VC Action: William Herbert Anderson
VC (29 December 1881 - 25 March 1918) ,a Scot, was 36 years
old and an acting Lt-Colonel in the British Army, in the 12th
(S) Battalion, The Highland Light Infantry, during the First
World War when the following deed took place for which he
was awarded the VC.
The 12th and 18th Highland Light Infantry
went into action at Hardecourt, after two nights in the train
and a seventeen mile march. A defensive position had been
formed between Hardecourt and the Somme.
After three days of very heavy fighting,
by the night of the 24th March 1918, the enemy had reached
a line stretching from the village of Longueval, near Delville
Wood to a point on the eastern side of Curlu on the River
Somme. The 51st Brigade to the left were having a hard time
finding sufficient numbers of men to fill a one and half mile
gap which had opened up between V Corps and VII Corps. The
VII Corps therefore supplied men of the 1st Dismounted Brigade
to help form a defensive flank but even then the gap was not
adequately plugged and Germans could be seen streaming past
into Mametz Wood.
On 25 March 1918 at Bois Favieres, near Maricourt,
France, the enemy attacked on the right of the battalion frontage,
and succeeded in penetrating the wood held by our men. Owing
to successive lines of the enemy following on closely there
was the greatest danger that the flank of the whole position
would be turned. Grasping the seriousness of the situation,
Colonel Anderson made his way across the open in full view
of the enemy now holding the wood on the right, and after
much effort succeeded in gathering the remainder of the two
right companies. He personally led the counter-attack and
drove the enemy from the wood, capturing twelve machine guns
and seventy prisoners, and restoring the original line.
Later on the same day, in another position,
the enemy had penetrated to within three hundred yards of
the village and were holding a timber-yard in force. Colonel
Anderson reorganised his men after they had been driven in
and brought them forward to a position of readiness for a
counter-attack. He led the attack in person and throughout
showed the utmost disregard for his own safety. The counter-attack
drove the enemy from his position, but resulted in Colonel
Anderson losing his life.
Anderson's body was found where he had fallen,
together with some of his effects, which were sent home to
his wife. |
