Robert Edwin Phillips

He carried wounded comrades to safety under heavy rifle fire

Robert Edwin Phillips was born at West Bromwich in 1895. A scholarship pupil at King Edward VI School, Aston, he entered the Inland Revenue before joining the Territorial Army. Commissioned into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1914, he served at Gallipoli and then in Mesopotamia.

Near Kut on 25 January 1917, his commanding officer, Edward Henderson, fell mortally wounded in the open during a counterattack. Phillips and a comrade went out under intense fire and brought him back to the British lines. Phillips received the Victoria Cross for this rescue.

Promoted captain, he continued serving until 1919, then returned to tax administration. He married Beatrice Brockhouse in 1920 and raised two children. His civil service career included Britain, Malaya and Swaziland. After retirement in 1960, he lived in Cornwall with his second wife. He died on 23 September 1968 and was buried at St Veep.

Official Victoria Cross citation

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty. After his Commanding Officer had been mortally wounded in leading a counter-attack, Lt. Phillips went out under the most intense fire to his assistance, and eventualy, with the help of a comrade, succeeded in bringing him back to our lines. Lt. Phillips had in the first instance tried to get a telephone wire across the open following the battalion in their counter-attack. This was impossible when the Signallers were killed. His Commanding Officer lay wounded in the open, and as the counter-attack had succeeded, he turned all his energies on getting him in. He showed sustained courage in its very highest form, and throughout he had but little chance of ever getting back alive.

Second Supplement to The London Gazette of 8 June 1917. 8 June 1917, Numb. 30122, p. 5703