A Treasured Possession

D/DLI 7/801/8 Temporary Second Lieutenant Frederick Youens

A hundred years ago this week, on 29 August 1917, Mrs Lizzie Youens, the widow of a basket maker from High Wycombe, went to Buckingham Palace. There King George V presented her with the posthumous Victoria Cross that had been awarded to her son, Second Lieutenant Frederick Youens, who had been mortally wounded a few weeks earlier during the Third Battle of Ypres.

Born in High Wycombe in August 1893, Frederick - or Freddy as his mother called him - did well at his local National School and won a scholarship to the town’s Royal Grammar School. There he excelled in sports and gained his first military experience in the school’s Officer Training Corps.

On 5 September 1914, just a month after the outbreak of war, Freddy Youens left his teaching job and enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps. The following spring, he transferred to the East Surrey Regiment and was soon in action on the Western Front. Private Youens, however, did not forget his medical training and, during the Battle of Loos in September 1915, worked all night dressing wounds and helping the wounded to shelter, until he was seriously wounded himself.

Out of action for a year while his arm healed, Freddy was finally fit enough to re-join the East Surrey Regiment. His talents, however, were soon recognised and in January 1917, after officer training, he was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant attached to the Durham Light Infantry. On 13 March, Second Lieutenant Youens joined the 13th (Service) Battalion DLI in Belgium.

During the Third Battle of Ypres (or Passchendaele as the battle is better known today), 13 DLI took over newly captured positions in Impartial Trench, west of Klein Zillebeke. Just after midnight on 7 July 1917, Second Lieutenant Youens led a three-man patrol into no man’s land. There they came across a group of 40 Germans and Freddy and another soldier were wounded. Safely back in the Durhams’ trenches, Freddy was having his wounds dressed, when he was told that German raiders were fast approaching. He immediately ran from the dug-out, forgetting his shirt and tunic, to rally his men. A bomb (grenade) then fell near a Lewis machine gun crew but failed to explode. Freddy fearlessly picked it up and threw it out of the trench. Shortly afterwards another bomb fell nearby. Again, Freddy picked it up to throw it away, but it exploded in his hand, mortally wounding him, and some of his men. Second Lieutenant Frederick Youens died from his wounds shortly afterwards and he was buried in Railway Dugouts Burial Ground at Zillebeke.

Grave marker for Frederick Youens, Australian War Memorial P00735.010 (public domain)

On 2 August 1917, the London Gazette announced the award of a posthumous Victoria Cross “for most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty” to Second Lieutenant Youens and, before the end of the month, his mother went to Buckingham Palace to receive her son’s VC. This became her most treasured possession, along with letters from the chaplain and from Freddy’s commanding officer, who described her son as “an ideal soldier - keen, efficient and brave”.

Mrs Youens died in 1958 and her treasured possession was then sold but in 1976, thanks to the generosity of the DLI Association, Freddy’s Victoria Cross was acquired and presented to the DLI Museum. Today his medal is part of the DLI Collection, held by the University of Durham at Palace Green Library, whilst Durham County Record Office preserves the letters and photographs also treasured by Freddy’s mother.

During the DLI Association’s campaign to acquire the Victoria Cross, one of Freddy’s brother officers visited the museum and was interviewed by local media about the day Freddy won his VC. Born in Scotland in 1892, Roderick Mitchell was teaching in Sunderland when the First World War began. Later, he was commissioned as an officer in 13 DLI and was awarded the Military Cross twice for his bravery during the war. In his interview, this old soldier, proudly wearing his medals, vividly remembered the German raid on his battalion’s trenches and seeing Freddy Youens pick up a German bomb, before a second exploded in his hand.

Roderick Mitchell was the last surviving eye-witness of the events in the 13th Battalion’s trenches on 7 July 1917. He died a few months after visiting the museum, in June 1977.