BARON DE REUTER'S GALLANT END

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3026, 13 March 1917, Page 6

BARON DE REUTER'S GALLANT END

« HOW 21 BRITISH CAPTURED 9S GERMANS. Reuter's Agency regrets to announce that jt lias Teceived definite confirmation of tlte death on the field of battlo of Baron Hubert de Router, the only sorj of tho late Baron de Router. He was killed while serving as a private in the Black Watch. He fell on November 13 at Beaumont Hamel, in a gallant fight in which ho won high distinction for his adroitness, bravery, and self-sacrifice. "He would have gained a very high decoration had ho lived,'" -writes his colonel. "He was with liis platoon in the attack, and through his courage and resource they captured 07 Germans. Tho whole of the platoon went over the first line of German trenches into tho second. Be Renter went down a 20ft. dugout, shouted out in German, asking if any men were there. No answer—so he threw two Toombs round the corner and eame up two steps nntil tliey exploded. Ho then again shouted. Vuiylxidy there?| Answer came, 'One officer and .15 men/ These he made file out past him. He then found that some Germans had been passed over in the first line, and wore shooting from behind and from the Tight rear, so he put the Germftn officer nip on tlie parapet, threatening him with his bayonet, and made him order the men to surrender; B2 men came over.

He then carried in three 1)11(11}' wounded men into cover under heavy machine.mii! fire, and Trent Track oTer "No Man's Land" for tlio stretcher-bearers. He was hit oil the iraT back, ami was buried the next day. By his sallant conduct mid dariiiff example this one platoon (one sergeant and 20 men) captured one officer and 97 men. "Be teas a very gallant soldier and a gentleman in all lie thonsht or did. wliether on or off dutv." writes his platoon; commander. At the beginning of 1915 he joined the Essex l?e?ime.nt as a second lieutenant. after preliminary training with the Sportsmail's' Battalion, hut a man of 33 who lias seen much of the world is apt to he out of his element anions young subalterns a,nd to find irksome the trammels of on etiquette "nd discipline to which he hns been whol'v unaccustomed. It was not lonp before Bai'on de "Renter resigned his commission a"d enlisted as a private in the famous Black "Watch. "I joined the Army to fieht (lie Germans,''' he told a friend, "mid this seems the best w<- rlnifr it-."