Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame VC, KBE, CB, DSO, KStJ (12 December 1888 – 28 April 1978) WOW This is some officer interesting reading Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame VC, KBE, CB, DSO, KStJ was a British Army officer who became Commandant of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was also a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, and the winner of an Olympic Gold medal, making him the only person to win both. Neame was born in Faversham and died in Selling, Kent. He was educated at Cheltenham College. Neame graduated from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Engineers in July 1908. He was promoted lieutenant in August 1910, and saw service with the 15th Field Company, Royal Engineers, during the First World War. Early in the war at the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914, Neame experienced first hand in the trenches the inadequacies of the official British issue hand-grenades against the German standard and set about creating an alternative. Royal Engineers started devising home-made hand grenades made from empty jam tins filled with rivets, hobnails and loose metal. The explosive was usually two small bits of gun-cotton with a detonator and the necessary bit of fuse projecting from the end of the jam tin. Under the leadership of Neame, Royal Engineer sappers were kept busy in the first winter of the war manufacturing as many as were needed. Neame was 26 years old, and a lieutenant in the 15th Field Company, Corps of Royal Engineers, when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross: VC Award On 19 December 1914 at Neuve Chapelle, France, Lieutenant Neame, in the face of very heavy fire, engaged the Germans in a single-handed bombing attack, killing and wounding a number of them. He was able to check the enemy advance for three-quarters of an hour and to rescue all the wounded whom it was possible to move. Neame was interviewed at length on the action for the book Forgotten Voices. He had been asked by the commanding officer of a front-line infantry battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment to go forward and strengthen the defences in a recently captured German trench. When I got there I saw the officer in command who said the Germans were counter-attacking with bombs, that his own bombers had all been wounded and that the bombs that were left would not go off. So I went up to talk to one of the remaining bombers...and discovered that he could not light our own bombs because there were no fuses left. Neame knew how to light a grenade by holding a match-head on the end of the fuse and striking a match box across it. He got to the front and commenced lighting and throwing grenades into the German trenches in the two different directions of the German counter-attack. Neame held the trench for forty-five minutes whilst the West Yorks evacuated their wounded back to the previous British frontline trench. Promoted captain in 1915, Neame was Mentioned in Despatches in February 1915 and again in January 1916. He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Order in January 1916. After a short period as a staff officer (GSO3) from October 1915, he was appointed Brigade Major to 168th (Infantry) Brigade, 56th (London) Division, in February 1916, staffing this post through the Somme offensive, including the actions at Gommecourt 1 July and Leuze Wood 9 September, until relinquishing it for another Staff (GSO2) assignment in November 1916. He was promoted to brevet major in the 1917 New Year honours list. In June 1918, Neame moved up to s senior staff post (GSO1) with a temporary rank of lieutenant colonel. Neame received further Mentions in Despatches in January and December 1917 and was also honoured by the French government with the Legion dhonneur (Croix de Chevalier) in January 1919,and the Croix de guerre in July. He was also awarded the Belgian Croix de guerre. In June 1919 an announcement appeared in the London Gazette giving him as one of the names to be brevet lieutenant-colonel on promotion to substantive major but the gazetting of brevet lieutenant-colonel did not appear until June 1922 and his substantive rank was only promoted from captain to major in January 1925. He was a member of Great Britains 1924 Olympic Running Deer team at Paris and is the only Victoria Cross recipient who has won an Olympic Gold Medal. The Running Deer competition was one of the shooting events at the games. It involved teams of four (firing single shots), where a moving target simulated the animal.Neame was appointed Brigade Major of an Infantry Brigade at Aldershot in January 1924 and then saw service in India with the Bengal Sappers and Miners from 1925 before attending the Imperial Defence College in 1930.[2] In June 1932 Neame was promoted full colonel (skipping the substantive lieutenant-colonel rank) and became a General Staff Officer 1 in the Waziristan District in India. This appointment came to an end in December 1933 whereupon he was on half pay without appointment until May 1934. In July 1934 he was given temporary brigadier rank to take up an appointment as Brigadier General Staff with Eastern Command in India. In 1938 he was promoted to major-general[29] and returned to England as Commandant of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich in 1938. He was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in January 1939.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 09:37:00 +0000
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