PEARSON John Eric

PEARSON John Eric 'Jack,' M.S.M. was 'Mentioned in Despatches'

He was one of the 40 NCOs and men, who along with with one officer, returned to HM Transport Wayfarer (after it was torpedoed) in order to save 763 horses on April 11th 1915.

The 'Horse Transport WAYFARER' was torpedoed 60 miles N.W. of Scillies on 11 April 1915. Fortunately the ship did not sink and it was towed to Queenstown Harbour, requiring constant pumping for 2 days. Out of 763 horses and Mules on board only 3 did not survive.

THE CHARGE at Huj in Palestine in November 1917, carried out by soldiers of the Warwickshire Yeomanry and Worcestershire Yeomanry, was the last classic cavalry charge in the history of the British Army. Peter Rhodes tells a story of “matchless bravery”.

Acknowledgments:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Huj

The Charge at Huj (8 November 1917), (also known by the British as the Affair of Huj), was an engagement between forces of the British Empire' Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) and the Ottoman Turkish Empire's, Yildirim Army Group during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War. It took place during the Pursuit phase of the Southern Palestine Offensive which eventually captured Jerusalem a month later.

The charge was carried out by units of the 5th Mounted Brigade, against a rearguard position of German, Austrian and Turkish artillery and infantry armed with machine guns. The charge was successful and the British captured the position, seventy prisoners, eleven pieces of artillery and four machine guns. However British casualties were heavy; of the 170 men taking part, twenty-six were killed and forty wounded. They also had 100 horses killed.

The charge is claimed to be one of the last British cavalry charges and was immortalised in a watercolour painting by the noted British artist Lady Butler.