Abraham Acton

He crossed enemy fire to rescue men stranded for three days.

Abraham Acton came from Whitehaven, Cumberland, and served with the Border Regiment before the First World War. After Territorial service, he joined the regular Army in January 1914. By December he was a private in the 2nd Battalion, fighting on the Western Front.

Failed British attacks near Rouges Bancs left wounded men exposed close to the German trenches. On 21 December 1914, Acton and Private James Smith volunteered to bring them back. Their first rescue reached a man who had lain there for seventy-five hours. Both soldiers then went out again for another casualty, spending an hour under fire during the rescues. Each received the Victoria Cross.

Acton remained with his battalion and was killed at Festubert on 16 May 1915. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial in France. King George V presented his Victoria Cross to his parents at Buckingham Palace on 29 November 1916. Whitehaven also remembers him through local memorials, preserving the story of a young soldier who twice left the protection of his trench to rescue wounded men.

Official Victoria Cross citation

For conspicuous bravery on 21st December, at Rouges Bancs, in voluntarily going from their trench and rescuing a wounded man who had been lying exposed against the enemy's trenches for 75 hours, and on the same day again leaving their trench voluntarily, under heavy fire, to bring into cover another wounded man.

They were under fire for 60 minutes whilst conveying the wounded men into safety.

The London Gazette, 18 February 1915, issue 29074, page 1700.