"For coolness and resource under danger, it would be impossible to beat Downie. The ordeal we had to go through that day was one of the most severe we have struck since the present war, and, as you know, the 'Dubs' have been in many tight corners. We had orders to advance against a position that had so far resisted all efforts of our men to take. We knew it had to be taken this time, be the cost what it might. We went over with a good heart. The men were magnificent. They faced their ordeal without the slightest sign of wavering. The enemy's fire was ploughing through our ranks. We lost heavily. In a short time there was not an officer left capable of giving directions. It was only then that the attack began to falter. At that moment the enemy fire increased its intensity. It was many times worse than any hell I have ever heard of. The machine-gun fire of the enemy swept across the ground like great gusts of wind, and the finest troops in the world might have been pardoned for a momentary hesitation in face of such fire. Downie took the situation in. He ran along the line of shell holes in which the men were sheltering and cried out, 'Come on, the Dubs.'
"The effect was electrical. The men sprang from their cover, and under his leadership dashed to the attack on the enemy position. Their blood was now up, and there was no stopping them until the goal was reached. The immediate approach to the part of the trench they were attacking was swept by the fire of one machine-gun that galled the attacking party a lot. Downie made straight for that. Using alternately bomb, bayonet, and rifle, he wiped out the entire crew, and captured the gun, which he quickly turned on the enemy. The effect of this daring exploit was soon felt. The enemy resistance weakened, and the Dublin lads were soon in possession of the trench. It was later on, when the attack was being pressed home, that Downie was wounded. It was severe enough to justify any man in dropping out, but Downie was made of better stuff. He stuck to his men, and for the rest of the day he directed their operations with a skill and energy that defeated repeated attempts of the enemy to win back the lost ground. Throughout the very difficult operations his cheery disposition and his eye for discerning the best thing to do in given circumstances, were as good as a reinforcement to the hard-pressed Irishmen."
Captain John A. Sinton, Indian Medical Service, was awarded the Victoria Cross, after the action at Shaikh Saad in Mesopotamia. The official record is as follows—
"For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty. Although shot through both arms and through the side he refused to go to hospital, and remained as long as daylight lasted attending to his duties under very heavy fire. In three previous actions Captain Sinton displayed the utmost bravery."
Captain Sinton was born in Lisburn, co. Antrim, and is thirty-one years of age. He is a member of a well-known Quaker family. As a boy he went to the Memorial School in Lisburn, named after the heroic Brigadier-General, John Nicholson, of the Indian Mutiny, and afterwards attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He had a brilliant career in the Medical School at Queen's University, Belfast. He took first place at the examination for the Indian Medical Service at the School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool. He went to India in 1912, and was attached to the 31st Duke of Connaught's Own Lancers at Kohat. At the outbreak of war he transferred to the Dogras, in order to take part in the operations of the Indian Expeditionary Force in the Persian Gulf.
Private Henry Kenny of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment is another London Irishman, and the third of the name of Kenny who have gained the coveted V.C. The stories of the other two Kennys are told in the first series of The Irish at the Front. Private Kenny's father is a native of Limerick, where all his people belonged to, and from where he moved to England with his parents. Private Kenny himself was born in Hackney, London, and enlisted, at the age of eighteen, in 1906. On the outbreak of war he was recalled to the Colours as a reservist, and took part in many famous engagements. The official record of his gallantry is as follows—
"For most conspicuous bravery. Private Kenny went out on six different occasions on one day under a very heavy shell, rifle and machine-gun fire, and each time succeeded in carrying to a place of safety a wounded man who had been lying in the open. He was himself wounded in the neck whilst handing the last man over the parapet."
When Kenny was invalided home on account of the wounds he received in performing the noble action for which he won the Victoria Cross, he made no reference to his achievement. The sixth man whom he rescued was his own Colonel, and it was while he was bearing his commanding officer into safety that he was himself wounded. On his return home for a holiday after the announcement of the award he visited the House of Commons, and was introduced to Sir E. Carson, Lord and Lady Pirrie, Mr. and Mrs. Redmond, Lord Wimborne and Colonel Churchill, and had tea on the terrace.
There was much rejoicing amongst the pupils and staff of the Royal Hibernian Military School, Phœnix Park, Dublin, when it became known that the greatest honour that can be bestowed upon a soldier—the Victoria Cross—had been won by a former pupil of the school in the person of Private Frederick Jeremiah Edwards, of the Middlesex Regiment. There are three Royal Military Schools in the United Kingdom (the Duke of York's School, near London, the Queen Victoria School in Scotland, and the Royal Hibernian School), and naturally there was keen anxiety amongst them as to which would be the first to place a V.C. to its credit in the present war. The Irish school has won, thanks to Private "Jerry" Edwards. He is the second "old boy" of the Hibernian School to win the V.C., the previous occasion on which the distinction was gained being during the Crimean War. Private Edwards was born at Queenstown, co. Cork, the son of a soldier. He entered the Hibernian School at seven years of age. He is spoken of as a bright, intelligent and plucky lad by the schoolmasters, to whom his lively spirits were oftentimes a source of worry—and, perhaps, of trouble for "Jerry." When he was fourteen he left the school to join the Army. The circumstances under which he won the V.C. in his twenty-first year are thus officially described—
"For most conspicuous bravery and resource. His part of the line was held up by machine-gun fire, and all officers had become casualties. There was confusion and indication of retirement. Private Edwards, grasping the situation, on his own initiative dashed out towards the gun, which he knocked out with his bombs. This very gallant act, coupled with great presence of mind and a total disregard of personal danger, made further advance possible and cleared up a dangerous situation."