Leonard James Keyworth ["Tales of the V.C."], item 5

• January 18, 2018 03:58:22 Thomas A. Lingner

  bomber within range.

    By some strange chance however he was not hit at all.

  He stood on that parapet for two whole hours, continuously

  throwing the bombs which his comrades passed up to him from below.

  In that time he threw nearly 200. That he was not killed is a 

  wonderful thing; that he held out for so long without dropping 

  from sheer physical exhaustion is almost more wonderful, as

  anyone who has bowled a cricket-ball through a long summer

  afternoon can well realise - and a bomb weighs a pound and

  a half, not five ounces!

    But there is a limit to human endurance. At last the

  time came when even he could do no more; and he staggered

  down from his place on the parapet.

    Afterwards, when he had partially recovered his strength,

  he made a gallant attempt to rescue one of his Officers, who

  had been mortally wounded and was lying on the German parapet,

  but the dying officer waved him away when he approached, as

  the enemy's fire was so heavy that it would have been certain

  death to have tried to reach him.

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