Frederick Greaves Tales of the V.C.
Article with annotations.
Fred Greaves VC (16 May 1890 – 11 June 1973) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
He was 27 years old, and an acting corporal in the 9th Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters (The Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), British Army during the Battle of Broodseinde in the First World War when he performed a deed for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.
Citation:
On 4 October 1917 at Poelcapelle, east of Ypres, Belgium, when the platoon was held up by machine-gun fire from a concrete stronghold and the platoon commander and Sergeant were casualties, Corporal Greaves, followed by another NCO, rushed forward, reached the rear of the building and bombed the occupants, killing or capturing the garrison and the machine-gun. Later, at a most critical period of the battle, during a heavy counter-attack, all the officers of the company became casualties and Corporal Geaves collected his men, threw out extra posts on the threatened flank and opened up rifle and machine-gun fire to enfilade the advance. The attached account of his actions was written by James Price Lloyd of the Welsh Regiment, who served with Military Intelligence. After the war, the government to destroyed all the archives relating to this propaganda (section MI 7b (1)). They were regarded as being too sensitive to risk being made public. Remarkably these documents have survived in the personal records of Captain Lloyd. Many of these papers are officially stamped, and one can trace the development of many individual articles from the notes based on an idea, to the pencil draft which is then followed by the hand-written submission and the typescript. The archive Tales of the VC comprises 94 individual accounts of the heroism that earned the highest award for valour, the Victoria Cross. These are recounted deferentially and economically, yet they still manage to move the reader.
Date stamp: 12 July 1918.
CONTRIBUTOR
Jeremy Arter
DATE
1917-10-04
LANGUAGE
eng
ITEMS
6
INSTITUTION
Europeana 1914-1918
PROGRESS
METADATA
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