Welsh VCs Rorkes Drift

Posts : 1095 Join date : 2009-01-14 Location : East London

How many Welshman were awarded the VC for their actions at Rorke's Drift.

Subject: Welsh VC'S R.D Thu Jan 07, 2016 10:33 pm

Two from memory , John William Fielding alias John Williams & Robert Jones .
90th

Posts : 2872 Join date : 2010-06-02

Depends whether you count Monmouthshire as Wales at the time (officially it wasn't), they were both from there.

Steve

Subject: Welsh VC'S R.D Thu Jan 07, 2016 10:56 pm

Valid point Steve , if we discount Monmouthshire , then the answer to Oh2 is None . agree

Cheers 90th

Posts : 2558 Join date : 2009-04-06 Age : 58 Location : UK

Correct Monmouthshire, was an English county so no VCs were awarded to any Welshman at RD.

Subject: Re: Welsh VCs Rorkes Drift Fri Jan 08, 2016 3:17 am

There were eleven VC's awarded to the defenders at Rorke's Drift, seven went to men of the 24th (2nd Warwickshire) regiment, and four to men from other regiments/services.

All seven VC's that were awarded to the men of the 24th (2nd Warwickshire) regiment at the battle of Rorke's Drift went to Englishmen.

The other four VC's that were awarded went to the following men.

J.R.M. Chard (RE). English.
J.L. Dalton (Comm Dept). English.
J.H. Reynolds (Surgeon). Irish.
C.F. Scheiss (NNC). Swiss.

So altogether nine of the eleven VC's awarded at the defence of Rorke's Drift went to Englishmen.

Posts : 706 Join date : 2012-05-05

Could it not be argued, that the battle honour should have gone to the Royal Engineers as Lt Chard was the senior officer present.

Posts : 2872 Join date : 2010-06-02

The Royal Engineers do not have battle honours, their motto Ubique means everywhere.

Steve

Subject: Re: Welsh VCs Rorkes Drift Fri Jan 08, 2016 1:53 pm

Ubique, Exactly the same as The Royal Artillery.

Ubique Quo fas et Gloria ducunt = 'Everywhere where right and glory lead'.

Although there is a printed "in memoriam" scroll to the 24th (2nd Warwickshire) regiment that does show 'battle honours' for both iSandlwana and Rorke's Drift, in actual fact there was no battle honours for these particular battles, the battle honour for regiments that took part in the AZW is shown as "South Africa 1877-78-79", or the particular year in which they served in South Africa.