Sidney Godley
“In defence of the railway bridge at Nimy, 23rd August 1914.
This afternoon Pte. Godley showed particular heroism in his management of the machines guns. Lt. Dease having been severely wounded and each machine gunner in turn shot. Under extremely heavy fire he had to remove three dead bodies to get to the gun”
On August 14, 1889 Sidney Frank Godley was born in the town of East Grinstead in West Sussex County, England. Following the death of his mother in 1896 when he was only seven years old he was sent to be raised by his uncle in London, and by fourteen he was working for an ironmonger and apprenticing as a plumber, but he decided at the age of twenty in 1909 to enlist in the British Army as a private in the Royal Fusiliers Regiment.
British troops at Mons (Image from Wikimedia)
With the outbreak of the First World War in August of 1914 Private Godley and his unit were part of the British Expeditionary Force, landing at Le Havre and advancing to their planned positions along the Mons Canal in Belgium. He was assigned as an ammunition carrier, bringing belts of .303 ammunition to one of his battalion’s Vickers machine guns positioned near the Nimy Railroad Bridge, under the command of Lt. Maurice Dease.
It was here that the BEF had it’s first contact with the Germans, as the forces of the Imperial German Army under General Alexander von Kluck drove through Belgium in accordance with the Schlieffen Plan. The British at Mons defended the canal with two corps, and found themselves directly in the path of four German corps. Godley’s unit, the Royal Rusiliers, was selected as a rear guard to cover a tactical withdrawal of the BEF from the sector as the French collapsed on their flanks.
The British were able to inflict high casualties on the Germans, the professional British Army demonstrating a marked man-to-man superiority over the German conscripts, but by evening the overwhelming German numbers were beginning to turn the tide.
A Vickers gun position (late in the war, the steel helmets were not in use in 1914)
At Godley’s position near the railroad bridge the gunners of his section were eventually all killed, and the battalion commander ordered a retreat. Lt. Dease had fallen as well, attempting to man the gun and wounded several times. Godley had already been wounded during his trips to the gun over the course of the battle, and he volunteered to remain behind, manning the Vickers to cover the withdrawal.
Soon afterward a shell wounded Godley, but the private continued to operate the gun alone for two hours, not stopping even once he was hit in the head by a German bullet. He eventually ran out of ammunition, and disassembled the gun and threw its mechanism into the canal before setting out, terribly wounded, to crawl back to British lines. He was captured by the Germans near the Bridge, and treated for his wounds.
POWs are escorted to a work detail at the Doberitz POW Camp, where Godley was held
His comrades thought the Godley had succumbed to his wounds, and word of his stand at the bridge made it all the way to King George V, who awarded him the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest award for valor in combat. In reality, Godley was able to recover from his wounds, and would spend the remainder of the war in a German POW camp near Doberitz. Here he was held in high regard both by his fellow prisoners and his German guards, who even arranged a parade when news of the award reached the camp. As the German Empire collapsed in 1918 the guards deserted, and Godley made his way home to Britain.
After the war he would marry, the minister being another holder of the Victoria Cross, as well as a veteran of the Royal Fusiliers; Reverend Noel Mellish. He would remain in London for the rest of his life, working as a caretaker at a school in the Borough of Tower Hamlets until his death in 1959 at the age of 67.
