George Fiott Day

Alone in the marshes, he crept nearer to the enemy gunboats.

George Fiott Day was born in Southampton in 1819 and entered the Royal Navy in 1833. His early service included the Pacific voyage of HMS Challenger, which was wrecked off Patagonia, and later duties in the Mediterranean and off West Africa. He served in anti-slavery operations and took part in the campaign on the Syrian coast in 1840.

Promoted lieutenant in 1845, he developed experience in gunnery and the command of small vessels. His career took him to the Cape, South American waters, the Baltic and the Black Sea. During the Crimean War he commanded HMS Recruit and operated in the Sea of Azov, where British vessels attempted to disrupt Russian communications and supplies.

In September 1855, Day landed alone near Genitchi to discover whether Russian gunboats could be surprised. Guided by a pocket compass, he crossed several miles of marsh and approached within about two hundred yards of the vessels. He returned believing an attack feasible, but went ashore again when increasing enemy activity suggested circumstances had changed. The second reconnaissance revealed alert, manned boats, so he abandoned the proposed surprise rather than expose a force to needless risk. Exhausted on the shore after his long absence, he was eventually recovered by a boat sent to look for him. The reconnaissance earned the Victoria Cross.

Day subsequently commanded HMS Firefly in anti-slavery work off West Africa and later took gunboats to China. Promoted captain in 1861, he found declining health increasingly restricted active employment and entered the retired list in 1867. He was appointed a Companion of the Bath in 1875.

He settled at Weston-super-Mare with his family and died there on 18 December 1876. His varied career was represented by campaign medals for service from Syria and southern Africa to the Crimea and China, together with French and Ottoman honours.

Official Victoria Cross citation

With great enterprise and gallantry, landed, and successfully carried out a reconnoissance, within the enemy’s lines at Genitchi. This service was performed by Commander Day, with the view of ascertaining the practicability of reaching the enemy’s gun-vessels, which lay within the Straits of Genitchi, close to the town. It was performed by Commander Day alone on a dark but fine night, with the assistance of a pocket-compass. After traversing four or five miles of low swampy ground, occasionally up to his knees in water, he at length advanced to within about 200 yards of the vessels. From the perfect silence on board them, it was his conviction that they were without crews, and when he returned, it was with the full impression that the expedition was a feasible one. This opinion, however, he was induced to change on the following day, in consequence of the increasing activity which was apparent in the direction of the vessels, and therefore he determined on making a second visit to the spot. On this occasion the night was a squally one, and the journey longer and more difficult than before. On reaching the spot, finding the vessels manned, and their crews apparently on the alert, he decided that any attempt to surprise them was out of the question. (Despatch from Admiral Lord Lyons, 9th October, 1855, No. 844.)

N.B. It was while attempting a reconnoissance on the same ground, that Captain L’Allemand, of the French steam-vessel “Mouette,” lost his life.