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Corporal Phillip Davey

Unit: 10th Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division
Action: 28 June 1918, Merris, France
In a daylight attack on Merris, Davey's platoon commander was killed and the men were forced to take cover in a ditch directly in front of a German machine-gun.
The citation says: ``Alone Corporal Davey (aged 23) moved forward in the face of a fierce point blank fire, and attacked the gun with hand grenades, putting half the crew out of action. Having used all available grenades, he returned to the original jumping off trench, secured a further supply and again attacked the gun, the crew of which had in the meantime been reinforced.

"He killed the crew, eight in all, and captured the gun. This very gallant non-commissioned officer then mounted the gun in the new post and used it in repelling a determined counter attack, during which he was severely wounded. By his determination, Corporal Davey saved the platoon from annihilation, and made it possible to consolidate and hold a position of vital importance to the success of the whole operation.''

Biography: Three days before Australian troops landed at Gallipoli, young private Davey was sentenced to 14 days detention for failing to follow an order.
Born in Unley, South Australia, on 10 October 1896, he was a horse driver who enlisted in the AIF in December 1914. He contracted enteric fever on Gallipoli and was sent home but rejoined the 10th Battalion in France in September 1916.
He was accidentally wounded when a bomb went off in his hand in March 1917, but was later cleared by a military inquiry, and was gassed on 3 October. Six months before the VC action, he was awarded a Military Medal for rescuing a badly wounded mate from no-man's land.
His two brothers were also awarded Military Medals in the war.

The wounds he received at Merris were severe enough for him to be invalided to England and sent home where he was discharged. He worked for the telegraph branch of the South Australian Railways and married in 1928, having one daughter.
Probably linked to his 1917 gassing, he suffered emphysema and bronchitis for several years and died in hospital on 21 December 1953. He was buried with full military honours at the West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide.
'Without hesitation, he at once sprang out, threw a bomb which landed beside the post, and rushed the position, bayoneting one of the crew and capturing the gun'