6th Royal Berkshire Regiment, 90th Anniversary Memorial Service Capt HAROLD Ackroyd VC MC RAmc Options

[ned in jersey]

I and my cousin Christopher Ackroyd will be in Ypres from 9th-11th August and we will be celebrating my great-grandfather's death by conducting
a short service at Birr Cross Roads Cemetery - Menin Road towards Houge - on Saturday 11th August in the morning(time tba)

All welcome

Ned in Jersey

[BJay]

Information taken from an article written by Capt Ackroyd's great-grandson.

On the morning of 19th July, the 53rd Brigade was to fight its way into the southern half of Delville Wood from where the South Africans had been forced out. Machine-gun fire and shelling increased in intensity once the attack had been launched, and the fighting became disorderly, once the Battalions had established entrenched positions dug in and remained for two days and nights, holding the ground they had gained, against furious and continuous counter-attacks and under appalling shell-fire. The wood was described as being littered with hundreds of wounded and dying men, and that the fighting was so confused that evacuating the wounded seemed insuperable. Capt Ackroyd, however, was described as ‘so cool, purposeful, and methodical, that he cleared the whole wood of wounded, British and Broche as well.’ Harold Ackroyd was recommended for the award of the Victoria Cross eleven times. He was, in this event, awarded the Military Cross.

Capt Ackroyd left the battalion on 11 August 1916 and returned to England having been given six weeks sick leave by the Army Medical Board. He returned to the Battalion after being passed fit for service on 3 October.

During the month of July 1917 the 53rd Brigade prepared for a battle now known as the Passchendaele offensive, or the Third battle of Ypres. The role of the 18th Division on the 31st July was to leapfrog the 30th Division after that Division had taken what became known as the Black Line. However, disaster struck. By a tragic mistake the 30th Divisional Infantry wheeled to their left and assaulted Chateau Wood instead of Glencorse Wood. Misleading information that Glencorse Wood was now in British hands caused the 53rd Brigade to plunge into a fatal gap. It was documented that -

"In all that hellish turmoil, there had been one quiet figure, most heroic, most wonderful of all. Doctor Ackroyd, the 6th Berks Medical Officer, a stooping, grey-haired, bespectacled man, rose to the supreme heights that day. He seemed to be everywhere; he tended and bandaged scores of men, for to him fell the rush of cases round Clapham Junction and towards Hooge. But no wounded man was treated hurriedly or unskilfully’. Ackroyd worked as if he was in the quiet of an operating theatre. It was acknowledged that complete concentration in his work was probably his secret. When it was all over there were twenty-three separate recommendations of his name for the Victoria Cross."

Harold came through the 31st July unscathed but was killed by a German sniper’s bullet eleven days later in Jargon Trench on the Western edge of Glencorse Wood, whilst dodging from shell-hole to shell-hole attending to the wounded men of his battalion. He never knew that the Victoria Cross was going to be awarded, for it was not gazetted until the 6th September.

In memory of Capt Harold Ackroyd VC, MC, MD. RAMC