Captain Charles Calverley Foss V.C. C.B. D.S.O.

Rank or Title

Date of Birth

8 Mar 1885

Date of Death

8 Apr 1963

Media files and documents

War time / or Pre War occupation

Officer

Employer

2nd Battallion Bedfordshire Regiment

Medals Awarded

Place of Birth

Hyogo
Kobe
Japan

World War I Address

United Kingdom

Place of Death

London
United Kingdom

Grave Location

west Hill Cemetery
16 St James' Lane
Winchester
SO22 4NX
United Kingdom

Soldier or Civilian

  • Soldier

Charles was born 8th March 1885 in Kobe, Japan, the eldest son of the Right Reverend Hugh James Foss, Bishop of Osaka.

He enrolled into the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in 1902 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Bedfordshire Regiment in 1904. Charles Foss was serving in the 2nd Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment in South Africa when the war broke out and the battalion made it to the Western Front in time for the First Battle of Ypres. He was one of only four Officers to survive the battle during which he won his Distinguished Service Order (medal).

Having miraculously survived the battle that saw many British battalions reduced to mere shells he worked steadily through the first winter in the trenches until the opposing armies started their respective campaigning seasons again the following spring. February 1915 saw Captain Foss mentioned in Sir John French's despatches for gallantry in the field and his D.S.O. followed the same month.

He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions described in the citation below.

"For most conspicuous bravery . . . After the enemy had captured a part of one of our trenches, and our counter-attack made with one officer and twenty men having failed (all but two of the party being killed or wounded in the attempt), Capt. Foss, on his own initiative, dashed forward with eight men, and under heavy fire attacked the enemy with bombs, and captured the position, including the fifty-two Germans occupying it. The capture of this position from the enemy was of the greatest importance, and the utmost bravery was displayed in essaying the task with so very few men."

Foss’s Victoria Cross Citation

“The London Gazette” dated 12th March 1915

 

Further information can be found on the Bedfordshire Regiment site.

Individual Location

Author: David

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