NAMELESS HEROES

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2494, 22 June 1915, Page 2

NAMELESS HEROES

LIEUTENANT MOORHOUSE'S FINE FEAT TRIBUTE BY "THE TIMES" The story of tbe death of Lieutenant Rhodes-Moorhouso, of the Royal Flying Corps, a nephew of Colonel W. H. S. Moorlioufce, of Wellington, was told in an editorial article in the London "Times" of May 7. Tho "Times" wrote: Let us begin with the bare facts. On April 26, during the hottest of the fighting around Ypres, Lioutenant RhodesMoorhouse, of the Royal Flying Corps, was ordered to drop bombs on the railway junction at Courtrai. He achieved his purpose. Gliding down to a height of 300 ft. to make sure of his aim he became the target for hundreds of rifles, maohine-guns, and anti-aircraft armament. He was severely wounded in the thigh. Ho might have saved hie life by losing his machine and descending among tho enemy. Instead, he headeel for the British lines, tearing along, in order to get tho maximum of speed, below the loeel of many a London house-top, and was again, and this time mortally, wounded. But he still flow on, over the British trenches, past the nearest aerodromes, back to his own base, where "he executed a. perfect landing and made bis report." The next day he died in hospital, and this week his body lias been laid to rest in his native Dorset. The story is too simple and too splendidly complote in itself to need any artifice of narrative or comiuent; it speaks to us all. Tho official "Eye-Witness" at tho front did graphic justice to it in every particular but one. He did not mention Mr. Rhodes-Moorhouse's name. Apparently —since he performed what would otherwise havo been a miracle of reticonco by describing th® battles round Ypres without once mentioning the Canadians —lie is forbidden to disclose the names of individuals or regiments. Ha sings of arms but not of the man. Jusb_ as it has been left to Mr. Arnold White, whose lotter appears below this article, to do justice to a gallant Indian regiment, so it was left to the "Times," by a referonce to its obituary columns, to identify Mr. llhodes-Moorhouse as the hero of a perfect feat. "A Soldier," whoso letter we published yesterday, took tho true soldier's line in this connection. Ho asked whether "Eye-Witness," in simply stating that the anonymous airman, _ mortally stricken, had yet "made his report," had not written "the finest epitaph that can bo desired for a soldier dying in his devotion to duty." Was not this "better than to be trumpeted as a hero"? Wo entirely understand his point of view. It is that of the best officers of both Services, who livo for their work despise' 'tho sudden shining of splendid names," and would gladly banish tho word hero from tho dictionary, and pass into oblivion liko the brave men who lived before Agamemnon. But that spirit, indispensable as it is, and the root of all military virtues, is yet inadequate to soma of the needs of tho many-sided enterprise that modern warfare has becomo. Tho individual may car© nothing for tho reward of fame; but to his friends and relatives it is a precious possession, and to his countrymen an example and a spur. The present policy of secrecy that refuses to link a lthodes-Moor-house with his achievement, that suppresses the names of regiments, and makes of the war an affair of asterisks in a land of blanks and dashes, is doing us incredible harm in many ways. It has made us a laughing-stock abroad; it depresses enthusiasm and weakens interest; it cuts the chain that should link tho nation at homo with its soldiers at the front; it hinders a true and general realisation of the magnitude of the task that lies ahead of us. _ But perhaps the greatest pity of all is that it robs us of thoso virile memories that enrich tho annals of a nation and exalt its spirit—the one certain boon, that can be snatched from the hideousness of war., Wo agree with Mr. BurdettCoutts, from whom wo publish a second lotter on the subject this morning, that from tho contemplation of abstract and generalised heroism, detached from tlio name and personality of the hero who embodied it, thero is little incentive to I bo gathered by tbo mass of men.