Victoria Cross - Jerrard, McLeod and West

[stevedrew]

Dear Forum,
I found these citations yesterday and thought you may be interested.
London Gazette 1 May 1918
"His Majesty the King has been graciously pleased to award the Victoria Cross to the undermentioned officers of the Royal Air Force, for services displaying outstanding bravery:-
Lt. Alan Jerrard, Royal Air Force (formerly of the South Staffordshire Regiment)
When on an offensive patrol with two other officers he attacked five enemy aeroplanes and shot one down in flames, following it down to within one hundred feet of the ground.
He then attacked an enemy aerodrome from a height of only fifty feet from the ground, and, engaging single-handed some nineteen machines, which were either landing or attempting to take off, succeeded in destroying one of them, which crashed on the aerodrome. A large number of machines then attacked him, and whilst thus fully occupied he observed that one of the pilots of his patrol was in difficulties. He went immediately to his assistance, regardless of his own personal safety, and destroyed a third enemy machine.
Fresh enemy aeroplanes continued to rise from the aerodrome, which he attacked one after another, and only retreated, still engaged with five enemy machines, when ordered to do so by his patrol leader. Althought apparently wounded, this very gallant officer turned repeatedly, and attacked single-handed the pursuing machines, until he was eventually overwhelmed by numbers and driven to the ground. Lt. Jerrard had greatly distinguished himself on four previous occasions, within a period of twenty-three days, in destroying enemy machines, displaying bravery and ability of the very highest order."

2nd Lt. Alan Arnett McLeod, Royal Air Force.
Whilst flying with his observer (Lt. A. W. Hammond, MC), attacking hostile formations by bombs and machine-gun fire, he was assailed at a height of 5000 feet by eight enemy triplanes, which dived at him from all directions, firing from their front guns. By skilful manoeuvring he enabled his observer to fire bursts at each machine in turn, shooting three of them down out of control. By this time Lt. McLeod had received five wounds, and whilst continuing the engagement a bullet penetrated his petrol tank and set the machine on fire.
He then climbed out on to the left bottom plane, controlling his machine from the side of the fuselage, and by side-slipping steeply kept the flames to one side, thus enabling the observer to continue firing until the ground was reached.
The observer had been wounded six times when the machine crashed in "No Man's Land", and 2nd Lt McLeod, notwithstanding his own wounds, dragged him away from the burning wreckage at great personal risk from heavy machine-gun fire from the enemy's lines. This very gallant pilot was again wounded by a bomb whilst engaged in this act of rescue, but he persevered until he had placed Lt Hammond in comparative safety, before falling himself from exhaustion and loss of blood."

London Gazette - 8 November 1918
Lt (Act Capt) Ferdinand Maurice Felix West, MC, RAF
"Captain West, while engaging hostile troops at a low altitude far over the enemy lines, was attacked by seven aircraft. Early in the engagement one of his legs was partially severed by an explosive bullet, and fell powerless into the controls, rendering the machine for the time unmanageable. Lifting his disabled leg, he regained control of the machine, and, although wounded in the other leg, he, with surpassing bravery and devotion to duty, manoeuvred his machine so skilfully that his observer was enabled to get several good bursts into the enemy machines, which drove them away. Captain West then, with rare courage and determination, desperately wounded as he was, brought his machine over our lines and landed safely. Exhausted by his exertions, he fainted, but on regaining consciousness insisted on writing his report."
Very brave men indeed! How about McLeod's effort?

Steve Drew

Some more poop on McLeod courtesy of

http://www.accessweb.com/users/mconstab/mcleod.htm

"MacLeod and Hammond were flying three missions a day, bombing and straffing anything and everything. On the evening of March 26 they were detailed, with six other aircraft, on a bombing mission, with the heaviest bomb load manageable and extra ammunition. The morning of March 27 dawned and they took off on the mission to Bray-sur-Somme, near Albert, but lost their way in fog. They were forced to land at a neighbouring field, home of 43 Squadron, damaging the landing gear in the process. It wasn't until just after noon that the plane was fixed, by then all of the 2 Squadron planes had gone home. The CO of 43 Squadron sent up a flight to "test" the air for the massed forces of JG 1, Richthofen's Circus. They came back shortly stating that the weather was terrible, with continuing fog and low cloud. However, MacLeod and Hammond continued on with their original mission and found a likely artillery battery to bomb. Before they could begin a bomb run a Fokker Dridecker appeared out of the cloud 200 yds away and slightly below them. It was faster and much more agile than a heavily loaded bomber, but MacLeod skillfully manouevered so that Hammond could get a shot in. With three bursts from Hammond's Lewis gun the triplane flipped over on it's back and plunged to earth. They congratulated each other. While doing so, the skies cleared somewhat and another Fokker triplane dove down on them, followed by six more. Now they were really in for it.

The German machines swarmed around them, taking turns diving, firing and pulling up. Hammond and MacLeod in turn made good use of their guns, firing just enough to keep the enemy at bay and at the same time conserving their ammunition. With further skilful handling of the bomber MacLeod placed Hammond so he got the chance of a sustained burst of fire at a Fokker that had dove very close to them. The force of the bullets shattered the German aircraft so that it broke off at the pilot's seat and the wreckage fell away on fire.

Lt. Hans Kirschstein of Jasta 6, an experienced pilot and soon to be a top-scoring ace, dove under the bomber and fired up into it's belly. MacLeod was wounded three times in the side and Hammond was slumped in his seat, wounded six times. To make matters worse, the fuel tank was punctured and caught the aircraft on fire. Sensing an easy kill another German cut close in. Hammond struggled up and, despite having the use of only one arm fired a volley into the Fokker. It fell away from the fight, although it likely did not crash, as the Germans did not report any losses from JG1 that day.


It seemed like the end, they were on fire, chased and surrounded by enemy aircraft behind German lines and both men were wounded. MacLeod climbed out of his cockpit onto the left, lower wing to avoid the flames and yawed the Ack-W to fan the flames to the right side. By now, Hammond had to lie along the rim of his cockpit as the flames had destroyed the bottom of the aircraft and his seat had fallen out. Another Fokker bore in on them, coming in for the kill, and put two more bullets into MacLeod, but he side-slipped the Armstrong-Whitworth for Hammond to get a shot in. He did, and this one spun down out of control.

More to come...hope i don't use too much disk space hehe.

Kirschstein came back to the attack, and kept on attacking putting Hammond's gun out of commission, and hitting the aircraft time and again. Finally, the bomber was obviously doomed, and heading for British airspace so he pulled away hunting for more British. Lt. Kirschstein was successful again 5 minutes later, shooting down his third victem, a Camel pilot. He was awarded the victory over MacLeod and Hammond, but he would die before either of them.

MacLeod continued to side-slip the bomber over the German lines managing to flatten out the glide to crash in no-mans-land. Somehow, they were both still alive, although Hammond, with six wounds and badly burned, was unable to move. With a fire burning around their eight bombs and a load of ammunition to motivate him, MacLeod struggled up and hauled Hammond towards a shell hole. The bombs blew up, wounding MacLeod again and scattered burning debris all around them. German soldiers in forward positions fired at them and MacLeod was hit a sixth time. They lay in a shell hole until night fall when they were rescued by soldiers of the South African Scottish Regiment. Amazingly they were still alive. Sixty years later one of them recollected


"We attended their wounds but could not safely get them away until dusk. Both were burnt and in a bad way. Captain Ward and I cheered them as best we could until dark enough for our bearers to carry them back to a dressing station. In trying to cheer McLeod I said "You will be in Blighty in a few days." He said, "That's just the trouble, I would like to have a crack at that so-and-so that brought me down." The observer was too bad to talk; both smelt terribly of burnt flesh."


Heh what an aggressive son of a gun...he wanted revenge.

Thanks for the deatils Steve and Kory. Jerrard's exploits sound alot like another, more famous VC pilot. Didnt Jerrard later get defeated by one of the high-scoring A-H hotshots and get captured after being shot down? Here is a guy who fought against nearly all of his king's enemies: Germany, A-H, Italians...

The Jerrard VC claim has similarities to the Bishop affair although as he was by then a prisoner he did not submit a false claim himself.
Norman MacMillan in Offensive Patrol deals with this incident in some detail. The British claims for aircraft shot down were not substantiated. MacMillan also deals with the story that Jerrard offered to return his VC.

Andy

"The Jerrard VC claim has similarities to the Bishop affair although as he was by then a prisoner he did not submit a false claim himself.
Norman MacMillan in Offensive Patrol deals with this incident in some detail. The British claims for aircraft shot down were not substantiated. MacMillan also deals with the story that Jerrard offered to return his VC."

Not exactly--Jerrard was asked if he wanted to return the VC, and said no.
He had, after all, played no part in the citation as a POW. The men who returned cited him after a very confusing fight which Jerrard himself had little memory of. He had fought all the way to the ground, in a cockpit soaked in gasoline--if his fight did not have the results claimed for it, the requisite courage may have been there. I've heard it suggested that the survivors of Jerrard's flight left him and ran home and made up a story of his heroic death to cover their own tracks.