"I FUNKED IT."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 308, 30 December 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

"I FUNKED IT."

AIRMAN'S AMAZING CONFESSION. TRUTH ABOUT WAR HEROISM. (By H.A.8.) Captain H. H. Balfour. a member of the British House of Commons, has created a sensation by the frank confession that on one occasion be "funked it" in the war. and left a comrade to face the enemy alone. In an autobiography, dealing mainly with war service, he writes: — "One day while out on patrol with another 'plane we were attacked by two Fokkers, and my opponent could obviously out-manoeuvre me in every way. So I acted the complete funk, nnd ttirned my noso downwards in the direction of our lines. "My companion was fighting aoout two hiiles south of me. I told myself it was up to me to look after myself and up to him to look after himself, and with these temporarily comlortiiig sentiments I regained safety. My companion never returned, and when I looked back from the sanctuary of our lines I saw a small streak of flame falling earthwards which I knew must have been his 'plane on fire, defeated by the attacking Fokker." When interviewed by a London journalist Captain Balfour was remarkably frank about his confession. "The time has come," he said, "to tell the truth about courage in the Great War. There were, of course, many men who did not know what fear was. But there were many, many more, who were often afraid; I was afraid, and I admit it openly."

"Courage is .. matter of chemistry," he continued. "There were men who, simply because of the way they were made, never felt fear, but to my mind they were not the real heroes. The real heroes were the men who spent sleepless nights dreading the dawn patrol, or the zero hour they knew was near, and yet when the time came, forced themselves to do the job they were asked to do, even to the point of facing certain death." "No Sportsmanship in War." "War is not a game, and it can't be played by the rules of good sportsmanship," concluded Captain Balfour. "And yet, after all the lessons of those dreadful years, there are still people who sneer at the many whose nerve gave way in a moment of supreme stress. War is no longer the chivalrous business it is believed to have been once, and it seems to me that this fact needs to be rammed home to-day." Captain Balfour's frankness may or may not be considered desirable; h« may not have achieved much by telling the truth, but he has certainly done something to "debunk" one aspect of

the war. Any soldier of experience could tell of foolhardy daring which received the reward of real courage; of real merit and endurance which received no reward at all, and of conscientious application to dull and unnecessary detail which was simply laughed at.

To the mind of the writer come several instances which, being true, are interesting. For obvious reasons many ol the names cannot be mentioned, but every case can be authenticated. There was a German push on a sector near Hooge in 1016, and the most vulnerable part of the line was gallantly held by a Territorial battalion of a famous Midland regiment. Terribly battered, the last company was driven out of its line of tranches, and the last man of the last platoon was the lieutenant in command. He had burdened himself with a jar of rum, and became stuck in "the mud (quite near the jar) and also close to a case of Mills hand grenades. Helping himself to another stiff tot of rum, he pulled the pin out of a grenade, waited the necessary four seconds to allow tlu> fuse to burn down, and then hurled the grenade in the general direction of the enemy. Evidently it told, and he "repeated the mixture," as he himself expressed it. The traverse was blocked by German dead, and the enemy advance was held, up; When the British counter-attacked, Lieutenant was still there, in a very cheery mood', and well stuck in the mud. He had held a vital spot ill the line, and his reward was the Victoria Cross. Later he returned to France and was killed.

Now, the question arises, was his exploit a really courageous one, or was it mainly due to circumetancee, rum included? He himself admitted that he was "beautifully blotto,"' and belittled the whole affair, but, after all, it must be remembered that he was the last man to leave, or rather, not to leave the trenches. That he stuck in the mud, thai the alcoholic stimulant was handy, and that the case of bombs was near were all contributing factors, but he was doing his duty in seeing every man leave a hot corner before him.

■e L did not receive a decoration beh cause it would not have been desirable ; for the failure of the message to come i- to light. He did. however, receive the i- personal congratulations of his colonel, i- in front of the whole battalion, and y special leave was granted to him. He was another of the unlucky ones, being !- killed later ia the war. 1 Terror ana Desperation. There were many eases in which men 1 received a decoration for deeds which e were dimply the product of desperation, i Stuck in a tight corner, most men feel e first a sensatioif of fear and hopelessa" ue?s, but swift action (which near!v ' always ensued in war time), brings a revulsion of feeling, and so long as one e can hit back, the heat of battle banishes e fear. It is when one cowers under a e barrage with no chance of hitting back „ that one feels the weakest and most f trembling of mortals. How frail is our n little tenement of flesh and bone when 0 the "old iron" is flying about! This . elemental terror is admirably described f in that by 110 means entirely admirable ] . book, "All Quiet, on the Western Front." j r It is also vividly expressed by Siegfried l 5 Sassoon in one or two of his war poems. e Of cool courage there were, thank God, - many instances. Such a phrase can only e be used to describe the deed which won .. Colonel Frevberg, the Xew Zealander, his 1 V.C. at Gallipoli, for he had not the 1 heat of battle to stir his blood when he , swam through the enemy's lines. There 1 was cool courage, too. in the many cases 2 of men on night patrol, venturing out > to unknown peril in No Man's Land— J Through shining acres of the lnusket--1 spears, Where flame and wither, with swift intercease ■ Flowers of red sleep, that not the cornfield bears. Who wrote those lines, by the way? The author has never been able to trace them, even in the works of Francis Thompson, whose style they certainly suggest. As an "instance of the best type of courage one might mention the death of Colonel Hewitt, who commanded the 14th Hussars in Mesopotamia, and under whom the writer had the privilege of serving. The regiment had made a forced march .across the Euphrates desert to Ramadie, and the Hoichkiss gunners took up a position blocking the line along which the. enemy were expected to retire from the town. In the earliest hours of the morning the battle developed and Colonel Hewitt was mortally wounded whilst helping a machine gunner to clear a "stoppage." He need not have been : there at all, but he was a real soldier. When he was lying in the clearing station at Felujah he would not allow the hard-worked staff to waste time on him, but sent the orderly to attend to soldiers who had a chance of recovery. "And so Le passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other ■ side." The regiment gave him a soldier's funeral in a desert grave near Felujah, ( and years later he was permanently interred in the military cemetery at Bagdad, where the cross above the grave of General Maude, the Mcsopotamian Com- r mander-in-Chicf, towers above those of 1 his many comrades. In death they are not divided.

Now for a case in which true heroism did not receive the reward it deserved. A night patrol was going into Xo Man's Land from D Company, which held the right flank of a certain Service Battalion's line of trenches. The message that it was likely to be about near tlje front of the line should have been passed right along, but somehow or other it did not reach A Company at the other end, and when the patrol came back, opposite this company's lines, the machine-gun post thought the enemy was advancing. The Vickers gun opened up at short range, killing one man of the patrol outright, wounding the second severely, and hitting Corporal L , the third man, in both legs, below the knee. He fell on his hands and knees, got his wounded comrade on his hack, and crawled towards the British lines. Again the machinegun spat, and the corporal received another wound, but at last managed to gJt .noar enough to shout that lie was part of a friendly patrol. Corporal