Sir Philip Neame

Lieutenant-General Sir Philip Neame combined two distinctions achieved by no other person: the Victoria Cross and an Olympic gold medal. Born at Macknade Farm near Faversham, Kent, on 12 December 1888, he trained at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 29 July 1908. After specialist training at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham, he served with the 56th Field Company at Bulford before being posted to Gibraltar in October 1913. On the outbreak of the First World War he returned to Britain and joined the 15th Field Company, Royal Engineers, landing in France with the 8th Division on 5 November 1914. victoriacrossonline.co.uk The conditions of trench warfare quickly drew upon Neame's technical training. On 27 November 1914 he took part in a small party that destroyed the Moated Grange near Neuve Chapelle, a farm building being used by German snipers. He also experimented with improvised grenades at a time when British troops had only limited supplies of effective hand bombs. His defining action came near Neuve Chapelle on 19 December 1914. Sent forward with Royal Engineers to consolidate newly captured trenches, Neame found the position under a determined German counter-attack and the infantry bombing party struggling to ignite its grenades. He improvised a method of lighting the fuses with ordinary match heads and, while exposed to intense enemy fire, continued throwing bombs for approximately forty-five minutes. His action checked the German advance and enabled wounded men to be removed. The Victoria Cross citation recorded his conspicuous bravery in holding the enemy back under heavy fire and rescuing all the wounded who could be moved. His award was published in The London Gazette on 16 February 1915. The Gazette Wounded at Neuve Chapelle on 10 March 1915, Neame soon returned to duty and became Adjutant of the 8th Division Royal Engineers. He subsequently moved into staff appointments, including service as Brigade Major of the 168th Brigade, 56th (London) Division, and later as a General Staff Officer with First Army, the 30th Division and No. 2 Tank Group. His First World War service brought the Distinguished Service Order, gazetted in January 1916, brevet advancement and repeated Mentions in Despatches. Contemporary and later records credit him with ten Mentions in Despatches during the First World War. France appointed him a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in January 1919 and subsequently awarded him the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 in July 1919. Belgium followed with the Belgian Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 in September. No additional palm or star device for either Croix de Guerre has been verified and none should be inferred from the award alone. victoriacrossonline.co.uk After the war Neame served as an instructor at the Staff College, Camberley, and published German Strategy in the Great War in 1923. In 1924 he represented Great Britain at the Paris Olympic Games as a member of the four-man team in the running deer, double-shot shooting event. The British team won the gold medal, making Neame the only person known to have received both the Victoria Cross and an Olympic gold medal. Official Team GB records confirm that Paris 1924 was his only Olympic medal, correcting secondary accounts that have also attributed a bronze medal to him. Team GB Neame continued his Army career in India, serving with the Bengal Sappers and Miners and later as General Staff Officer, 1st Grade, in the Waziristan District. After further senior staff service in India, he became the last Commandant of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, on 28 February 1938. His promotion to major-general was dated to 19 December 1937, and in the New Year Honours of 1939 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath. Generals At the outbreak of the Second World War, Neame did not immediately take command of the 4th Indian Division. On 4 September 1939 he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the British Expeditionary Force in France, remaining in that post until February 1940. He then became General Officer Commanding the 4th Indian Infantry Division in North Africa. In August 1940 he assumed command of British troops in Palestine and Trans-Jordan, and on 28 February 1941 became General Officer Commanding and Military Governor of Cyrenaica. This sequence corrects the chronology in the earlier biography. Generals During the Axis counter-offensive in Cyrenaica, Neame and Lieutenant-General Sir Richard O'Connor were captured on 6 April 1941 after their party encountered German forces during the British withdrawal. Neame spent more than two years as a prisoner of war in Italy, including imprisonment with other senior Allied officers at Castello di Vincigliata near Florence. During captivity he wrote much of his autobiography and concealed the manuscript from his captors. Following the Italian armistice in September 1943 he escaped with other senior prisoners and, after months avoiding German forces, reached the Allied lines at Termoli on 20 December. He returned to Britain at the end of December 1943. Neame was Mentioned in Despatches twice for his Second World War service. These mentions are honours distinctions in their own right and, for ribbon purposes, are represented by the appropriate bronze oak-leaf emblem rather than being treated as a clasp to the War Medal 1939–1945. victoriacrossonline.co.uk From February 1945 Neame also served as Colonel Commandant of the Royal Engineers. On 25 August 1945 he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Guernsey, with the local rank of lieutenant-general, while simultaneously commanding British troops in the Channel Islands. These two appointments ended at different times. His command of troops ceased when he retired from the Regular Army on 17 July 1947, when he was granted the honorary rank of lieutenant-general, but he remained Lieutenant-Governor of Guernsey until 15 October 1953. This distinction is important and corrects the previous biography's implication that both appointments ended in 1947. The Gazette Neame was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1946 and was also appointed a Knight of Grace of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem. His foreign honours after the Second World War included the Czechoslovak Order of the White Lion. The official Czechoslovak presidential archive records Neame in military group “V”, initially receiving the 3rd Class on 6 June 1947 and subsequently the 2nd Class on 7 October 1948. This official register is more precise than descriptions that simply call him a “Knight of the Order of the White Lion.” Pražský hrad archív Neame published his autobiography, Playing with Strife, in 1947 and continued as Colonel Commandant of the Royal Engineers until 1955. His later honours included the coronation and jubilee medals associated with the reigns of George V, George VI and Elizabeth II, culminating in the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977. He died on 28 April 1978 at his home, The Kintle, Selling Court, Selling, Kent, aged eighty-nine. The residence should not be given as “Brookes Court.” An earlier home in Selling was Woodlands, which Neame renamed Brooke's Croft, apparently the source of the confusion in some records. His medal group is preserved in the Imperial War Museum.