immediately involved in the attack on Chocolate Hill on 7^th August and held it until the 12^th. Sargaison had been appointed Lance Corporal on the day of the Suvla landing and just over a week later was promoted to Corporal. This was probably as a result of the action at Chocolate Hill, he being promoted either for some specific act, or due to casualties.

From 13^th to 15^th August the Battalion was involved in the battle for Kizlar Dagh. Initially in the reserve the 7^th Battalion would be called upon on the night of the 15^th to advance due to the failure of the 31^st Brigade to secure the summit. The 7^th must have been near the summit of Kirectepe on the northward seaward slope during the night of the 15^th to 16^th. That night the Turks attacked heavily especially by throwing bombs from the southern slope over the crest of Kirectepe. Some efforts were made to dislodge the Turks but were all unsuccessful as they had to cross the crest in full view. The next night the entire brigade withdrew from the position near the ridge and took up their original positions at its base, with the 7^th once again going into reserve. During the night of the 15^th to 16^th the battalion had lost 11 officers and 54 men killed or wounded and 13 missing, and it is easy to understand the aforementioned possibility as to why Sargaison was rapidly promoted to Corporal. The 7^th would hold the base of the Kizlar Dagh right through to the Battalion's withdrawal from Gallipoli on 29^th September 1915.

Another Battalion then serving at Gallipoli was the 5^th Battalion Connaught Rangers, which itself had landed at ANZAC Cove on 6^th August 1915. For the next seven weeks the Rangers fought desperately in the heat and misery of the Gallipoli Peninsula taking part in the actions at Lone Pine, Sari Bair, Hill 60 and Kabak Kuyu. Two all out attacks on the Turkish strong points on Hill 60 on 21^st and 28^th August, resulted in very heavy casualties for the Battalion, during the Gallipoli campaign they suffered over 70% casualties, 686 officers and men were either killed, wounded or taken prisoner. They were also withdrawn from Gallipoli to Lemnos on 29^th September 1915 it was into this unit that Sargaison was commissioned in the field as a 2nd Lieutenant on 14^th September 1915. Subsequently he was almost immediately promoted to Temporary Captain on 24^th September, an appointment he held through to 14^th October by which time the 5^th Battalion had landed in Salonika.

Sargaison came to Salonika in northern Greece as part of the British Salonika Force which had the objective of assisting Serbia. On 6^th October 1915 a combined German and Austrian Army had launched a full scale invasion of Serbia from the north of the country. Two days later a Bulgarian Army assisted the invasion by attacking Serbia from the east. The Serbian Army were no match for the combined invasion force and were soon in full retreat and needed assistance from the Allies. Greece still officially a neutral country allowed the British to use Salonika as a base from which to prepare their operations to cross into Serbia. After a month of training in atrocious weather conditions the 5^th Battalion Connaught Rangers as part of the 10^th  (Irish) Division, crossed the Greek frontier into the snow covered mountainous region of southern Serbia.

On 7^th December 1915 a huge army of Bulgarian troops overran the frozen trenches occupied by the 10^th Division near the village of Kosturino. The main thrust of the attack fell upon the part of the line being held by the 5^th Connaught Rangers. In the fierce battle which followed, the Rangers sustained massive losses and were forced to retreat into Greece. 138 officers and men of the 5^th Battalion were killed in action at Kosturino and a further 130 were taken prisoner of war. 2^nd Lieutenant Sargaison being reported as one of those killed in action, being killed by a high explosive shell in the prelude to the assault which overran the Rangers’ trenches. His body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Doiran Memorial, situated at Lake Doiran in the north of Greece. He was aged just 22.

Another man from Portadown working as a clerk for Irish Lights was Arthur John England. He would have undoubtedly known William Sargaison well and was born in 1894. He also enlisted in D Company 7^th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers (No. 14152). Prior to the departure of the battalion from the Royal Barracks in Dublin he commissioned a photographer to capture images of the men as they prepared to leave. 

These photographs would be the last taken of many of these men and the remarkable set of images survive to this day. England’s war story follows an extremely similar path to Sargaison through the Gallipoli campaign and into Salonika although England stayed with the 7^th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He was commissioned as an officer in May 1916 but was sent home three months later on account of ill health and relinquished his commission in November 1916. Lucky to survive the campaigns which had claimed the life of his colleague, Arthur John England returned to Irish Lights and rose to the position of Secretary with the Commissioners. He passed away on the 2 September 1973 aged 79 years and was interned in Northern Ireland. 

Remembering the SS Hare and SS Adela

Victim relatives, local historians, and community groups from the Dublin Docklands area are working together to commemorate later this year the centenary of the World War One sinking of two Dublin ships. On 14 December 1917 the SS Hare, best remembered as the ship that brought food packages from British trade unionists to starving Dublin workers during the 1913 Lockout, was sunk by the German submarine U-62 east of Howth Head, Co. Dublin, while en-route from Manchester to Dublin Port with the loss of eleven members of the twenty-one man crew. The SS Adela was sunk by the German submarine UB-100 twelve miles east of Skerries, Co. Dublin, with the loss of twenty-four lives on 27 December 1917 while en-route from Dublin Port to Liverpool. The group plans to erect memorial plaques on Dublin’s North and South Quays, hold memorial services for the victims and produce a publication recalling the sinking of these two ships. It is also intended to provide a programme of talks to local schools and the general public and to mount an exhibition. 

by Richard Doherty

From THE IRISH NEWS, Belfast 21 March 1991