HEMUS Cyril Harcourt

Awarded Military Cross.

Appears in the Worcester/Worcestershire Roll of Honour Book for army casualties located in Worcester Cathedral.

Cyril Hemus was born in 1898 in Radford, Worcestershire, one of five children of Humphrey and Emily who had married in 1893. He attended Worcester Royal Grammar School from 1906 to 1916. He was a keen sportsman and appears in many of the photographs of the schools soccer and cricket teams during his school years. His brother Donald, who also fell during the war, appeared in many of the same photographs. As well as his sporting ability, Cyril was a brilliant scholar who won two open scholarships at Oxford University. He enlisted in the Artists Rifles as a Private and was then commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the Royal Field Artillery. He won the Military Cross on the night of 12th/13th March 1918. The citation reads:

“For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. When the Battery was in action and being subjected to a most intense gas-shell bombardment, his courage and coolness were most marked, and by constant supervision he ensured that all gas masks were kept adjusted with the result that no casualties were caused owing to gas”.

Cyril died of wounds received in the same action that claimed his brother Donald’s life just a few days earlier.

Source for additional information: In Dedication to a Future World By Mark Rogers, 1999.

United Parish Magazine, Wichenford, September 1917:
The War – Cyril Hemus has got his commission in the artillery and will shortly proceed abroad.

A photograph of Lieutenant C. H. Hemus can be found in Berrow’s Worcester Journal Supplement, Saturday 6th April 1918, available at Worcestershire Archives.