48027 Pnr W T Smith RE

[brianmorris547]

I noticed this recently. Pnr Smith is named in a Nominal Roll (Signals Co) in the December 1915 WD of 14 Div Commander Royal Engineers. He has a MM card showing the Award in the LG 09/12/1916. (LG 29854 p 12052) and he is named in the Routine Orders of 14 Div A&QMG dated 06/10/1916 along with four other Sappers from 14 Sigs Co who were also awarded the MM, 48044 Sgt R G Thompson, 48070 Spr F Lydiate, 48069 2/Cpl R Dickinson and 40483 Spr L N Lewis. All these men are named in the same LG. 

The WD of 14 Sigs Co records that a Sgt Thompson was wounded on 13/08/1916 and he is named in the Times OCL 16/09/1916 under RE wounded. It is likely however that the MMs were awarded for action during the Operations 13 to 17/09/1916 for which there is a report in the Sigs Co WD in which Sgt Thompson gets a mention. 

I then noticed that Pnr Smith was awarded a DCM in 1917 during an attachment with the RAF. (LG 19/10/1917 no 30346 p 10868). He was from Kensal Rise N W London. The Citation  (LG 25/01/1918 no 30495 p 1332) reads:

"Whilst acting as an aerial gunner to an Officer, having shot down an enemy machine, his own pilot was wounded and fell forward insensible over the control lever. Pnr Smith then climbed forward along the plane, pulled the pilot off the lever and got the machine under control. The Officer then partially recovered whereupon he remained standing on the side of the fuselage shouting words of encouragemet to him and the machine was eventually landed without much damage".

I tried to find out more but there is nothing in the WD and the Routine Orders in the 14 DIV A&QMG WD are missing from May to November. Given the understatement with which these citations are worded I would love to know how the Officer partially recovered and what the words of encouragement were.

What a brave action.

[clk]

Hi Brian,

 

I don't think that it really helps, and I suspect that you may already have it, but the annotated version of citation from the DCM registers...

 

Image source: The National Archives - file WO 391/6/1

 

Regards

Chris

 

Edit:

Given the incident/action date, I wonder if the RAF Museum (link) might be able to give you a shortlist of names for the pilot. I've not researched any RFC men before, but I guess that you could then cross reference to service records (here and here), and narrow it down by what squadrons (??) were operating in the Deulemont area on that date.

Edited 23 April , 2019 by clk

[brianmorris547]

Thank you Chris

I looked at the DCM Citations on Ancestry but it is not annotated. I'll do some more checking. I've not researched RAF men before either. I did wonder what type of a machine it was.

Brian