Thomas “Tommy” Ricketts VC

b. 15/04/1901 Middle Arm, Newfoundland. d. 10/02/1967 St Johns, Nova Scotia,Canada.

Thomas Ricketts (1901-1967), known as Tommy, was born in 15th April 1901 at Middle Arm, White Bay, Newfoundland. His father, John Francis Ricketts, born in Smart’s Island, Newfoundland, was a fisherman. He married Elizabeth Langford on 24th November 1865 at Big Island, White Bay, Newfoundland, where she was born. She died in 1893. John remarried to Amelia Elizabeth Cassell on 6th November 1893 at Middle Arm, White Bay. After his mother died in 1905, he was brought up by an aunt and his sister, Dinah. Tommy had four siblings from his father’s two marriages.

Tommy received little or no early education due to the remote locality in which he lived. At the age of 5, he fell into the sea and was dragged out by the tide. Richard Baker, a deckhand on a visiting schooner, who was a non-swimmer, dived in and rescued Tommy. Both were half-dead when they reached the shore. When Tommy and his brother, George, enlisted they were not able to sign their names and made a mark instead.

Tommy was a fisherman when he enlisted in the Newfoundland Regiment at St John’s on 2nd September 1916. He gave his age as 18 years and three months, when in fact he was just 15 years and five months. He was charged with being drunk at St John’s on 2nd December and was admonished. Tommy embarked aboard SS Florizel at St John’s on 31st January 1917, as part of the Windsor draft that had been delayed by ten weeks because of an outbreak of measles and had been quarantined at Windsor, Nova Scotia. He disembarked at Ayr, Scotland on 3rd February. He made an allotment of $0.60 per day from his army pay to his sister, Rachel, on 1st February 1917 until it was reallocated to his father in October 1918. He went to Rouen from Southampton on 11th June and joined the Northumberland Battalion on 2nd July in the Ypres Salient.

He took part in the Battle of Langemarck on 16th August and the Battle of Poelcapelle on 9th October. On 20th November he received a gunshot wound to the right thigh at Marcoing during the Battle of Cambrai. He was treated at 89th Field Ambulance and was transferred to No 48 Casualty Clearing Station and 1st Canadian General Hospital, Etaples next day. On 28th November he was evacuated to England and admitted to 1st London General Hospital, Camberwell, London. He was granted Command Depot furlough 10th-19th December and then reported to No 24 Company Depot, Ayr, Scotland. He transferred to No 7 Command Depot, Ripon, Yorkshire on 10th January 1918. He returned to France on 4th April 1918, rejoining his unit on 30th April.

Thomas “Tommy” Ricketts VC

On 14th October 1918, Ricketts was in action at Ledeghem, east of Ypres, in Belgium. During an early morning attack in heavy ground mist, the regiment, led on the right by Ricketts’s B Company, initially drove the Germans back and captured three enemy pillboxes, or reinforced gun emplacements. By mid-morning the mist lifted, revealing the Wulfdambeek, a stream two metres deep that had to be crossed in full view of the enemy. The regiment crossed, in the process sustaining heavy losses, and advanced another 900 metres when the troops were pinned down by enemy shelling. The unit had outrun its own artillery support and casualties began to mount.

Ricketts’s platoon commander, Lieutenant Stanley Newman, with a small group of men and a Lewis gun (light machine gun) detachment that included Ricketts, went forward to try and outflank the German gun position. When they advanced as far as they could, Ricketts volunteered to go forward with his section commander, Lance Corporal Matthew Brazil, in a further attempt at outflanking the German position.

The two soldiers advanced in quick rushes, under heavy enemy fire, until they were about 275 metres from the German battery. Then they ran out of ammunition. The enemy realized this and began bringing up reinforcements. Volunteering again, Ricketts dashed 90 metres back towards his unit’s lines, picked up some ammunition and returned to his section commander, all under heavy fire. With the additional ammunition, Ricketts and Brazil, the only two unwounded Newfoundlanders remaining in Lt. Newman’s small group, forced the Germans back to some nearby farm buildings.

As a result, Ricketts’s platoon advanced on the enemy without sustaining any more casualties. In the process, they captured four field guns, four machine guns and eight prisoners, soon afterwards adding a fifth field gun to the tally. For his heroism, Ricketts was awarded the Victoria Cross. Later, the French government also presented him with the Croix de Guerre with gold star. For their parts in this battle, Newman was awarded the Military Cross and Brazil received the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Tommy was the only member of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment to be awarded the VC. The announcement of his award came at a Battalion parade in Hilden, Germany on 23rd December 1918.

Ricketts’s VC investiture was held on 19th January 1919 at Sandringham, England, the country estate of King George V. The ceremony was a private one, as the King and Queen were in mourning for their youngest teenaged son Prince John, who had died the day before from the complications of a medical condition. Rather than delay Ricketts’s return to Newfoundland and demobilization, the King agreed to a special investiture. Tommy was introduced whilst there to Sir Dighton Probyn VC, at that time the second oldest surviving VC.

The King read aloud the citation for the award, published in the London Gazette two weeks earlier, then pinned the VC on Ricketts’s chest. Turning to the small group in attendance, he remarked, “This is the youngest VC in my army.” The next day the King wrote in his diary, “Yesterday I gave the VC to Private Ricketts, Newfoundland Regiment, who is only 17 1/2 now, a splendid boy.”

Ricketts was promoted to sergeant at the end of January and arrived in St John’s in early February to a tumultuous reception. One of the first people to greet him was a young newspaper reporter from The Evening Telegram who rowed out to the troopship as it lay in harbour overnight before disembarking its soldiers the next morning. Ricketts was his usual shy and retiring self, but the reporter managed to get the story of his wartime exploit out of him, and spent the rest of the night writing it up. The next day, the story appeared under the largest banner headlines possible: “Deeds that Won The Empire! How Ricketts Won the VC. The Hero interviewed by The Telegram.”

Ricketts decided to get an education and entered Bishop Field College in 1920, followed by Memorial University College. On graduation, he was employed at McMurdo’s drugstore, where he passed his pharmacy exams. He eventually opened his own St. John’s drugstore on Water Street at the corner of Job. Ricketts continued to shun publicity, and even seemed to draw further into a protective shell. He refused to give interviews, have his photograph taken or appear in public, even during royal visits. He did however, travel to London in 1929 to attend a reunion of VC recipients.

Tommy married Edna May Edwards in 1933 at St Thomas’ Church, St John’s where she was from. They met when he took lodgings with her parents at 131 Pennywell Road, St John’s in the early 1930s. They lived above a pharmacy at 1oo Water Street West. They would have two children – Dolda and Tommy.

On 10th February 1967, Ricketts, who was not a healthy man, collapsed and died of a heart attack on the floor of his store. The hero who survived two years of fighting on the Western Front was two months short of his 66th birthday. The young reporter who interviewed the returning war hero 48 years earlier was now Premier of Newfoundland, and Joey Smallwood and his government decreed a full state funeral to honour Ricketts. After his funeral at St. Thomas’ Church, he was buried in the Anglican Cemetery on Forest Road, St John’s, Newfoundland. He was commemorated with the Lewisporte branch of Royal Canadian Legion was named after him, a memorial at the site of his shop in St John’s, a dislay at the Royal Newfoundland Regiment Room in St John’s, on the VC obelisk at Barrie, Ontario, at the Church Lads’ Brigade Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum, and with a VC commemorative stone also at the National Memorial Arboretum.

In addition to the VC, he was awarded the British War Medal 1914-20, Victory Medal 1914-19, George VI Coronation Medal 1937, Elizabeth II Coronation Medal 1953 and French Croix de Guerre 1914-18. He insisted his medals should never be sold for profit. After his death, his family agreed to display the medals at the Newfoundland Naval and Military Museum, St John’s and later at the Railway Coastal Museum, St John’s. On 22nd October 2003, his widow donated the medals to the Canadian War Museum in the presence of their two children. Some surprise was expressed at the time that the medals did not remain in Newfoundland, as it was not part of Canada at the time of Tommy’s action.

LOCATION OF MEDAL: CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM, OTTAWA, CANADA.

BURIAL PLACE: ST JOHNS CHURCHYARD, ST JOHNS, NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA.

SECTION B ROW 19 PLOT 39/40