VICTORIA CROSS WON.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1346, 12 January 1915, Page 4

VICTORIA CROSS WON.

CHARGING A BATTER V. LAST OF SEVEN HIGHLANDERS. How Private George Beasley, of the Second Division of the Highland Light Infantry, won the Victoria Cross, is related in the Guernsey Weekly Press. Beasley is now lying in the South Infirmary, at Cork, the only man of seven Highlanders who charged three German big bore guns and silenced them to save the division from decimation. The other men were blown to pieces, but before they died they killed the German gunners and spiked two of the guns. Beasley was found with half his face blown away and pellets of lead strewn in his body when they took the trench a few minutes later. Until the war began Beasley was a painter in Guernsey, of such a meek and gentle aspect that when J. H. Lander painted bis famous picture, “The Chorister,” he chose him for his subject. “It was at the Belgian frontier that Beasley distinguished himself, the newspaper relates. "At this place the Germans were strongly entrenched. Miles of wide, deep trenches ramified in all directions, holding thousands of men, and under splendid shelter there was a number of guns which had a three-mile range greater than the British and threw a shell which was 281 b heavier. Against this storm of shell and shrapnel the Second Division bad to advance, unsupported by artillery. The leaden hail flogged them with terrible effect, but still the Second went doggedly onward. One battery particularly seemed to have found the most effective range, and it threatened to wipe out the entire division unless silenced. A battalion of volunteers went forward to silence it. “There were seven men in the group of survivors who finally reached the battery of three guns, and Beasley was among the first. The guns slaved the other six to pieces, but ere they died they gave a terrible account of themselves. Beasley, wounded and nearly dead, spiked one of the guns before he fell unconscious. When another battalion rushed forward they found him lying near the gun he had silenced. All of the bones on the lelt side of his face were smashed, his left eye was gone, and bis teeth were blown out. “When he reached the infirmary he was told that his commander and officers of other divisions had recommended him lor the Victoria Cross, the second nomination of the war.’’