Wilbur Dartnell

Wounded, he stayed to defend the men who could never escape.

William Thomas Dartnell was born at Collingwood, Melbourne, on 6 April 1885. He became an actor and clerk, following a varied path before his final military service. As a teenager he served in South Africa with the Victorian Mounted Rifles during the Boer War. He later married Elizabeth Edith Smyth in Melbourne in April 1907, and the couple settled at Fitzroy. By 1913 he had returned to South Africa, where he was working when the First World War began.

Dartnell travelled to Britain and enlisted under the name Wilbur Taylor Dartnell. On 12 February 1915 he joined the 25th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, as a temporary lieutenant. Known as the Frontiersmen, the battalion drew men with diverse overseas experience. It was intended for operations in East Africa, where its initial responsibilities included guarding the Uganda Railway against German raiding parties.

The battalion reached Mombasa in May and took part in the capture of Bukoba in June. By late summer it had companies around Maktau. On 3 September 1915, Dartnell was with a mounted infantry patrol when it was ambushed. He was wounded in the leg and was being carried away. Seeing that several more seriously wounded men could not be removed, he insisted on remaining with them.

The official Victoria Cross citation concludes: "He gave his own life in the gallant attempt to save others" (London Gazette, 23 December 1915; Australian War Memorial transcription: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C340005). The citation's account explains that he believed the men left behind were in immediate danger. Rather than accept evacuation for himself, he chose to stay and fight beside those unable to escape. He was killed in the action, aged thirty.

His widow received the posthumous Victoria Cross in Melbourne in October 1916. His remains were eventually reinterred at Voi in Kenya. His surviving medals link the East African action with earlier service in South Africa, including the Queen's and King's South Africa Medals and the Natal Rebellion Medal, as well as his First World War campaign awards. His name varies across those stages of his life, but William Thomas Dartnell and Wilbur Taylor Dartnell refer to the same man.

Victoria Cross citation: For most conspicuous bravery, near Maktau (East Africa) on 3rd September, 1915. During a mounted infantry engagement the enemy got within a few yards of our men, and it was found impossible to get the more severely wounded away. Lieutenant Dartnell, who was himself being carried away wounded in the leg, seeing the situation, and knowing that the enemy's black troops murdered the wounded, insisted on being left behind in the hopes of being able to save the lives of the other wounded men. He gave his own life in the gallant attempt to save others.

London Gazette, 23 December 1915; Australian War Memorial transcription.