David Bell

Returned through dangerous surf to rescue his stranded mates

David Bell was born in County Down, Ireland. He enlisted in the 24th Regiment of Foot at Lisburn in April 1860. Overseas service took him to Mauritius, Burma and India. In 1867 he was a private in the regiment's 2nd Battalion.

On 7 May at Little Andaman Island, Bell joined Assistant Surgeon Campbell Mellis Douglas and Privates James Cooper, Thomas Murphy and William Griffiths in a boat rescue. British troops sent ashore to investigate the disappearance of the Assam Valley's captain and seven crewmen had become stranded as the surf worsened. Their first attempt to reach shore failed when the boat filled with water. The rescuers returned and brought five men out; another journey saved the remaining party. Seventeen officers and men were rescued.

The five rescuers received the Victoria Cross. Bell's award was announced in December 1867 and presented at Rangoon on 16 April 1868. He left the Army in May 1873 and worked as a cement-factory labourer and later at Chatham Dockyard. He married twice and had a daughter from his first marriage. Bell died at Gillingham, Kent, on 7 March 1920 and was buried in Woodlands Cemetery. His Victoria Cross is preserved in the Royal Welsh regimental collection at Brecon.

Official Victoria Cross citation

For the very gallant and daring manner in which, on the 7th of May, 1867, they risked their lives in manning a boat and proceeding through a dangerous surf to the rescue of some of their comrades, who formed part of an expedition which had been sent to the Island of Little Andaman, by order of the Chief Commissioner of British Burmah, with the view of ascertaining the fate of the Commander and seven of the crew of the ship ‘Assam Valley,’ who had landed there, and were supposed to have been murdered by the natives.

The officer who commanded the troops on the occasion reports: ‘About an hour later in the day, Dr. Douglas, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment, and the four Privates referred to, gallantly manning the second gig, made their way through the surf almost to the shore, but finding their boat was half filled with water, they retired. A second attempt made by Dr. Douglas and party proved successful, five of us being safely passed through the surf to the boats outside.

A third and last trip got the whole of the party left on shore safe to the boats.

It is stated that Dr. Douglas accomplished these trips through the surf to the shore by no ordinary exertion. He stood in the bows of the boat, and worked her in an intrepid and seamanlike manner, cool to a degree, as if what he was then doing was an ordinary act of every-day life. The four Privates behaved in an equally cool and collected manner, rowing through the roughest surf when the slightest hesitation or want of pluck on the part of any one of them would have been attended by the gravest results.

It is reported that seventeen officers and men were thus saved from what must otherwise have been a fearful risk, if not certainty of death.’