Greater Love Hath No Man

Private William McFadzean
Battle of the Somme, 01/07/1916
First World War

Billy McFadzean, date unknown, author unknown

William “Billy” Frederick McFadzean was born in Armagh on 09/10/1895 into a prosperous, middle-class, Protestant family. Raised in the suburbs of Belfast, he was apprenticed to a linen manufacturer after leaving school and was a keen rugby player.

In his late teens, McFadzean joined the East Belfast Regiment of the Ulster Volunteer Force. Pre-war Ireland (then entirely part of the United Kingdom) was a powder keg, on the brink of civil war over the issue of home rule. The UVF was a Protestant militia, formed in 1912 to
oppose home rule by any means.

When war broke out in 1914, a deal was struck with Unionist politicians to encourage UVF members to join up. The response was so great that a whole New Army division was formed; the 36th (Ulster) Division. McFadzean was among these volunteers.

He joined the 14th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles on 22/09/1914 as a Private, and was subsequently trained as a bomber; a specialist in the use of Mills bombs (hand grenades), which were a vital weapon in the rapidly evolving discipline of trench warfare. The 36th Division sailed for France in October 1915 destined, like so many New Army units, to receive their first blooding on the Somme.

Aerial photograph of the German positions at Thiepval by No 4 Squadron RFC,
the Schwaben Redoubt can be seen in the top right corner, IWM HU 91107

An Allied offensive on the Somme had been planned as early as December 1915, but when the Germans attacked the French at Verdun in February 1916 it fell to the British to take the leading role on the Somme. With the imperative of relieving pressure on Verdun, the first day of the offensive was set for 01/07/1916; a date that would become one of the most infamous in British history.

In the early hours of the morning, the 36th Division moved up into positions in Thiepval Wood. Their objective was the immense fortified position known as the Schwaben Redoubt, which sat behind the German front line and dominated that part of the battlefield. Zero Hour was
scheduled for 7:30 AM. With shells falling around them, the Ulstermen prepared for the attack, some accounts report in an atmosphere of intense emotional and religious fervour.

Around 7:00 AM, Mills bombs were distributed to the bombers in wooden boxes secured with ropes, containing twelve bombs each. It is not clear whether the ropes on McFadzean’s box had already been cut, causing him to drop the box, or whether he attempted to cut the ropes himself and dropped the box in the process, but the effect was the same. The box fell to the floor, the bombs spilled out, and the safety pins were dislodged from two of them.

With only a few seconds to consider his actions, the twenty-year-old McFadzean threw himself on top of the bombs. They exploded, killing him instantly, and wounding the man next to him, but thanks to McFadzean’s sacrifice nobody else was killed.

The men of the 14th RIR would have had little time to mourn. Within twenty minutes they were crawling out into no man’s land to attack as soon as the British barrage lifted. Thanks in no small part to this tactic, the 36th Division enjoyed one of the few great successes of the First
Day on the Somme; capturing the Schwaben Redoubt after brutal, close-quarters fighting and even reaching the German second line. The failure of the attacks to either side of them however meant that they were soon under fire from three sides and forced to abandon their hard-won gains.

The 36th Division suffered 5,104 casualties (more than 40% of their number) on the First Day on the Somme, including Billy McFadzean. They formed a significant part of the 57,470 total casualties suffered by British and Empire forces that day, 19,240 of whom were killed.

01/07/1916 remains the bloodiest day in the British Army’s history. Of the nine Victoria Crosses awarded for the First Day on the Somme, four were awarded to men of the 36th Division including, posthumously, Billy McFadzean. George V presented the medal to McFadzean’s father at Buckingham Palace on 28/02/1917. The King is quoted as saying “nothing finer has been done in this war for which I have yet given the Victoria Cross than the act performed by your son in giving his life so heroically to save the lives of his comrades.”

McFadzean’s grave was lost during the subsequent Somme fighting and his name is inscribed on the immense memorial to the missing at Thiepval. In the decades that followed, McFadzean was made into an icon of the Unionist cause in Northern Island and features in a number of murals in Belfast and a popular Unionist song, ‘The Ballad of Billy McFadzean’. His medals remain with his family.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
   - John 15:13

The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, 2005, Chris Hartford

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