2nd Lieutenant Donald Simpson Bell VC
9TH YORKSHIRE REGIMENT
‘DONNY’ BELL, OF HARROGATE, WAS 25 years old, a school teacher and sometime professional footballer, having turned out for both Crystal Palace and Bradford Park Avenue. In November 1914 he walked away from his job and enlisted as a private soldier in the West Yorkshire Regiment. Within six months, he had been recognised as officer material and was granted a commission in the 9th Yorkshire Regiment, the Green Howards.
By 10th July, Donald had seen much dramatic action on the Somme. Five days earlier the 9th Yorkshires had attacked Horseshoe Trench, between La Boisselle and Mametz Wood. The lines that they found themselves in were unfamiliar, broken and the weather was damp. Yorkshiremen struggled through mud in the face of shell and machine-gun fire. In the midst of the attack, heavy enfilade fire was opened on one of the attacking companies by a German machine gunner. Seeing what was transpiring, Donald, who had observed the gun on his left, took the initiative and crept up a communication trench, trailed by two men.
Donald’s sporting prowess did not stop at football. He was a talented cricketer and rugby player too, 14st and over 6ft tall. A friend of his said that ‘he was … able to hurl himself at the German trench at such speed that the enemy would hardly believe what their eyes saw’. He burst forth, running out into the open under heavy fire in the direction of the machine gun. Brandishing his revolver, his first shot hit the gun from about 20 yards away and knocked it down. Then his little team began slinging bombs ‘and did in about 50 Boches’. For this act Donny Bell would be awarded the Victoria Cross. ‘I must confess,’ he wrote, ‘it was the biggest fluke alive and I did nothing. I only chucked one bomb, but it did the trick … I am glad to have been so fortunate, for Pa’s sake, for I know he likes his lads to be at the top of the tree.’
By nightfall Horseshoe Trench was in British hands, searched and the enemy cleared out. Their brigadier was impressed with what he saw. ‘The losses in all battalions was considerable, but their energy in hunting out and destroying the enemy at the end of the long and confused operations in spite of their own physical exhaustions was worthy of the highest traditions of the Yorkshire Regiments which they represented.’
‘I believe that God is watching over me and it rests with him whether I pull through or not,’ Bell wrote home in the aftermath of the incident. His faith would be tested again five days later. On 9th July the 9th Yorkshires received orders to attack in the direction of Contalmaison the following day to seize what was left of the village. From across no-man’s-land it appeared as a mass of rubble, but this disguised the fact that underneath the village the enemy had fashioned a warren of dugouts, cellars and tunnels. Like moles, the Germans had thus far lived underground and had beaten off their British attackers, including Albert Klemp, as a result.
The main attack was to be delivered in part by the 9th Battalion of the Green Howards, but for the day Donald Bell and his bombing party were attached to the 8th Yorkshires on their right. At 4:50pm they left from Horseshoe Trench, the scene of his previous exploits, and immediately came under shrapnel fire. When they closed to within 500 yards of the village, machine guns were opened on them from both their left flank and in front. They were forced to struggle through enemy wire and hedges to get to Contalmaison, picking up heavy casualties. Pressing on regardless, as the battalion approached the village, the Green Howards found the enemy retreating. But suddenly machine-gun fire erupted behind the Yorkshiremen. ‘Not more than four officers and 150 men reached the village,’ where they began pulling German prisoners out of dugouts along with valuable equipment: six machine guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. With so few men, the two battalions of Yorkshires began to put themselves in a state of defence, ready to hold off inevitable German counter-attacks. The first came at 7:30pm, but they were dispersed by fire from their own usurped machine guns. The second was far more costly. An hour and a half later about forty Germans made a second attempt coming from the south of the village. A barricade was swiftly put up but, with his customary zeal, Donald went beyond it with his bombers, attempting to force the enemy back. For his bravery he was cut down by enemy fire.
The ruins of Contalmaison. (Authors’ collection)
Five weeks before his death, Donny had married at the Wesleyan Chapel in Kirkby Stephen. Evidently still under the impression that he was a bachelor, the War Office notified his father of his death and it fell to him to inform his son’s new wife, Rhoda. She was sent his belongings by his batman, who was heartbroken at his death when he wrote to her several months later, after she had collected her late husband’s VC from the King at Buckingham Palace. ‘I sit down and write these lines in deepest regret,’ he began. ‘I would to God that my late master and friend had still been here with us, or better still, been at home with you … [The company] worshipped him in their simple, wholehearted way and so they ought, he save the lot of us from being wiped out, by his heroic act.’ Donald Bell was originally laid to rest to the south of Contalmaison, where he fell. He was later exhumed and is now buried at Gordon Dump Cemetery, plot IV.A.8.
Commemorative cigarette card for Donald Simpson Bell. (Authors’ collection)