Allan Leonard Lewis

The Herefordshire Soldier Who Faced the Machine Guns Alone Three days before his death, Lance Corporal Allan Leonard Lewis crawled forward alone toward two German machine guns that were holding up a British attack. He survived that extraordinary assault, forced the enemy gun team to surrender, and opened the way for his comrades to advance. Only seventy-two hours later, at the age of 23, Lewis was killed while once again trying to lead his men through enemy fire. He never lived to learn that his courage had earned him the Victoria Cross. Allan Leonard Lewis was born on 28 February 1895 at Whitney-on-Wye, Herefordshire, close to the Welsh border. One of nine children, he grew up in modest circumstances and left school young to work on the land. By the 1911 census he was working as a cowman near Hay-on-Wye, and he later became a gardener at Truscoed House in West Wales. Lewis, however, had an interest in machinery, and that interest eventually took him away from agricultural work and into employment with the Great Western Railway. After moving to Neath in South Wales, he worked first as a conductor and then as a driver on the company's motor bus service. In March 1915, with the First World War consuming Europe, Lewis left civilian life and joined the British Army. He initially served with the Army Service Corps, including its mechanical transport element, before eventually transferring to the infantry. By the closing months of the war he was serving as Lance Corporal, service number 58062, with the 6th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment. The transformation was striking. The young farm worker and railway employee from the Welsh border had become a junior infantry leader during some of the most demanding fighting of the war. His defining moment came on 18 September 1918 at Rossnoy, during the final Allied offensives on the Western Front. Lewis was commanding a section on the right of an attacking line when intense machine-gun fire stopped the advance. He identified two enemy machine guns firing along the British line and, rather than wait for another unit to deal with them, went forward alone. Crawling toward the position under fire, Lewis attacked the guns with bombs and then used his rifle to force the surviving enemy crew to surrender. His action allowed the stalled British line to move forward. The official Victoria Cross citation stated that his conduct showed exceptional disregard for danger and that his leadership at a critical moment was beyond praise. Yet the story of Allan Leonard Lewis did not end with the action for which he would become famous. On 21 September 1918, only three days later, he was again at the front. During another attack he helped rush his company through an enemy barrage and then attempted to get his men into cover from heavy machine-gun fire. This time he was killed. The same official citation that recorded his Victoria Cross action also recorded his final act of leadership. Lewis had survived the attack on the machine guns, only to lose his life while trying to protect the soldiers around him. The award of the Victoria Cross was announced after his death. The London Gazette identified him as No. 58062 Lance Corporal Allan Leonard Lewis, late 6th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment, and formally recorded the actions of 18 and 21 September 1918. The Victoria Cross was Britain's highest military decoration for valour in the face of the enemy, and Lewis's award placed his name among the most distinguished soldiers of the First World War. His parents later received his Victoria Cross from King George V at Buckingham Palace in April 1919. Lewis's First World War service also entitled him to the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal 1914-1920, and Victory Medal 1914-19, completing the campaign medal group represented in his reconstructed ribbon rack. Unlike the Victoria Cross, these campaign medals were awarded for qualifying wartime service rather than for a particular act of gallantry, so they did not have individual gallantry citations. His Victoria Cross is therefore the award in his group associated with a formal personal citation. His medals remain privately held rather than forming part of a permanent public museum collection. Lewis has no known grave. He is commemorated on Panel 7 of the Vis-en-Artois Memorial in France, which preserves the names of soldiers who died in the final months of the First World War and whose graves were never identified. Records give his age as 23 and identify him as the son of Mr. and Mrs. George Lewis of Wyeside, Whitney-on-Wye. For decades, one unusual part of Lewis's story remained unresolved. Although he had worked for the Great Western Railway before enlisting, his name did not appear on the company's original Roll of Honour. A century later, that omission was publicly addressed. In 2018, Great Western Railway named Intercity Express Train 800306 in honour of Allan Leonard Lewis VC and Harold Day DSC, while Lewis was also commemorated with a bronze statue in Hereford and memorial plaques at Neath Station. The railway that had once failed to record his sacrifice eventually carried his name across Britain. Allan Leonard Lewis was only 23 when he died, but the final days of his life explain why his name endured. He did not receive the Victoria Cross simply for exposing himself to danger. His official citation reveals something more important: he acted when his men could not advance, and three days later he was killed while trying to get those same men to safety. From a farm worker in Herefordshire and a railwayman in Neath to a Victoria Cross recipient on the Western Front, the life of Allan Leonard Lewis remains one of the most compelling stories of courage, leadership and sacrifice from the final weeks of the First World War.