James Cooper (VC)

Rowed through dangerous surf to rescue men trapped on shore.

James Cooper was born in Birmingham in September 1840. He became a private in the 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, and served in India. In May 1867 his battalion took part in an expedition to Little Andaman in the Bay of Bengal after men from the steamer Assam Valley failed to return from the island.

A landing party found itself in danger ashore, with heavy surf making withdrawal difficult. On 7 May Cooper joined Assistant Surgeon Campbell Mellis Douglas and privates David Bell, William Griffiths and Thomas Murphy in a boat sent to bring the party off. Their first attempt was defeated when the boat began taking water. They tried again, reached the shore and carried five men back to the ship. Returning once more, they completed the evacuation of the remaining soldiers.

All five boatmen received the Victoria Cross. Their award, announced in December 1867, recognized rescue work under conditions of exceptional danger. Cooper received his decoration at Rangoon in April 1868.

After leaving the Army Cooper returned to Birmingham. Accounts describe his later life as impoverished. He died there and was buried in a public grave in Warstone Lane Cemetery. His military career had connected a Birmingham recruit with service in India and a rescue far from home.

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.

The London Gazette of 17 December 1867, Numb. 23333, p. 6878