Mystery of Shropshire VC hero's death unravelled

And well he might. Because he was a dead man walking.

Major Charles Allix Lavington Yate, the son of a vicar of Madeley, was Shropshire's first Victoria Cross hero of the Great War. He had made a heroic last stand against overwhelming odds in a desperate rearguard action by the British at Le Cateau in France almost exactly 100 years ago.

Afterwards "Cal" Yate was initially reported to have been killed in action. The official citation for his VC in November said that he had been "severely wounded" and implied that he had died in captivity of his wounds.

Yet the remarkable photo, which has the air of being taken soon after the battle, shows Yate without any obvious wounds.

So what really happened? The real story uncovered by other evidence and by researchers is an extraordinary one. Yate refused to surrender and fought to the last but, instead of dying in one final charge as he apparently intended, he was overpowered and captured by German soldiers. A death-before-dishonour soldier, he seems to have felt shame at being taken alive. In captivity, he plotted to escape - and did.

The exact circumstances of his death were to be a swirl of rumour, and various accounts have emerged. That he was shot trying to escape. That he was murdered by hostile German civilians. And the one which appears in archive documents - that, determined not to be recaptured after being challenged by German civilians, he slit his own throat.

But back to the official citation for his VC. It said that he "commanded one of the two Companies that remained to the end in the trenches at Le Cateau on 26th August (1914), and when all other officers were killed or wounded, and ammunition exhausted, led his nineteen survivors against the enemy in a charge in which he was severely wounded. He was picked up by the enemy and has subsequently died as a prisoner of war."

The war diary of Yate's unit, the 2nd Battalion of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, has recently been made available online, and gives an account of Yate's final moments which explains why there was no heroic last charge and how he came to be taken alive and apparently unwounded.

"At about 4.20pm the final rush came," the diary says.

"In 'B' Company, Major Yate gave the order to meet it with a charge, but the number of men near him able to support it was so small that his desperate call met with practically no response.

"Major Yate himself, with other officers of his Company, was overpowered and disarmed. Lieut. Hibbert had been wounded... For some little time the Germans had been sounding our 'Cease fire' and attempts were also made by them to call upon the K.O.Y.L.I. to surrender, but Major Yate, who commanded the firing line, refused to allow a flag to approach."

The documents include a letter which shows that the battalion's troops learned relatively quickly that Yate had died in captivity in untoward circumstances. It was written on October 16, 1914, by Sergeant E.T. Richards, of the 2nd Battalion, to an officer in the regiment to whom he had, as a Private, acted as batman - that is, soldier servant - between 1904 and 1908.

Sergeant Richards says: "I had a charmed life at Le Cateau, but had to leave everything except my rifle; only ten of the Company (B) from the trenches got back except a few who were wounded very early. I expect several of them are in German camps, as I have seen a photograph with a B Company Corporal on it. I am told that Major C.A.L. Yate has been shot while trying to escape."

Richards added that he was the only original Sergeant or Corporal left of his Company. But not for long. He was killed in action only a fortnight after writing the letter.

The recollections of the battalion commander, Lt Col R.C. Bond, who was captured at Le Cateau, shed further light on the climax to the battle.

"Maj. Yate had with him in his trench Capt. Keppel who had commanded and trained B Company in Dublin and Lt. Reynolds. 2/Lt. Hibbert was wounded in an attempt to cross the road to warn him of a newly-discovered point of danger. The left Companies' trenches were already overrun; the fire of the attack was closer and even more intense; when suddenly the whole countryside, as far as the eye could reach to right and left, seemed alive with advancing Germans.

"Maj. Yate shouted to his men to charge, but was instantly afterwards struggling in the hands of Germans who had approached the trench from behind. Some few of the survivors were bayoneted, but to the credit of the German soldiers, be it mentioned, most of the unwounded were made prisoners and the wounded in the trench were respected... There was no surrender. The occupants of the trenches were mobbed and swamped by the rising tide of grey-coated Germans."

Research in Major Yate's file in the National Archives done a few years ago by Mrs Shelagh Lewis of the Madeley Living History Project uncovered the remarkable story of Yate's death.

Having escaped from his prisoner-of-war camp, Major Yate was rumbled and set upon by hostile German peasants on their way to work at a local factory. To avoid recapture, he slit his throat with a cut-throat razor.

She did not give credence to the possibility that the German statements about his death were a cover-up for murder by a mob.

Supporting evidence that Major Yate had not intended to allow himself to be captured alive came from a statement by a fellow officer that before making his escape attempt he had exchanged his safety razor for a cut-throat one.

"All the reports are in agreement. A factory owner saw him being knocked about and roughed up and gives a fairly graphic description. But if the mob was going to kill him they would have hit him with a bill hook rather than killed him with a cut-throat razor. The story as I read it has the ring of truth - that he cut his own throat," she said at the time.

Among other fascinating elements to the brew are that Yate was actually born in Germany, was a fluent German speaker, had a German mother, and had visited there in the pre-war period.

He is today buried in Germany. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission gives his date of death as September 20, 1914.

This Shropshire Victoria Cross hero lies in Berlin South Western Cemetery.

*(BLOB) Under a Government scheme, all Victoria Cross heroes of the Great War will be honoured with commemorative paving stones, with the intention that they will be laid on the 100th anniversary of the action for which the VC was awarded. The first stones are due to be laid on August 23. The laying of the stone to commemorate Major Yate would normally be due to be laid on August 26 - the centenary of the Battle of Le Cateau - but will in fact be delayed. As the area around Madeley war memorial is in line for a revamp and various improvements, the plan is for the stone to be laid when that is done. In the meantime, consideration is being given to the idea of putting the commemorative stone on temporary display in the reception of Jubilee House, Madeley, so it can be viewed by local people.