Hero of the Month - December 2024
Published in Britain at War - December 2024
Temporary Major Stewart Walker Loudoun-Shand VC
Like the very best and bravest of officers, Temporary Major Stewart Loudoun-Shand never asked his men to do what he would not do himself. Furthermore, as part of what he saw as his role as a leader, he displayed quite exceptional gallantry by inspiring his men to show courage on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme during World War One. Sadly, his daring deeds cost Loudoun-Shand his life at the start of one of the bloodiest and longest battles the world has ever seen.
Stewart Walker Loudoun-Shand was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on October 8 1879. He was the son of the unusually name John Loudoun Loudoun-Shand, a wealthy tea planter, and his wife, Lucy (née Lawson). The couple had ten children: five sons and five daughters. In 1880, with Stewart just a year old, the family moved to the United Kingdom, first apparently living in Scotland and later living in Dulwich, south-east London.
Their sons attended Dulwich College, where Stewart proved himself to be a fine athlete, cricketer and golfer. However, his younger brother surpassed him at sport, playing rugby for Oxford University and, later, Scotland. Stewart left Dulwich College in order to take up a job with William Deacon’s Bank.
After the outbreak of the Second Boer War in October 1899, just days after Loudoun-Shand’s 20th birthday, he enlisted in the London Scottish but was considered too young for frontline service. However, he switched to the Pembroke Yeomanry and served with them for 18 months during the war in the rank of lance corporal.
In 1901, Loudoun-Shand accepted a position with a mercantile company based in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and remained in the role for three years. His next job was back in his birthplace of Ceylon, working for a tea merchant in a role that had been arranged by his father, who had worked in the country for two decades before his return to Britain.
After the outbreak of World War One in 1914, Loudoun-Shand returned to Britain and volunteered to fight, being commissioned into the 10th (Service) Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, in the rank of lieutenant. His training took place at Halton Park Camp, Buckinghamshire, and Witley Camp, Surrey.
In June 1915, Loudoun-Shand was promoted to captain and three months later he fought in the Battle of Loos on the Western Front, which at the time was the largest offensive of the Great War and it also witnessed the British Army’s first use of chlorine gas. His battalion took heavy casualties during the Battle of Loos, including its colonel and two majors being killed. This, in turn, resulted in other officers being promoted earlier than might have been expected and in December 1915 Loudoun-Shand was promoted to temporary major.
The Battle of the Somme, which involved more than six months of careful preparations, was a joint offensive by the British and French forces that was intended to result in a decisive victory over the German Empire on the Western Front. Indeed, the strategy of major attack on the Western Front was decided upon by the Allies during the Second Chantilly Conference of December 1915.
For two days before the battle got underway, the men of the 10th (Service) Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment – also known as the Green Howards – had been billeted in Buire, south-west of Dernancourt. However, on the night before the attack they took up a position in a copse called Queen’s Redoubt, south of Bécourt Wood.
At 7.30am on July 1 1916, the Battle of the Somme got underway when General Sir Douglas Haig launched an attack by the Fourth Army against the German line. The assault, involving 14 British Divisions along a front line spanning some 18 miles, was centred along the chalk downland overlooking the Somme valley from the north. The objective of the first day of fighting was to capture Montauban and Contalmaison in the south and, further north, push the Germans back to their second line, running east of the village of Pozières.
Close to the start of the battle, the 10th (Service) Battalion, including B Company led by Loudoun-Shand, took part in a major attack on the German front line at Fricourt, three miles east of Albert. Before the assault began, there was a heavy barrage from British forces but it had little effect. By the time, the British servicemen were racing forwards, the Germans had their machine-guns in such positions as to be able to direct an accurate and constant fire on their assailants.
Such was the extent of the enemy fire that many soldiers in B Company were understandably reluctant to advance. However, Loudoun-Shand led from the front in encouraging his company as the citation to his posthumous Victoria Cross (VC) stated:
“For most conspicuous bravery. When his company attempted to climb over the parapet to attack the enemy’s trenches, they were met by very fierce machine gun fire, which temporarily stopped their progress. Maj. Loudoun-Shand immediately leapt on the parapet, helped the men over it, and encouraged them in every way until he fell mortally wounded. Even then he insisted on being propped up in the trench, and went on encouraging the non-commissioned officers and men until he died.”
Loudoun-Shand, a single man, had died on the very first day of the Battle of the Somme, aged 36. That day five officers and 117 other ranks from B Company had gone into battle. By later that morning, only one officer and 27 other ranks survived being killed or wounded such was the intensity of the enemy’s fire.
The 12th (Service) Battalion, The Northumberland Fusiliers, a sister battalion of The Green Howards, became all too aware of the extent of the carnage around midday on July 1. Ordered to advance, they found the ground full of the dead, dying and badly wounded men from the 10th (Service) Battalion.
On the evening of July 1, the surviving Green Howards moved north eastwards towards Crucifix Trench and it was there that they were relieved by other units. The brave actions of Loudoun-Shand had not gone unnoticed. Not only was the citation for his VC published in The London Gazette on September 9 1916 but he was the subject of a moving tribute that appeared in The Legion newspaper.
Written by Corporal Harry Fellows, of the 12th Northumberland Fusiliers, it read: “The Green Howards led the attack north of Fricourt, with my own battalion in support, some 400 yards to the rear. When the barrage lifted, the German machine-gunners had scrambled from their dugouts, manned the guns and swept a murderous hail of fire across no man’s land. With such a savage fire overhead the Green Howards had shown a reluctance to leave the trench. But the major mounted the parapet and urged his men over the top.
“Had the Green Howards faltered we should certainly have been called into action to advance over the open ground. It was then that we Northumberland Fusiliers realised the great debt we owed that one gallant officer. Since that day he has remained my hero of the Great War.”
Loudoun-Shand’s VC was presented to his father, John, by George VI at an investiture at Buckingham Palace on March 31 1917. Stewart Loudoun-Shand is buried at the Norfolk Cemetery, near Albert, France. His name appears on the war memorial at Dulwich College and another ware memorial at All Saints’ Church, Freshwater, Isle of Wight. Furthermore, his name is engraved on a family memorial at the 40-acre West Norwood Cemetery, London.
I am the proud and humble custodian of the Loudoun-Shand medal group having purchased it privately in 2005.
In terms of casualties, July 1 1916 – the opening day of the Battle of the Somme – was to be the worst day the British Army had ever experienced. Incredibly, there had been 57,000 casualties, including 19,240 deaths resulting from an estimated 100,000 men being ordered “over the top”. The British commanders had been confident of victory but their confidence was misplaced and they were unable to break through the German line. More than 20 men died for every minute of the battle that day.
The gain in terms of territory – for this prodigious loss of men on July 1 – had been three square miles of enemy-held land. Small territory gains had been made in the south with Montauban and Mametz captured, while the 21st Division had established a salient north of Fricourt.
The Battle of the Somme was to drag on for the best part of five months until November 18, when the onset of winter made further fighting impossible. On that date General Haig called off the offensive. The Allies had only advanced seven miles since July 1 and there was still no major breakthrough in sight.
During the fighting, Britain had suffered 420,000 casualties and the French 200,000. German losses were at least 450,000 killed and wounded. It meant the Battle of the Somme witnessed well over a million casualties among the three millions participants to have fought in it.
For many, then and now, the Battle of the Somme, exemplified the “futile” slaughter of so many young men and the military incompetence of the First World War commanders. Yet others, also then and now, argue that General Haig had no option but to fight on the Somme and that, despite his controversial tactics, the battle provided an invaluable lesson in how to fight a large-scale war.
Perhaps the legacy of the Battle of the Somme was a more professional and effective army. Furthermore, the tactics developed there, including the use of tanks, laid some of the foundations of the Allies’ success in late 1918.
One thing is certain, many stories of exceptional gallantry emerged from the first day of the Battle of the Somme and it resulted in the award of no less than nine VCs. However, only three of those VC recipients survived the battle.
When I think about the inspirational bravery of Temporary Major Stewart Loudoun-Shand, I often reflect on the words that Thucydides, the Greek historian, penned more than two centuries before the Battle of the Somme. He wrote, “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.” His comments are as apt today as they were when they were written.
Download a PDF of the original Britain At War article.