A brass memorial plaque to Lt. Harold Esmond Haddon, killed in action in Mesopotamia, 1915. The memorial consists of a plain rectangular plaque with incised inscription and single line black border.
Inscription -
"The Pure in Heart - - shall see GOD"
TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF
HAROLD ESMOND HADDON
LIEUT 119TH INFANTRY (THE MOOLTAN REGT) I.A.
YOUNGER SON OF T. W. HADDON, M.A.,
KILLED IN ACTION AT KUT-EL-AMARA, MESOPOTAMIA
ON XMAS EVE, 1915 - AGED 26.
MENTIONED IN DESPATCHES.
"And how can man die better?"
HIS WIDOWED MOTHER & ONLY BROTHER ERECT THIS TABLET"Biography:
CAPT. HAROLD ESMOND HADDON, 119TH INFANTRY (THE MOOLTAN REGT.), INDIAN ARMY. KILLED IN ACTION AT KUT-EL-AMARA, DECEMBER 24TH, 1915. AGED 26. At the School 1902—7 (School House). Capt. H. E. Haddon was the younger son of the late Thomas Wright Haddon, M.A., Univ. Coll., Oxon., formerly of H.M. Civil Service Commission, subsequently Senior Classical Master of the City of London School, and of Mrs. Haddon, 4, Hervey Road, Blackheath. His elder brother, Lieut. Ralph D. B. Haddon, R.N., was awarded the D.S.C. on June 1st, 1917. Entering the School at Easter, 1902, from Stratheden House School, Blackheath, H. E. Haddon was Cox of the School IV. in 1905 and 1906, and was also a keen boxer, and a 2nd Corporal in the Cadet Corps. He left in July, 1907, being awarded the Army Class Prize, and passed well into Sandhurst. After one year at Sandhurst he passed out fourteenth and was gazetted to the Indian Army. Going to India in October, 1908, he was first attached to the 1st Royal Warwicks, and received his permanent commission in the 119th Infantry (The Mooltan Regiment), Indian Army, in 1910, being gazetted Lieutenant December 9th of that year. He always retained a great affection for the Warwicks. In 1913 he took the Special Machine Gun and Musketry Examination, and was the only one of forty candidates who was " distinguished " in both. He was Quartermaster from 1912 till June, 1915. In October, 1914, the Regiment were ordered to Mesopotamia, but being detained in India on special duty did not land at Basra till December 7th. After a series of " small affairs " they took part in the Battle of Zobeir (Shaiba), April 12—14th, 1915. Lieut. Haddon was in command of a Battery of three machine guns, and, though wounded in the head by shrapnel on the first day, refused to leave his guns, " stuck out " the three days' battle and on the weary march back to camp lent his pony to a man of the 24th Punjabis, whose wound was more serious. Early in June they took part in the great advance on Amara. This advance, owing to the floods, had to be made mostly by water, the heavy guns and equipment going up the Tigris. The infantry were in frail, open, native boats (Bhelum), which the men propelled partly by paddling, partly by wading and shoving, through beds of reeds that were in parts six feet high. Lieut. Haddon's machine guns and two others belonging to the Oxfords were mounted on improvised rafts made of planks put across two bhelum lashed together, with a gun shield in front, and propelled in the same way. He gave a graphic account of the capture of three Turkish positions isolated by the floods on the right bank of the Tigris. So successful were these operations, so complete the rout of the enemy, that Amara was occupied without opposition. The 119th were left at Ezra's Tomb below Amara to guard communications, but a fortnight later they were moved twenty-five miles up to Galat-Saleh. At the end of June they were sent on to Amara and he was put in acting command of a double-company of Rajputs, which he held till his death. Towards the end of September they advanced on Kut-el-Amara, and after a hard fight from the 26th to the 28th, captured the strong fortified positions there. His Brigade having had the hardest of the fighting were left there, whilst the rest advanced up the river; but a few days later they were " suddenly packed off to reinforce those higher up." They remained at Azizeah, about fifty miles from Baghdad, till the advance to Ctesiphon in the middle of November. The last letter received from him was written from Azizeah, on November 13th. " We are off in two days," he wrote. "With any luck we shall give you Baghdad as a Christmas present." He came safely through the Battle of Ctesiphon of November 22nd to 24fth and the withdrawal to Kut, and acted as second in command of the Regiment after Ctesiphon. He was mentioned in General Sir J. Nixon's Despatch, dated January 1st, 1916, and published in the Gazette of India, April, 1916, " for gallantry and efficient handling of his Machine Gun Section diuring the operations leading to the occupation of Amara." His second mention was in Major-General Townshend's Despatch, dated January 17th, 1916, and published in the Gazette of India, of June 13th, for gallant and distinguished service at the storming of the Es-Sinn position, and a report communicated by General Townshend to Lieut.-General Sir P. Lake, G.O.C., I.E.F., " D," during the Siege of Kut contained the following :— "Lieut. H. E. Haddon, 119th Inf. (since killed in action), behaved with conspicuous gallantry during the capture of redoubts and trenches S.W. of V.P. (Vital Point). He gallantly directed the fire in a shallow ditch 400 yards from the enemy's position, where ex-posure meant almost certain death. He led a charge over 400 yards of open ground swept by a frontal and enfilade fire; he also led his men in a sweeping movement along the enemy's trenches, and was one of the first into the redoubts afterwards known as Delamain's redoubts (Gen. Delamain being in command of the Brigade). . . . During the occupation at V.P., Lieut. Haddon showed extreme coolness and set a fine example to his men,. . . affording his Commanding Officer the greatest help and support during the operations on November 22nd and 23rd"' (Battle of Ctesiphon). On November 25th the withdrawal commenced, and Kut-el-Amara was reached on December 3rd. The Siege of Kut commenced on December 7th, and in " the Christmas Eve Attack" he was instantaneously killed, by a bomb, as he was running along a trench, only fifty yards from the enemy's, calling out his men to meet an infantry attack. He was buried on Christmas Day, 1915, in the Cemetery at Kut, and received a third " mention " in Major-General Townshend's Despatch, dated August 24th, 1916: " For gallant and distinguished service in the field during the retirement from Ctesiphon and Siege of Kut-el-Amara, while officiating second in command of his Regiment." Officers of the Regiment wrote from the depot in India and from hospital in India and England testifying to the affection and esteem in which he was held by all ranks. One Captain wrote :— " Not only was he immensely popular in the Regiment, but also, without exception, with everyone outside as well. . . . He was not only a most valuable officer in every way professionally, but he was so invariably cheery and amusing that, without exaggeration, he was the life of the Mess during the whole time we have been in that forgotten country." Another, a Captain and Adjutant, wrote:— '' He was always reliable, honest and straightforward, and, if ever any difficult job was placed in his hands, one could be confident that it would be carried out with speed and thoroughness." His Commanding Officer, who had been wounded, writing from Alexandria, said that Lieut. Haddon was " always cheery, even when things were going their worst" ; and expressed his appreciation of " his many sterling qualities." " The Regiment," he added, " had lost a most excellent officer of the greatest promise." The Regiment expressed a wish to place a Memorial Brass in the Parish Church at Blackheath. They ' mourned the loss of a gallant and much-loved comrade, who in every way maintained the best traditions of a British officer.'"
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