DEEDS OF VALOUR

Evening Star, Issue 21319, 25 January 1933, Page 9

DEEDS OF VALOUR

RORKE'S DRIFT DEFENCE AWARD OF EIGHT V.G.'S LAST SURVIVOR’S DEATH Private John Williams, formerly of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Foot, now the South Wales Borderers, who died at Cwmbran, Monmouthshire, on November 25, at the age of 75, won the Victoria Cross in the Zulu War of 18 <9 for the gallant part he played in the defence of Rorke’s Drift on the night of January 22-23. Eight Victoria ' Crosses altogether were awarded for this affair,; and Mr Williams was the last survivor, Mr Williams was born at Abergavenny on May 24, 1857. His real name was Fielding, hut he took the name ot Williams when he ran away from homo to enlist in 1877. Rorke’s Drift was a post guarding the crossing on the Buffalo River on the road to Natal, and after the disaster of Isandlwana .it was held by about eighty men of the 24th. Regiment, under Lieutenant Brorahead, with a few volunteers and departmental officers, the whole under Lieutenant Chard, R.E. On January 22 news arrived that a strong force of the enemy was marching on Rorke’s Drift. It was a mission station consisting of two buildings standing about «30yds apart, at the time used as a hospital and containing a number of wounded and convalescent soldiers. For the defence a laager was formed by connecting the two small buildings by barricades 4ft_ high, constructed with bags of mealies and biscuit boxes. By ,an act of foresight which eventually saved the little force from complete annihilation the laager was divided into two by a transverse barricade, but owing to tlie shortage or time part of the barricade in one halt of the laager had to be left uncompleted.

SERIOUS DEFECT IN THE DEFENCE.

It was at this point that the fiercest fighting took place, the mission orchardadjoining this gap affording cover to the enemy. But a more serious defect m the defence was the fact that the exits of the two mission buildings forming the two ends or extensions of the. laager faced the enemy, and not the laager. With the exception of a small window, opening on the laager, no communication was possible between the hospital inmates and their comrades. Private John Williams and two other men m charge of three patients were posted in one of these isolated rooms. For an hour the door of this room was held against the enemy, while Williams made a hole in the partition with a pickaxe. At length the Zulus forced , the door and dragged out Williams’ two corn* rades and a patient, killing all three. Meanwhile, Williams had succeeded nt getting through the hole in. the wall the other two patients into the next room, where he joined Private Henry Hook, of the same regiment, who had six wounded men under his care. Three rooms still lay between the pursued and their refuge, all of which had to ha entered in a similar manner—namely, by Williams’s pickaxe, while Hook covered the retreat. Meanwhile, tha Zulus had set fire to the roof of the building,-filling the interior with smoke, which made escape still more difficult, VALUE OF THE PICKAXE. Finally the last room that separated the Zulus from the laager was reached, and here the defenders found their only means of exit was through the small window already mentioned. By aid of the pickaxe this opening was sufficiently enlarged to allow Williams to assist tha patients through into the laager, foL lowed hy the galaat Hook, who had all along covered their retreat. Private Williams was discharged front the Reserve in 1893, but rejoined fop the duration of the war, serving at tha depot at Brecon. He was at the dinner of Y.C.’s organised by the British Legion on November 9, 1929, at which the Prince of Wales was present. Of the other V.C.’s of Rorke’s Drift, Lieutenant (afterwards colonel) Chard died in 1897; Lieutenant (afterwards major),, Bromhead in 1891; Privata Henry Hook, later in the service of the British Museum, in 1905; Privates William and. Robert Jones, who were in another ward of the hospital, after 1920 and in 1898 respectively'; and Corporal William Allen and Private Frederick Hitch, who maintained communicationwith the hospital, in 1890 and 1916 re. gpectiveJi,