Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookarmy and on 12 Sept. 1914, was gazetted 2nd Lieut. in the 4th (Territorial) Battn. of the Yorkshires, which after training at Darlington and Newcastle crossed to France, as part of the Northumbrian Division, on 17 April, 1915, and was within a week called upon to take part in the second battle of Ypres. Here these Territorial troops fresh from home and tried at the very outset almost as highly as men could be tried, behaved with a steadiness and coolness which gained for them the congratulations of the Generals commanding respectively their Division and their Army Corps. Early in the afternoon of 24 April the Battn. was ordered to attack the village of Fortuin, close to St. Julien where the Germans had broken through. This attack they successfully carried out in the face of terrific shell fire, before being ordered to retire at dusk. By driving the enemy back a mile or more they had attained their object which was to prevent a breach in the line; and they had made good their front with the Canadians and Royal Irish on their right. It was during this advance that Darwin fell, killed instantaneously. His Commanding officer, Colonel Bell, wrote of him: "Loyalty, courage, and devotion to duty--he had them all.... He died in an attack which gained many compliments to the Battn. He was right in front. It was a man's death." Corpl. Wearmouth, who was in his platoon, wrote: "I am a section leader in his platoon, and when we got the order to advance he proved himself a hero. He nursed us men; in fact, the comment was, 'You would say we were on a field-day.' We had got to within twenty yards of our halting place when he turned to our platoon to say something. As he turned he fell, and I am sure he never spoke. As soon as I could I went to him but he was beyond human aid. Our platoon sadly miss him, as he could not do enough for us, and we are all extremely sorry for you in your great loss"; and Private Wood wrote to a friend in Middlesbrough: "I expect you would know poor Mr. Darwin.... I was in his platoon, and I can tell you he died a hero. He led us absolutely regardless of the bullets from the German Maxim guns and snipers that whistled all round him." Just before he left England, when his Battn. was under orders for the Front, he was summoned to the War Office and offered a Staff appointment at home in connection with munitions of war. This would have given great scope to his capabilities. "It would have been interesting and important work," he wrote, "but, of course, there are plenty of older men who can do it just as well as I can." He felt that at that moment his place should be with his regt., and made, in the words of one present at the interview, a "fine appeal" to be allowed to go with his men. It was granted, and he went gladly and with no looking back. The Times (30 April, 1915) said of him: "Erasmus Darwin would, if he had lived, have added fresh distinction to the name of his family in a walk of life in which it has never before figured. Between Cambridge and a great iron works in the North there is something of a gulf fixed and one who knew Darwin only in his Cambridge home cannot say anything more than that all those who met him in business conceived a very high opinion of his grasp of his subject, his acuteness and administrative ability. It was, indeed, impossible to know him without realising that he combined with intellectual ability a calm, sound, and practical judgment, and a general capacity for doing things well and thoroughly. He had, too, what must have been invaluable to him in his work, a most genuine sympathy with and affection for working men, and this quality, which, amongst so many other things, had made him love his work at Middlesbrough, gave him intense pleasure when soldiering came to him as a wholly new and unlooked-for experience. He delighted in the men, and especially in long expeditions across the moors with his scouts. There is one more quality as to which all his friends would agree, namely, a conscientiousness that was eminently sane and wide-minded and completely unswerving. No one in the world was more certain to do what he believed to be right." [Illustration: =Erasmus Darwin.=] =DASH, FREDERICK JOHN=, Officer's Cook, 1st Class, 363215 (Ports.), H.M.S. Pathfinder; lost when that ship was sunk by a mine, about 20 miles off the East Coast, 5 Sept. 1914. =DASHWOOD, FRANK LEOPOLD=, L.-Corpl., No. 241, D Coy., 10th Battn. Australian Imperial Force, first and only surviving _s._ of the late Leopold Dashwood, of 180, Dereham Road, Norwich, Commercial Traveller, by his wife, Lottie, dau. of the late William Worts, of North Walsham; _b._ Norwich, 9 Feb. 1882; educ. Cambridge House and Higher Grade Schools, Norwich; joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1901 during the South African war, and served eight years with the Colours and four in the Reserve. He emigrated to Australia in 1911, and on the outbreak of the war joined the Commonwealth Expeditionary Force, 12 Aug. 1914, and was killed in action at the Dardanelles, 26 April, 1915; _unm._ His Capt. wrote: "He was a very fine soldier indeed, stood out from some others as a particularly smart example. It was not until we had been some time in Egypt that he would accept promotion, otherwise he would have been much higher in rank than he was. There is no question he was popular with the men in his section." [Illustration: =Frank Leopold Dashwood.=] =DAUN, EDWARD CHARLES=, Lieut. and Assistant Adjutant, 2nd Battn. Royal Sussex Regt., 2nd Infantry Brigade, only _s._ of Charles James Daun, by his wife, Ada Margaret, dau. of Lieut.-Gen. Edward Arthur Williams, C.B., Colonel Commandant R.A., and great-grandson of Col. Henry Williams, R.A., who served at Waterloo; _b._ Streatham, Surrey, 15 June, 1885; educ. Sunningdale School and Harrow; joined the 3rd Battn. Royal Sussex Regt. 27 Feb. 1904; gazetted 2nd Lieut. in the 2nd Battn. 29 Nov. 1905, and promoted Lieut. 10 Nov. 1909. On the outbreak of war he left Woking for the Front, 12 Aug. 1914; was present in the fighting at, and retreat from, Mons, and was killed near Troyon at the Battle of the Aisne, 14 Sept. 1914; _unm._ A comrade wrote: "We were in the same company. I was unfortunately sent home with an injured leg, but last saw your son on 4 Sept. At that time he was in splendid health and in such good spirits. He was a splendid officer, and worked night and day for the good of his regt. and his company, and had a great future before him. He was to have been our next Adjutant, and will be a great loss to the regt." The Colonel, senior Major and Adjutant all fell the same day. Lieut. Daun was a fine rifle shot, and won the Officers' Cup at the Aldershot Command Meeting in 1912 and 1913, and was second in 1914. Of his uncles, Lieut.-Col. H. F. Williams, Royal Munster Fusiliers, and Lieut.-Col. E. G. Williams, C.M.G., commanding 1st Battn. Devonshire Regt., are at the Front; and Capt. A. L. Williams, Royal Scots (died 24 May, 1906) serve |