Celebrating a Salonika VC Winner

The Victoria Cross was first introduced on 29th January 1856 to honour acts of valour during the Crimean War. Two VCs were awarded in the Macedonian campaign, one in 1916 and one in 1918. It’s the first of these, to Private Hubert William Lewis of 11/Welsh, that I want to celebrate today.

The last ever issue of The Mosquito in May 1969 gave an account of both V.C.s, saying this about Private Lewis’s achievement on the Doiran front:

Private Lewis won the V.C. on October 23rd, 1916. He served in the 11th Welch Regiment, 67th Brigade, 22nd Division. He was a member of a raiding party tackling the Dorsale. Their objective was to discover whether or not the German 59th Regiment was still upon this front. The party was caught and separated by the enemy’s barrage but prisoners were captured who turned out to be Germans of the 59th. Although three times wounded, Pte Lewis refused all attention. He captured three of the enemy singlehanded and afterwards rescued a wounded man under heavy shell fire. He was awarded the V.C. for conspicuous bravery, the official citation stating that “he set a brilliant example of courage, endurance and devotion to duty.”

The Mosquito records with pleasure that, at the time of writing, Private Lewis – known as ‘Stokey’ – was:

…happily still with us, whose home is at 26, Prioryville, Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales. He attended the S.R.A. parade on October 2nd, 1966.

I wonder if it surprised Stokey to find himself immortalised on a button badge. I thought these were quite modern things and blush when I remember the badges I wore as a teenager, but SCS member Tom McCall spotted one celebrating Private Lewis and his V.C. on a well known online auction site and I am grateful to him for sharing a picture of it.

If Stokey ever owned one of these badges, he wasn’t wearing it at the unspecified event captured in the following press photo – but if you’re wearing the actual V.C. that would be overdoing it!

You can read more about this V.C. in our centenary post and also find out about the V.C. awarded to Lieut.-Col. Dan Burges, V.C., D.S.O. at the Second Battle of Doiran.