Sergeant
Frederick Hobson V.C.
A dispatch from London
tells of the winning of the Victoria Cross by Sergeant Frederick
Hobson (57113).
Sergeant Hobson lived in
Simcoe, where he worked
for the Dominion Canners. He enlisted in Simcoe's second
contingent, under Lieut. Walter Forse.
With him he was attached to the 20th Battalion,
and with that unit he went overseas.
Here's how the dispatch
describes Hobson's winning
of the coveted decoration:
"During an enemy
counter-attack, our Lewis Automated Machine Gun in a forward post
was buried by an enemy shell. The gun's crew, with the exception
of one man, was killed.
Sergeant Hobson though not
a gunner, grasped the great importance of the post, and rushed
from the trench, and got the gun into action against the enemy
again.
A jam caused the gun to
stop firing. Though wounded, Hobson left the surviving
gunner to fix the problem, and rushed toward the advancing enemy
with only his bayoneted rifle.
Single-handedly he held
them back until he himself was killed by a rifle shot. By this
time, however, the Lewis gun was in action again. Shortly after,
reinforcements arrived and the enemy was beaten off.
The valor and devotion to
duty by this non-commissioned officer gave the gunner the time required to again get the gun into action, and saved a most serious situation."
