b. 27/01/1897 Airdrie, Scotland. d. 16/10/1942 Hoylake, The Wirral.
John O’Neill (1897-1942) was born on 27th January 1897 at 13 Forsyth Street, Airdrie, Lanarkshire, Scotland. His surname has also been spelt O’Neil and O’Niell. His father, Samuel, was originally from Rasharkin, County Antrim, Ireland, and was a coalminer. He married Agnes Devan, a domestic servant from Castle Douglas, on 26th August 1891 at the Roman Catholic Church, Girvan, Ayrshire. John had fifteen siblings in all.
John was educated at the Roman Catholic School, Airdrie and at Glenboig School, Annathill, Lanarkshire. He worked beside his father as a coalminer at Bedlay Colliery, Coatbridge, Lanarkshire. John enlisted in the 2nd Leinster Regiment in August 1914 and went to France on 13th April 1915.
John O’Neill VC MM
He was awarded the Military Medal for his actions in the attack on Hill 63, northwest of Ploegsteert Wood, Belgium on 4th September 1918. Shortly afterwards would come the action which would result in the award of the Victoria Cross.
On the 14th October 1918, the 2nd Battalion, Prince of Wales’ Leinster Regiment, moved out of Ypres towards the heavily contested ground around the strongly held town of Courtrai. They advanced slowly to a point between the villages of Ledegem and Moorsele, some six miles from Courtrai, where the attack ground to a halt, checked by two enemy machine guns and an artillery battery firing over open sights.
Sergeant O’Neill, leading a small group of eleven men, decided to charge the German battery. The small party successfully overcame the enemy positions and some of the captured guns were turned towards the German lines. Elevating them as high as possible, they loosened them off in the vague direction of the enemy.
Six days later, on the 20th October 1918, O’Neill was once again involved in an action which was part of his VC citation, when he charged a machine gun position single-handed, with only one man to cover him. Both of O’Neill’s actions were witnessed by Captain John Moran MC, an officer in the 2nd Leinsters, who later in life became Father Moran.
John was gazetted for the award of the VC on Boxing Day 1918, and John O’Neill was invested with his Victoria Cross by King George V in Buckingham Palace on the 2nd August 1919. John was a member of a guard of honour for King Albert of Belgium in Brussels. He was granted the Freedom of Hamilton, Lanarkshire on 4th August 1919 and during the ceremony was presented with £400 by the people of Hamilton. The Prince of Wales, Colonel-in-Chief of the Leinster Regiment, was met by John on the outskirts of Colchester, Essex and escorted to the barracks, where he presented honours and awards to members of the Regiment on 6th February 1920. John was one of the Honour Guard at the burial of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey on 11th November 1920. He was discharged on 23rd February 1919, having been wounded four times, but re-enlisted on 26th January 1920, and served until 25th January 1922. He then returned to the coalmines, and worked at Cadzow Colliery, Hamilton from 1922 until 24th February 1923.
John married Kathleen O’Neill Flanagan, a dressmaker, born in Cape Town, South Africa, on 18th February 1922 at Our Lady and St Anne’s Church, Cadzow, Lanarkshire. They had three children – Michael (known as Mikey, tragically killed in an accident with a lorry aged 10), Maureen and Patricia.
On 25th April 1923 John enlisted as an aircraftsman in the Royal Air Force for seven years regular service and five on the reserve. He was promoted next day to corporal and joined the RAF Depot, Uxbridge. In October 1923 he was posted to No 5 Flying Training School, RAF Shotwick, Flintshire, Wales. Unfortunately, he was court-martialled shortly afterwards for striking a fellow airman, and was reduced in rank to aircraftsman 2. He was posted to the Armament & Gunnery School at RAF Leuchars, Scotland on 19th December. His last entry on his service record is January 1929, though it is believed he served until 27th July 1939.
John attended two VC reunions – the VC Garden Party at Buckingham Palace on 26th June 1920 and the VC Dinner at the House of Lords on 9th November 1929. He also attended the Pilgrimage of Peace to Lourdes, France alongside Father Moran, and also six other VCs. John was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Pioneer Corps on 1st July 1940. He was part of a poorly trained military escort to 2,542 deportees bound for Australia, sailing from Liverpool, aboard HMT Dunera on 10th July 1940. The majority of the deportees were anti-Nazis, most of them Jewish, and some had survived the sinking of the SS Arandora Star by U-47 on 2nd July. During the journey, some of the guards mistreated the prisoners, bullying them in a brutal and sadistic manner, including beatings, starvation and robbery. There was an enquiry held about their conduct, which had resulted in two suicides. It is likely John O’Neill would have been charged and tried, but he died before his case came to trial. The Company OC, Major William Patrick Scott, was severely reprimanded and three guards were tried by court martial. The deportees were later released by the Australian Government and about 1000 served in the Australian Military Forces.
On return from Australia, John served in 26th Company from 8th December 1940, 121st Company from 4th February 1941, 274th Company from 9th January 1942, 206th Company in Northern Ireland under the command of Major WD Bissett VC from 12th February. He was based at Huyton, near Liverpool. His duties involved dock work and fire watching during air raids. He was billeted at Hoylake and West Kirkby, Cheshire.
John died of heart disease at Hoylake, Cheshire on 16th October 1942, His funeral was held at Hoylake Trinity Church and he was buried in Hoylake Churchyard, Hoylake. A Commonwealth War Graves headstone was placed on the grave in the 1980s.
In 2004, the recently raised Leinster Regiment Association believed that recognition for the regiment with which O’Neill had won his Victoria Cross should be displayed on his grave. Therefore, a ceremony was held in Holy Trinity churchyard in which O’Neill’s headstone was cleaned and a memorial plaque placed over his burial plot pointing out that he was serving with the 2nd Battalion, Prince of Wales’ Leinster Regiment when he earned his Victoria Cross on two dates in 1918. The memorial stone was unveiled by Mrs McCaughy and her cousin Mrs Molly Hayes, both relatives of John O’Neill.
He is further commemorated on the VC Memorial Arch in Hamilton, Lanarkshire with 15 other Lanarkshire VCs, with a VC commemorative stone at Birkenhead War Memorial placed on 11th November 2018, and named on the VC Roll of Honour at Wallasey Town Hall. He is also on the Irish Regiment VCs Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire. He is also on the VC Memorial at Glasgow Central Station to Glasgow and West of Scotland VCs.
On the 13th February 1962, John O’Neill’s Victoria Cross medal group was placed into the care of B.A. Seaby, a numismatic company, for sale in their forthcoming auction. On the same day a gang of thieves parked a van outside the motor showrooms on the ground floor of Seaby’s premises. They forced the showroom door to reach another door giving access to the coin dealer’s offices. The gang then carried oxy-acetylene apparatus hidden in rolls of linoleum into the building and spent the next ten hours burning open three safes.
Coins and medals valued at £30,000 were stolen, including the medals and decorations awarded to General Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, after whom the Queensland capital is named, and the WWI Victoria Cross medal group awarded to Sergeant John O’Neill, 2nd Bn, Leinster Regiment. They are valued at £2,750 and £535 respectively.
An immediate reward of £2,000 was offered by Tyler & Co, city assessors, and warnings were circulated by the International Association of Professional Numismatics to markets in Switzerland, Italy, Germany and France. To date, no sighting of John O’Neill’s Victoria Cross has been made.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: STOLEN IN 1962.
BURIAL PLACE: TRINITY ROAD CEMETERY, HOYLAKE, THE WIRRAL. GRAVE 8.
Acknowledgement:
Thomas Stewart – Image of O’Neill VC’s name on the Hamilton VC Arch in Scotland.