A DEED OF HEROISM

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2523, 31 July 1915, Page 6

A DEED OF HEROISM

HOW 'A V.C. WAS WON. By 'relegrapl—Press Association—Copyririt 1 London, July 29. An officer of the Headquarters St-afiE of the Indian.; Army Corps describes tlio deed of heroism for which Lieutenant Smyth of tho 15th Ludhiana Sikhs, was awarded the Victoria Cross. ' "It was necessary to send a bombing party from the reserve trench .to the front lino with two boxes of 1 bombs. The party had to cross 250 yards of absolutely open ground, the only possible shelter from the frightful fire being a broken down trench. At tho best of times it was hardly knee deep, and now in some places it was filled almost to the top with dead. "The party wriggled through the mud pulling the. boxes till it reaohed the. old trcnch. They attached their puggarees to the fronts of the. boxes and pulled them through tho dead bodies, all the party lying A at while the wholo ground was hissing from a deluge of rifle and machine-gun fire. "Four Sepoys were wounded in the first eighty yards, leaving seven, who crawled till just before tho end of the trench was reached, when only Smyth and a Sepoy, Lai Singh, were left. Two of the others had been killed and three wounded.. "Smyth and the Sepoy wore compelled to abandon the second box of bombs. Pulling and. hauling in the open they met an increased blast of fire. Soon they were confronted by a small stream, too deep to-wade, so they crawled ini full view of the enemy till they came to a fordable point. They struggled across with tho burden for a few yards, and reached our trench; "Both were untouched, though their clothes were perforated with bullets. "Shortly after, Lai Singh was killed in tho trench."