James Alexander Smith

He crossed open ground twice to rescue men under enemy fire.

James Alexander Smith was born James Alexander Glenn in Workington, Cumberland, on 5 January 1881. His father worked at a blast furnace, and he enlisted in the Border Regiment under his mother’s maiden name in 1901. He served in Burma and South Africa before transferring to the reserve. By 1911 he was a blast furnaceman in Middlesbrough.

Recalled when war began, Smith reached France with the 2nd Battalion on 26 November 1914. At Rouges Bancs on 21 December, he and Abraham Acton volunteered to recover a wounded man lying close to the German trenches. They then went out again to retrieve another casualty. Carrying the men to safety exposed the two rescuers to enemy fire for about an hour. Both received the Victoria Cross.

Smith suffered an arm wound in March 1915 and returned to England. George V presented his VC at Buckingham Palace on 22 April. During his recovery he married Eliza Jane Reynolds, using his birth surname. He returned to his battalion in October and moved to munitions work in January 1917.

After the war Smith became a labourer for Middlesbrough Council. His first wife died in 1937. He served in the Home Guard during the Second World War and married Ada Parkes in 1949. He attended the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. Smith died at his Middlesbrough home on 21 May 1968 and was cremated at Acklam.