DAVIDSON OF THE GUNNERS

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue 522, 18 May 1915, Page 7

DAVIDSON OF THE GUNNERS

SEVEN HOURS UNDER SHELL FIRE ON • CHURCH STEEPLE. The brave achievement which has won the title of "Davidson of the Gunners" for Second Lieutenant F. H. N. Davidson, of the 119 th Battery, R.F.A., is recounted by the Rev. Owen Watkins, a Wesleyan chaplain with the 14th Infantry Brigade, who writes : — The country was so flat that there was no possible point of vantage from which the gunners could observe except the steeple of the church m Lourges. But the church was being vigorously shelled by the Germans, and already no less than 12 lyddite shells had been pitched into it. Lieutenant Davidson calmly went to the church, climbed the,already tottering tower, and, seated chthe top, proceeded to telephone his information to the battery. In conse.uence German battery after German battery was silenced, the infantry, which at one time was m danger of e*xtermina,tion, was saved, and the position, m spite of an attack m overwhelming force of the enemy, wivs successfully held. For se-fren solid hours, expecting death every moment, Davidson calmly scanned the country and telephoned his reports. At dark his task was done. As he left the ruins ; a bullet passed through tlie back of his neck and out through .-'Ms mouth. But, without hurrying his nact. he walked to the battery, gave them his final information, -and then said: "I think I'd better go and find the field ambulance, for the beggars have drilled a hole m ma that needs plugging," and be walked half a mile to tha nearest " collecting point." In the infantry of the 14th Brigade men can talk, of nobody else but "Davidson oE the Gunners." They themselves face death every hour of the day and night, they themselves do unrecorded deeds of heroism worthy of the V.C, but with one voice they declare : " Davidson is the real thing. If ho doesn't get the V.C— well, nobody deserve, it."