- Philip Neame
Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame VC, KBE, CB, DSO (December 12 ,1888 –April 28 ,1978 ) was a British Army officer and recipient of theVictoria Cross , the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was also the winner of an Olympic Gold medal, making him the only person to win both this and the Victoria Cross.Neame was born in
Faversham and died in Selling. He was educated atCheltenham College .Victoria Cross
He was 26 years old, and a
lieutenant in the 15th Field Company,Corps of Royal Engineers ,British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded theVictoria Cross :On
19 December 1914 atNeuve Chapelle ,France , Lieutenant Neame, in the face of very heavy fire, engaged the Germans in a single-handed bombing attack, killing and wounding a number of them. He was able to check the enemy advance for three-quarters of an hour and to rescue all the wounded whom it was possible to move.Olympian
He was a member of Great Britain's 1924 Olympic Running Deer team at
Paris and is the only Victoria Cross recipient who has won an Olympic Gold Medal. The Running Deer competition was one of the shooting events at the games. It involved teams of four (firing single shots), where a moving target simulated the animal.World War II
He later achieved the rank of
lieutenant-general . He was captured in 1941 during theNorth African Campaign inWorld War II after an offensive byErwin Rommel 'sAfrika Korps . While a prisoner inItaly , he made a number of escape attempts with colleagues, including Major-GeneralRichard O'Connor and Lieutenant-General SirAdrian Carton de Wiart , a fellow VC recipient. Neame eventually made a successful escape with Air Marshal Owen Boyd and Richard O'Connor.He served as
Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey from 1945 to 1953.The medal
His Victoria Cross is displayed with his other medals at the
Imperial War Museum , London, England.References
*
Monuments To Courage (David Harvey, 1999)
*The Register of the Victoria Cross (This England, 1997)
*The Sapper VCs (Gerald Napier, 1998)
*VCs of the First World War - 1914 (Gerald Gliddon, 1994)External links
* [http://www.remuseum.org.uk/rem_his_vc.htm#1n Royal Engineers Museum] Sappers VCs
* [http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/stewart/kent.htm Location of grave] "(Kent)"
* [http://www.dhs.kyutech.ac.jp/~ruxton/OC_victoria_crosses.html Philip NEAME of Cheltenham College]
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