You Will Shoot Your Eye Out

Ladies and Gentlemen, fellow comrades.

On this day, 82 years ago on August 10th 1944, Captain David Auldjo Jamieson of the British Royal Norfolk Regiment won the Victoria Cross. Despite being wounded in the eye and arm, he refused to be evacuated as a casualty as he was the only officer remaining functioning, and with only 100 men held off seven repeated attacks by superior forces against his bridgehead over the River Orne, Normandy, France.

British positions were counterattacked by tanks of the German 12th ϟϟ Panzer Division. D company was at the center of much of the bitter fighting as the Germans tried to dislodge the British from their positions. During the German assault, which lasted over 36 hours, the British destroyed five enemy tanks and an armored car.

In the course of the fighting, Jamieson, who had been badly wounded in the head and arm but had refused evacuation, left his trench to direct fire from a British tank onto the enemy. With most of the company’s officers out of action and with mounting casualties among the men, Jamieson, at 6 ‘5 a somewhat conspicuous figure, effectively took command.

Using radio to bring down artillery fire on the German positions, he walked about in full view of the enemy, reorganizing, rallying and encouraging his company. In what the official reports for his Victoria Cross described as “the seemingly hopeless situation”, Jamieson’s powers of leadership so inspired his men that they managed to repulse each fresh attack.

So great were the mounting casualties on the enemy’s side that, eventually, the Germans were forced to withdraw to regroup further back from the bridgehead. Three months later, Jamieson’s Victoria Cross was announced. The official citation made it clear that it was largely due to his personal actions that the important Ome bridgehead was held.

The son of Sir Archibald Auldjo Jamieson, chairman of Vickers Armstrong, David Jamieson was educated at Eton. With the imminent prospect of war, he abandoned his plans to go up to Cambridge and, in May 1939, aged 18, was granted a Territorial commission, joining the 5th Royal Norfolk Regiment.

He was granted a regular commission in 1941. After the war he stayed in the army and, with promotion to major, served as an instructor at the School of Infantry, Warminster, before being appointed an adviser to the British Military Mission in Egypt. He resigned his commission in 1948 and began what was to be an extremely successful business career.