Henry Singleton Pennell

Dragged his wounded officer under heavy fire at Dargai Hill.

Henry Singleton Pennell was born at Dawlish, Devon, on 18 June 1874, the son of Edwin Pennell, a retired East India merchant, and Henrietta Copeland. Educated at Eastbourne College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, he was commissioned into the Derbyshire Regiment in October 1893. He became a lieutenant in 1896.

During the Tirah campaign on India's North-West Frontier, his battalion attacked the heights at Dargai on 20 October 1897. Captain W. E. C. Smith fell wounded on exposed ground under intense fire. Pennell made repeated efforts to bring him back, attempting to carry and then drag him into safety. He persisted until he realised that Smith had died. His willingness to remain with the casualty in a position swept by fire brought the Victoria Cross. The award was gazetted in May 1898 and presented at Bareilly that September.

Pennell next served in South Africa, attached to the West Yorkshire Regiment during the early stages of the Second Boer War. He took part in the campaign to relieve Ladysmith, including the fighting around Colenso and the Tugela. He was wounded at Pieters Hill. Promotion to captain followed in May 1900.

After returning to Britain he attended the Staff College in 1902–04. In June 1905 he became a staff captain at Southern Command. His career ended unexpectedly during a winter holiday in Switzerland. On 19 January 1907 he was fatally injured while tobogganing on the Cresta Run at St Moritz. He was 32 and unmarried. His body was brought home to Dawlish for burial.

Official Victoria Cross citation

This Officer, during the attack on the Dargai Heights on the 20th October, 1897, when Captain W. E. G. Smith, Derbyshire Regiment, was struck down, ran to his assistance and made two distinct attempts, under a “perfect hail of bullets,” to carry and drag him back to cover, and only desisted when he found that he was dead.

The London Gazette of 20 May 1898, Numb. 26968, p. 3165