MR EDEN IN WAR

Evening Star, Issue 22816, 26 November 1937, Page 7

MR EDEN IN WAR

“FEARLESS AS AN OFFICER" Lying helpless not many yards from the German trenches after a raid near Ypres in 1916 was an English soldier, badly wounded ... all the others had got back safely. Then it was found that one man was missing. . . . The officer in charge—he was only 19—set off with two or three of his men, and they dragged the wounded soldier to shelter. Since that day, the ‘ Morning Post ’ has recorded, the officer and the rescued man have kept up a correspondence. The officer is now Mr Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary, and the other Mr W. H. Harrop, a director of a Sheffield works, founder and chairman of the Sheffield branch of the Old Contemptibles’ Association, who has revealed how he was saved. Mr Eden was a subaltern in the King’s Eoyal Rifles and Mr Harrop was an n.c.o. Describing the adventure, Mr Harrop said that the general wonted a surprise raid on the enemy trenches, only 70yds distant, with a view to bringing back a prisoner or two so that the type of fighter in that sector would be ascertained. The spot was known to the soldiers as the “ Birdcage. Plug Street Wood.” They blacked their faces, as was the custom in raids of that kind, and lie rubbed black substance over Mr Eden’s face in readiness for the raid. They went over the top, but were spotted by the Germans, who opened

fire. Mr Harrop was shot in the left thigh. He was in hospital for two years, and has had 33 operations. “ Mr Eden was fearless as an officer,” Mi - Harrop said. “ Everybody liked him, and ho was popularly known as “ The Boy.’i