Our Sailors: Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's ReignKingston, William Henry Giles
History
Our Sailors: Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign
Kingston, William Henry Giles
Great Britain -- History, Naval -- 19th century; Great Britain. Royal Navy -- History -- 19th century
During the battle of Inkermann, while the right Lancaster battery was
fiercely attacked by the Russians, five gallant bluejackets, picking up
the muskets of the disabled soldiers, mounted the banquette, and, under
a fierce fire, kept rapidly discharging them, while their comrades below
loaded and handed them up others as fast as they could, contributing
much to keep the enemy at bay. Two were killed, or died from their
wounds; but the three survivors, Thomas Reeve, James Gorman, and Mark
Scholefield, obtained the Victoria Cross.
COMMANDER ROBY.
John Taylor, captain of the forecastle, and Henry Curtis, boatswain's
mate, were in the advance sap opposite the Redan on 18th June 1855,
immediately after the assault on Sebastopol, when they observed a
soldier of the 57th Regiment, who had been shot through both legs,
sitting up, and calling for help. Lieutenant D'Aeth, of HMS _Sidou_,
was also of the party, but died of cholera soon after. The brave seamen
could not bear to see their poor countryman thus perishing, and, though
the Redan was still keeping up a tremendous fire, climbing over the
breastwork of the sap, Captain Roby and the two seamen proceeded upwards
of seventy yards across the open space towards the salient angle of the
Redan, and, at the great risk of their own lives, lifted up the wounded
soldier and bore him to a place of safety.
John Sullivan, boatswain's mate, while serving in an advanced battery,
on the 10th of April 1855, showed the most perfect coolness and bravery,
by going forward and placing a flag on a mound in an exposed situation,
under a heavy fire, to enable another battery, Number 5, to open fire on
a concealed Russian battery, which was doing great execution on the
British advanced works. Commander Kennedy, commanding the battery,
spoke in the highest terms of Sullivan's bravery on that and on other
occasions, and recommended him for promotion.
DASHING SERVICE OF JOHN SHEPHERD, A BOATSWAIN.
While he was boatswain's mate of the _Saint Jean d'Acre_, and serving in
the naval brigade, he volunteered to proceed in a punt, during a dark
night, into the harbour of Sebastopol, and to endeavour, with an
apparatus he carried, to blow up one of the Russian line-of-battle
ships. He reached the harbour, and had got past the enemy's steamboat
at the entrance of Careening Bay, when he was prevented from proceeding
farther by a long line of boats, which were carrying troops from the
south to the north side of Sebastopol. On the 16th of August, he again
made the attempt from the side of Careening Bay, then in possession of
the French.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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