A German Tommy Ken Anderson unravels the story of how a young Australian of German descent had to change his name to fight for the British in the First World War, and was subsequently decorated for bravery n 14 October 1918, east of Ledgehem*, Belgium, at 0.53 am, Second Lieutenant Walter Lancelot Merritt MC stepped into no-man’s-land to lead members of the 86th Brigade in an advance on German lines. He was holding aloft a large red flag and was accompanied by a small group of soldiers. The flag’s purpose was to indicate the centre of the advance. To troops on both flanks and those in following waves the young officer was a mobile landmark, so long as he survived. Whether he volunteered for the task – and his undoubted courage makes this likely – or it was a matter of duty as brigade intelligence officer, we do not know. Following the British artillery barrage as it stepped farther into enemy lines the party reached the first objective well ahead of the
O
32
D I S C O V E R Y O U R H I S T O R Y • M AY 2 0 1 4
rest of the brigade, whose members were having difficulty in getting through Ledgehem owing to a dense fog. This put Merritt and his men in a tight spot. They found themselves practically surrounded by the enemy and were soon heavily engaged at close range, from machine-gun and trench-mortar fire. Somehow they managed to fight back, capturing 28 prisoners, while still waiting for the rest of the battalion to catch up. A British officer was a distinctive target in his ‘hunting outfit’. An officer who further identified himself by carrying a large red flag provided a compelling target and it was almost inevitable that Merritt was hit. A bullet fired at close range smashed into his right leg, fracturing it. Despite this he kept the flag flying, ensuring the following troops maintained the line, breaking through a broad band of barbed wire
that had been another reason for the temporary delay in the advance and continuing on for the rest of the day, taking position after position, capturing guns and more prisoners. For his part in the victory Merritt was awarded a Bar to his MC. The brigade intelligence report records the bare details of the incident that ended his war: ‘T.2/Lieut. MERRITT. Bde I.O. wounded’.
A hero’s confession What makes his story unique among the many acts of bravery coming out of the First World War is that this gallant young man was not, as he claimed to be, the son of an Englishman; his father was a German-born labourer whose parents had migrated to Australia. Merritt’s birth name was Walter Leslie Schwarz. He grew up in the provincial town of Toowoomba,
w w w. d i s c o v e r y o u r h i s t o r y. n e t