He might have been orphaned by the age of 10 and in the army at 14, but Suffolk’s Drummer Bent was made of stern stuff. Awarded the Victoria Cross for outstanding gallantry in the early battles of the First World War, he kept going back for more. Steven Russell celebrates his bravery.
He wore the colours of the East Lancashire Regiment, but “Joe” Bent was a true East Anglian, complete with Suffolk common-sense and modesty. And he was brave. Many times over.
Drummer Spencer John Bent’s selflessness and courage had already caught the eye by the time he crept several times into no-man’s-land during the Battle of Ypres to rescue fallen soldiers.
As he tried to lift up one of the casualties, a Private McNulty, they came under enemy fire. Joe had to hook his feet under the injured man’s armpits and inch backwards on his elbows, dragging McNulty to the relative safety of the trenches about 25 yards away.
It was one of the acts of courage that earned him the Victoria Cross – and £50 from an Ipswich benefactor as the first local man to be awarded the VC.
A week later, the brave rescuer was himself wounded. A bullet went through his right leg – the injury adding to shrapnel injuries on both hands and arms, and a cut head suffered during the Private McNulty rescue – and he was taken to hospital. Joe was sent back to England for several months of treatment and care.
Joe had arrived in France on August 22, 1914 – the day of the initial clashes between British troops and the invading forces of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Queen Victoria‘s grandson. Not even three weeks had passed since his country had declared war on Germany.
His regiment was involved in the Battle of Le Cateau. Then, by autumn, he found himself in Belgium, displaying the courage that earned him the Victoria Cross – the highest military decoration awarded for “most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy”.
That he certainly had.
In late October the 23-year-old had taken ammunition to a patrol cut off by the enemy, and a few days later took supplies to a trench on the front line that was coming under heavy attack from shelling and gunfire.
But it was his selfless commitment in the opening days of the November that made him one of only 1,357 people to have been awarded the VC since the 1850s.
During that first Battle of Ypres, the officer in charge of him, the platoon sergeant and some of the men were killed or wounded during sustained artillery bombardment of the British trenches near Le Gheer. Joe took charge and fought off further infantry attacks until he was relieved.
Then, on November 3, he risked his skin several times by going into no-man’s-land to rescue those fallen comrades.
Joe was convalescing back in Suffolk when he learned he had been awarded the Victoria Cross, the news confirmed when he read about it in that day’s newspaper!
He received his award from King George V at Buckingham Palace on January 13, 1915.
The citation read: “For conspicuous gallantry near Le Gheer on the night of the 1st - 2nd November 1914, when, after his Officer, Platoon Sergeant, and Section Commander had been struck down, he took command, and, with great presence of mind and coolness, succeeded in holding the position.
“Drummer Bent had previously distinguished himself on two occasions, 22nd and 24th October, by bringing up ammunition under a heavy shell and rifle fire, and again, on the 3rd November, when he brought into cover some wounded men who were lying exposed in the open.”
Nine decades after his heroism, a plaque honouring Joe’s bravery was unveiled in his hometown of Stowmarket, where he was born on March 18, 1891. His grandparents were landlords of The Pickerel Inn in Stowupland Street, where the plaque was installed.
In 2004, after the ceremony – which included a wreath-laying, a rendition of The Last Post and a guard of honour in First World War uniforms – mayor Gordon Paton said: “It’s important to remember the town’s sons… It’s important to remember what people have done in the past, to give us our freedom today.”
Joe Bent was interviewed by the East Anglian Daily Times late in 1914, as he recuperated at his uncle and aunt’s home at Witnesham, near Ipswich. He explained what had happened that November – his first-person account colourful and compelling – and the article was picked up by the New York Times.
“We were, as usual, taking our hour turns alternately, watching for the enemy, and I had snuggled down into my hole. We had no officer in our trench, and my platoon leader had gone to visit a post when someone passed the word down the line that the battalion was to retire.
“This was being done when I woke up. I started to follow them, but remembered a French trumpet which I had found, and had carried with me for some time. I did not want to lose it, and went back for it, chancing a bullet.
“When I got into the trench I saw someone just coming round the corner. Thinking it was a German, I waited for him till he had crawled up to me, and then poked my rifle into him and asked him who he was. It was Sergt. Waller, who told me that it was a wrong order.
“I at once jumped out of the trench and ordered the men back. While doing this an officer came up, and after I had told him what had happened he told me to get the men back, while he went after some others. We all got back to the trench safely and waited.
“In the early morning the Germans evidently thought we had left the trenches, for after a bombardment they attacked.
“The Germans came on, doing a sort of goose step. Our officers kept our fire back, and in the meantime Lieut. Dyer brought up a machine gun.
“When the Germans were about 400 yards off, the order was given to fire, and the Germans went down in hundreds, very few getting safely back to their own trenches.
“On the following morning, after we had had breakfast, Private McNulty went out of the trench, and on returning was hit in the stomach. He fell, and the Germans were trying to hit him again: you could see the earth flying up all round him.
“I said, ‘Why doesn’t someone go and help him?’ and got the reply ‘Why not go yourself?’I went and, to make it difficult for the Germans to hit me, I zig-zagged to him.
“They did not snipe at me while I was advancing, but as soon as I got hold of McNulty’s shoulder something seemed to take my feet from under me, and I slipped under McNulty.
“This took place close to the walls of a ruined convent, and just as I fell, several bullets struck the wall, sending a piece of plaster against my left eye. I thought I was wounded and started to rub the blood away, as I thought, but fortunately the skin was only grazed.
“I felt it was time to get out of it, and knowing it was impossible to stand up, I hooked my feet under McNulty’s arms, and using my elbows I managed to drag myself and him back to the trenches about twenty-five yards away. When I got him there safely, I went for a doctor and stretcher-bearers.
“As far as I know he is still alive; at any rate, he was the last time I heard of him.”
One of Joe’s admirers is Lord Ashcroft – the businessman, philanthropist and former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party who also has a “lifelong interest in valour” inspired partly by his late father, Eric, who served in the Army during the Second World War and took part in the D-Day landings.
Since 1986 he’s collected more than 180 Victoria Crosses – the biggest collection in the world. Three years ago it went on public display for the first time at the Imperial War Museum London, in a purpose-built gallery.
Among the collection are Joe’s Victoria Cross and service medals, bought by the peer at a London auction in 2000. The sale fetched £80,000.
Joe’s story is told in Victoria Cross Heroes, one of Michael Ashcroft’s four books on gallantry.
The peer calls him a “formidable soldier” and describes how he had become an orphan by the age of 10, with his father (in the Royal Horse Artillery) being killed during the Boer War. Joe was raised, largely, by his aunt and uncle.
He joined the 1st Battalion, the East Lancashire Regiment, at 14, as a drummer. Other accounts add that after four years in Ireland he was based in Woking until 1912 and then Colchester until 1914.
His family called him John, but Bent was soon given the nickname Joe while boxing in army competitions. It was a distortion of the name of professional boxer “Chow” Bent, but it stuck for the rest of his life!
Lord Ashcroft explains that, following his dramatic early experiences of war, Joe was promoted to corporal and helped with the recruitment drive for six months before being promoted again, to sergeant.
In the late summer of 1915 he was awarded the Cross of St George by Russia for gallantry and distinguished service. Even better, he met the girl he would marry. Alice Powell, about four years younger, was the daughter of the chief boilermaker at the Royal Naval Dockyard, Devonport.
Joe got engaged and went back to France in the summer of 1916, joining his former battalion on the Somme. He stayed until the autumn, when rheumatic fever prompted another period of recovery back in Britain.
The sweethearts tied the knot in Plymouth early in 1917 before the groom returned to France as a volunteer with the 7th Battalion of the East Lancashires.
“He took part in the battles of Messines Ridge and Passchendaele, then rejoined the 1st Battalion in time for the German Spring Offensive and the subsequent battles of summer and autumn 1918,” writes Lord Ashcroft in his book.
It was during fighting close to Valenciennes and the Belgium border that Joe’s outstanding bravery earned him the Military Medal about a fortnight before the armistice brought an end to hostilities.
The citation read: “In the fighting around the village of Sepmeries, East of Cambrai, Colour Sergeant Major Spencer Bent VC, for leading two patrols which were sent out to gain touch with the enemy on the afternoon of 29th October 1918.”
Joe went home for good in May, 1919, later serving in the West Indies and Malta. He left the army in 1926 as a regimental sergeant major – still in his mid 30s but with 21 years of service to his credit.
He had three children and worked as a caretaker at a school in the New Kent Road, London. Later, Joe was a commissionaire (a uniformed attendant or doorkeeper) for brewer Courage.
He apparently worked for the company – latterly part-time, says Lord Ashcroft – until he was 85.
Reports also suggest that in the summer of 1968 Joe was invited to open a new pub in Chatham, Kent – the aptly-named The Victoria Cross.
The old soldier died in his sleep in Hackney, east London, on May 3, 1977. He was 86. Joe was cremated at West Norwood Cemetery and Crematorium, where a plaque remembers him.
A thanksgiving service was held in the Chapel of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, the following month. Alice, the woman to whom he was married for more than 60 years, died at the age of 90, a few weeks before Christmas in 1984.
•Victoria Cross Heroes, Lord Ashcroft’s 2006 book, is published by Headline Review
The website www.lordashcroft medals.com gives details of all the VCs in his collection.
• Regimental Sergeant Major Spencer “Joe” Bent’s medal collection, auctioned in 2000, comprised: The Victoria Cross, Military Medal, 1914 Star and clasp, British War Medal, Victory Medal, Defence Medal (1939-45), King George VI Coronation Medal, Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal, Army Long Service & Good Conduct Medal, and the Cross of St George (from Russia).
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