Bearers went out last, heaving themselves and the heavy stretcher out, and keeping an eye on each other so the team stayed together. No adrenalin drove them on and they minded deeply the aspersions cast on their bravery: “It is very easy to do gallant deeds with arms in hands and when the blood is up but the courage demanded to walk quietly into a hail of lead to bandage and carry away a wounded man, that is worth talking about.” For doing all that the war asked of them and more, the bravery of bearers was recognized with the highest award, the Victoria Cross.
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| Pvt. Michael O’Rourke |
At Lens, Private Michael O’Rourke worked for three days and nights without stopping, bringing wounded to safety and administering first aid in an improvised aid post. He was continually under shell and machine gun fire and was knocked down and buried several times but dug himself out to go on. On the last day he saw a blinded man stumbling about in No Man’s Land in full view of enemy guns and went out to rescue him.
There were many men who owed their lives to Lance Corporal Frederick Room, who led a party of bearers bringing in and treating them under intense enemy fire.
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| LCpl Walter Parker |
Lance Corporal Walter Parker at Gallipoli received multiple machine gun wounds as he crossed and recrossed a heavily machine-gunned area to assist a group of Marines who were all wounded.
Private George Clare spent two days carrying and dressing casualties under heavy enemy fire and then crossed the battlefield to a group of casualties where each was seriously wounded. He stayed with them and treated them on his own for hours until he was relieved. While carrying a casualty on his back, he became aware that gas attacks were imminent and ran to each company post to warn them to put on their gas masks.
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| Pvt. Thomas Young |
Private Thomas Young went out on nine separate occasions to bring in men from places everyone else thought were unreachable, as did Private Arthur Poulter, who carried ten badly wounded men back, one at a time, on his own, through heavy fire. Two of them were shot while on his back. Finding a group of 40 casualties, he set up an aid post and dressed their wounds in full sight of the enemy.
Private John Francis was equally defiant of enemy artillery, cutting across the battlefield again and again to get supplies to tend to a large group of wounded. On his final trip he guided back a group of bearers, and they evacuated the wounded.
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| LCpl William Coltman |
Lance Corporal William Coltman went alone into a heavily machine-gunned area and found a group of casualties that had been abandoned. He dressed their wounds and took them all back to safety on his back, one by one, working for 48 hours without stopping. A case is made that Coltman was Britain's most decorated soldier of the Great War HERE.
Source: "Bearers Up," October 2013 Over the Top
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