"On April 25th, 1915, three companies and the Headquarters of the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, in effecting a landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula to the west of Cape Helles, were met by a very deadly fire from hidden machine-guns which caused a great number of casualties. The survivors, however, rushed up to and cut the wire entanglements, notwithstanding the terrific fire from the enemy, and, after overcoming supreme difficulties, the cliffs were gained and the position maintained. Amongst the many very gallant officers and men engaged in this most hazardous undertaking, Captain Willis, Sergeant Richards, and Private Keneally have been selected by their comrades as having performed the most signal arts of bravery and devotion to duty." Precedents for the choice of a comrade by his fellows to wear the V.C. on their behalf are to be found in the records of the Indian Mutiny, and it is an interesting fact that in each case the man chosen was an Irishman serving in an English or Scottish regiment. In September, 1857, the Cross was awarded to Private John Divane, of the 60th King's Royal Rifles, for successfully heading a charge against the trenches at Delhi. Divane was elected by the privates of his regiment for the distinction. In November of the same year Lance-Corporal J. Dunley, 93rd Highlanders, the first man of the regiment to enter the Secundra Bagh with Captain Burroughs, whom he supported against heavy odds, was similarly chosen by his comrades for the V.C., and likewise Lieutenant A.K. French, 53rd Regiment, who showed distinguished gallantry on the same occasion, was elected by his brother officers to wear the decoration. Keneally was born in Parnell Street, Wexford, in 1886. His father, Colour-Sergeant John Stephen Keneally, served for twenty-four years in the Royal Irish Regiment. In 1890 Keneally's parents removed to Wigan. The father got work as a miner in the Wigan coalfield, and the son, at the age of thirteen, started in the same life as a pit-boy. William afterwards joined the Army, served for six years, and on returning to civil life worked again in the pits. On the outbreak of war he rejoined his old regiment, the Lancashire Fusiliers, and was then one of five brothers serving with the Colours. The brave fellow did not survive to enjoy the honour of having the V.C. pinned to his breast by the King. He was wounded on July 29th, 1915, in the course of an attack on a Turkish position, which was repulsed, and was never seen afterwards. "It is a matter of sincere regret to me," says the King in a kindly letter to the hero's father, "that the death of Private Keneally deprived me of the pride of personally conferring on him the Victoria Cross--the greatest of all military distinctions."