Frederick William Hall

He heard a wounded soldier calling for help only a few yards beyond the trench. Enemy fire was sweeping the ground, two men had already been hit trying to reach the casualty, and survival outside the trench seemed almost impossible. Frederick William Hall went out again anyway. His second rescue attempt would cost him his life and earn him the Victoria Cross. Frederick William Hall was born in Kilkenny, Ireland, on 21 February 1885. Long before the First World War made his name famous, Hall had already built considerable military experience. He served for more than twelve years with the 1st Battalion, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) of the British Army, including service in India. After emigrating to Canada around 1910, he settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba, worked as a clerk, and served with the local militia, the 106th Winnipeg Light Infantry. When war broke out in 1914, Hall once again answered the call to serve. He enlisted at Valcartier, Quebec, on 26 September 1914, joining the 8th Canadian Infantry Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, also associated with the 90th Winnipeg Rifles. His previous military experience proved valuable, and he rose to the rank of Company Sergeant-Major, service number 1539. In the spring of 1915, Hall and the 8th Battalion were thrown into the brutal fighting around Ypres in Belgium. On 24 April 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres, a wounded Canadian soldier lay approximately fifteen yards in front of the trench and called desperately for assistance. Hall, accompanied by two other soldiers, attempted to reach him despite intense enemy enfilade fire. The attempt failed, and both of Hall's companions were wounded. Hall could have remained under cover. Instead, he went out a second time, alone. His official Victoria Cross citation recorded that Hall made a "second most gallant attempt" to rescue the wounded man. He reached the casualty and was attempting to lift him and carry him back toward the trench when he was struck in the head and mortally wounded. The act was one of extraordinary self-sacrifice, performed under direct enemy fire for the sole purpose of saving another soldier. For this action, Company Sergeant-Major Frederick William Hall was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the British Empire's highest decoration for valour in the presence of the enemy. His citation was formally published in The London Gazette, Supplement No. 29202, on 23 June 1915. The Victoria Cross recognized the courage of a man who knowingly exposed himself to overwhelming fire, returned after the first rescue attempt had already failed, and sacrificed his life while trying to bring a wounded comrade to safety. Hall's First World War service also entitled him to the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal, completing the campaign medal group preserved with his Victoria Cross by the Canadian War Museum. Unlike the Victoria Cross, these campaign medals did not carry individual gallantry citations. They record his operational service during the First World War, while the Victoria Cross citation preserves the specific action for which his courage became part of Canadian military history. Hall's body was not recovered from the battlefield. He is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres, alongside thousands of Commonwealth servicemen who died in the Ypres Salient and have no known grave. His story also became inseparable from one remarkable Winnipeg street. Hall had lived on Pine Street, as had fellow First World War Victoria Cross recipients Leo Clarke and Robert Shankland. In recognition of the three men, Pine Street was later renamed Valour Road, creating one of Canada's most enduring memorials to courage and sacrifice. Frederick William Hall did not receive the Victoria Cross because he was ordered to leave the safety of his trench. He received it because, with the danger already proven and two rescuers already wounded, he chose to go out again. More than a century later, that decision remains the defining moment of his story: a Company Sergeant-Major who placed the life of a wounded comrade ahead of his own.