Hero of the Month - June 2023
Published in Britain at War in June 2023
Second Lieutenant Frank Bernard Wearne VC
Slightly built, bespectacled and often sporting a worried frown, Bernard Wearne was an unlikely war hero. Yet in the heat of battle, his leadership skills were matched only by his incredible courage. It is little wonder that he was so respected by his comrades and that he was ultimately decorated with Britain and the Commonwealth’s premiere award for valour in the presence of the enemy: the Victoria Cross (VC). I am delighted to be the proud custodian of Wearne’s medal group having purchased it at a Spink auction in London in 1997.
Frank Bernard Wearne was born in Kensington, west London, on March 1 1894. The second of four brothers, he was the son of Frank Wearne, a wine merchant, and his wife Ada (née Morris). With his father also called Frank, Wearne was always known by his second Christian name of ‘Bernard’, often abbreviated to ‘Bernie’. For much of his early years, his family lived in Worcester Park on the border of south-west London and Surrey.
Wearne attended Bromsgrove School in Worcestershire from 1908 onwards, where he went on to become head monitor. He was interested in the military during his teenage years and joined the Officers’ Training Corps (OTC). In 1912, when aged 18, he won a scholarship to Oxford University and he attended Corpus Christi College in the following year. His studies, like so many of his generation, were interrupted by the outbreak of World War One.
On September 5 1914, just days after the start of the Great War, Wearne volunteered to serve in a public school battalion and he soon joined the 18th Battalion, The Royal Fusiliers. Two of his brothers also took part in the war effort: his elder brother, Keith, served in the 1st Battalion, The Essex Regiment and one of his younger brothers, Geoffrey, served in the Canadian Army. On November 22, Wearne was promoted to lance corporal but five weeks later he voluntarily reverted back to the rank of private.
On May 15 1915, Wearne was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the 3rd Battalion, The Essex Regiment. Wearne had earlier expressed a desire to the serve in the regiment’s 1st Battalion, presumably to be with his elder brother, but this did not happen. On December 13 1915, he was embarked with his battalion for France. On June 5 1916, Wearne became attached to the 10th Battalion, The Essex Regiment. At this point, the battalion was part of the 53rd Brigade, 18th (Eastern) Division which was preparing for the Battle of the Somme. In the run-up to the battle, Wearne and his colleagues were serving in the Carnoy region, close to the frontline.
As a scout officer, Wearne and three of his comrades succeeded in catching a German soldier on one of their night patrols. It was quite a coup because the member of the enemy’s 62nd Regiment was the first soldier captured by the battalion during the war.
The Battle of the Somme, which resulted in nearly one million men from both sides being killed or wounded, began on July 1 1916. During the heavy fighting, which saw Wearne’s advancing unit help to gain Montauban Ridge and Pommiers Redoubt, Wearne was seriously wounded, receiving gunshot wounds in four places on July 3. He was invalided home but the wounds on his right hand proved particularly troublesome. On April 16 1917, more than ten months after he received his injuries, he was passed fit for general service by the medical board, despite having limited use in his right hand and fingers. In May of that year, he was transferred to the 11th Battalion of his regiment, once again serving in France, this time near Lens.
On June 28 1917, three parties from C Company, 11th Battalion, The Essex Regiment, along with a company from the 2nd Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, took party in a raid between Lens and the mining town of Loos. They were accompanied by an officer and 20 men from the 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company.
The men from the Essex Regiment were led Captain S.E. Silver. The three parties consisted of: A under the command of Lieutenant M.R. Robertson with 30 other ranks in three squads, B under the command of Wearne with 20 other ranks in two squads, and C with one Non-Commissioned Officer and six men. The role of the party that Wearne commanded was to guard the left flank of the main attacking force.
The raid was well planned following detailed reconnaissance and special training in the Le Brebis region. The firefight began with a box barrage from the Allied forces and the Germans retaliated with artillery fire. Next, the raiding party gathered at the junction of Scots Alley and the British reserve line to the east of Loos.
A and B Parties set off at the same time, 7.12pm on June 28. Leaving their trenches, A party advanced into the German line, rushing an enemy trench and capturing it. As the Germans retreated into dug-outs, A party bombed their new positions. The men then collected enemy prisoners and carried out some mopping-up exercises.
B party also had initial success, capturing a section of the German front line. However, the enemy then launched a fierce counter-attack and B party suffered a large number of casualties, dead and wounded. The citation for Wearne’s VC takes up the story: “For most conspicuous bravery when in command of a small party on the left of a raid on the enemy’s trenches.
“He gained his objective in the face of much opposition and by his magnificent example and daring was able to maintain this position for a considerable time, according to instructions.
“During this period 2nd Lt. Wearne and his small party were repeatedly counter attacked. Grasping the fact that if the left flank was lost his men would have to give way, 2nd Lt. Wearne, at a moment when the enemy’s attack was being heavily pressed and when matters were most critical, leapt on the parapet and, followed by his left section, ran along the top of the trench, firing and throwing bombs. This unexpected and daring manoeuvre threw the enemy off his guard and back in disorder. Whilst on the top of the trench 2nd Lt. Wearne was severely wounded, but refused to leave his men. Afterwards he remained in the trench directing operations, consolidating his position and encouraging all ranks. Just before the order to withdraw was given, this gallant officer was again severely hit for the second time, and while being carried away was mortally wounded.
“By his tenacity in remaining at his post, though severely wounded, and his magnificent fighting spirit, he was enabled to hold on to the flank.”
Wearne, who was unmarried, died on June 28 1917, aged 23, and his body was never recovered from the battlefield. Wearne’s posthumous VC was presented to his father, Frank, by King George V at an investiture at Buckingham Palace on October 20 1917. Wearne had been recommended for the VC by the commanding officer of the 11th Battalion, The Essex Regiment, Colonel Spring, on account of the young officer’s “superb courage, leadership and self-sacrifice”.
It later emerged that on the eve of Wearne’s VC action he and three other officers, including Major H.S. Roberts, had discussed the raid at a café in Le Brebis over a modest meal of boiled rabbit and vegetables, washed down with some local wine.
It also emerged that his self-sacrifice in battle had distracted the German forces long enough to enable British survivors, including some wounded, to withdraw safely from the frontline once they became outnumbered by the counter-attacking enemy forces.
C party, the third one from the Essex Regiment, had started advancing after A and B parties. Their role had been to destroy as many dug-outs and mineshafts as they could. They, too, had enjoyed success knocking-out two dug-outs and three mineshafts. However, they had also been subjected to a fierce counter-attack and took part in fighting that lasted well over an hour. All in all, the raid was considered to have been a success but at a heavy price – some 80 of the 100 British soldiers taking part had become casualties, dead or wounded.
Part of the discussions by officers on the eve of Wearne’s VC action related to the death of Wearne’s elder brother, Captain Keith Morris Wearne. He had been killed by shell fire near Monchy-le-Preux on May 21 1917, just over a month before Bernard Wearne’s death. Their younger brother did not escape the war unscathed either: he suffered from severe shell shock while serving with the Canadian Army, although he survived the war. However, the youngest brother of all, William, did not begin his overseas service until September 1918, two months before the end of the war. He served at as second lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards and remained uninjured during his two months in France.
By the end of the war, Wearne’s parents had lost two of their four sons and another one, Geoffrey, would never be quite the same again: almost certainly suffering from what would now be categorised as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Some parents and families, of course, during the Great War, suffered even heavier losses. Six years ago, I wrote an article for The Telegraph Magazine that told the tragic story of how four Scottish brothers, from the wealthy Anderson family, went to war in 1914 and none of them came home. There is a bronze plaque in Glasgow Cathedral that is “to the memory of four brothers, natives of this city, who died for their country and in the cause of honour and freedom”.
In his book VCs of the First World War: Arras and Messines 1917, Gerald Gliddon questions whether Wearne was medically fit to fight. This was nothing to do with the wounds he had received at the Somme but instead all about his poor eyesight. Gliddon writes: “Despite Wearne’s unquestionable gallantry, one has to ask how he managed to pass his medical firstly in September 1914 and then again in the spring of 1917. For in all photographs of him he is always wearing strong spectacles; his effects when they were sent home after his death included three pairs of spectacles and two pairs of pince-nez. A fourth pair of glasses was left behind on the battlefield.” Gliddon noted that Wearne’s estate was worth £243 gross, a fair sum more than a century ago.
Bernard Wearne’s name is commemorated on the Loos Memorial in France and there is a memorial photographic display at his former school, Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire. His bravery and self-sacrifice must never be forgotten.
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