Victoria Cross · Bapaume, France · 1918
Sergeant Reginald Judson VC
An Auckland boilermaker, older than most of the men around him, who in the space of five weeks in 1918 won the Military Medal, the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and the Victoria Cross — one of only a handful of soldiers in New Zealand’s history to hold all three. At Bapaume he stood on a trench parapet and ordered twelve armed Germans to surrender single-handed.
He came home carrying eight pieces of shrapnel for the rest of his life, went on to serve as an Auckland city councillor, and died on the fifty-fourth anniversary, to the day, of the action that won him his Cross.
His story
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Wharehine to Ponsonby
Reginald Stanley Judson was born on 29 September 1881 at Wharehine, north of Auckland, to farmers Edgar William Judson and Emma Frances Judson. He was educated at Port Albert, then trained as a mechanical engineer in Wellington and Auckland. By the outbreak of war he was a boilermaker and engineer living in Ponsonby, married to Ethel May Grice since 1905, with three sons and a daughter — which is why, at thirty-two, he enlisted years older than most of the men he would serve alongside.
Source: Te Ara Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; Wikipedia; Birkenhead RSA Medals. -
Enlisted, transferred
He enlisted in October 1915 and embarked on 8 January 1916 as a rifleman with the New Zealand Rifle Brigade. In February 1916, in Egypt, he transferred to the 1st Battalion, Auckland Infantry Regiment.
Source: Online Cenotaph. -
Wounded on the Somme
Now a corporal, he was badly wounded — shrapnel through the abdomen and chest — at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. He was evacuated to England for lengthy treatment; eight fragments of shrapnel stayed in his body for the rest of his life. While recovering, he ran a Royal Engineers depot at Codford.
Source: Wikipedia; victoriacrossonline.co.uk. -
Back to the battalion
He returned to his battalion in France as a sergeant.
Source: Wikipedia. -
The DCM — Hébuterne
He led a grenade patrol that rescued soldiers and drove back a German counter-attack near Hébuterne, earning the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
Source: Wikipedia; Birkenhead RSA Medals. -
The MM — Bucquoy
Three weeks later, he led a bayonet charge against a machine-gun position at Bucquoy, capturing two guns, and was awarded the Military Medal.
Source: Wikipedia. -
Bapaume
Ten days after that, at the Second Battle of Bapaume, he led a bombing party under heavy fire and captured a machine gun. He then went up a communication sap alone, bombing three more German machine-gun crews ahead of him. He jumped out of the trench, ran ahead of the enemy, and — standing on the parapet — ordered a party of two officers and about ten men to surrender. They fired on him at point-blank range and missed. He threw a bomb, jumped down among them, killed two, and put the rest to flight, capturing both remaining guns and letting his battalion’s advance go on unopposed. He later put the Germans’ failure to hit him down to their having “got the wind up.”
Source: London Gazette, Issue 30982, 29 October 1918; Wikipedia. -
The Victoria Cross
His VC and DCM were gazetted in the same supplement — three top gallantry awards inside five weeks.
The citation: “For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty when, in an attack on enemy positions, he led a small bombing party under heavy fire and captured an enemy machine-gun. He then proceeded up the sap alone, bombing three machine-gun crews before him… This prompt and gallant action not only saved many lives, but also enabled the advance to be continued unopposed.” — London Gazette
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Buckingham Palace
King George V presented him with the VC in a joint investiture with fellow New Zealand VC recipients James Crichton, Harry Laurent and John Gildroy Grant. He was given a civic reception at Auckland Town Hall on his return, where he turned the credit back onto his regiment.
Source: Wikipedia. -
The Staff Corps
He joined the New Zealand Staff Corps as a career soldier, serving as area officer in Auckland and New Plymouth and reaching the rank of Captain, before the lasting effects of his wounds and gassing forced his retirement in 1937. His first marriage ended in divorce in 1920; in 1928 he married Kate Marion Lewis, a war widow, and they had a daughter.
Source: Wikipedia. -
Council and the second war
He served on the Auckland City Council for about nine years from 1938, and volunteered for home service in the Second World War despite his age, commanding the Guards Vital Points Battalion in Auckland until his retirement in 1946 as a Major.
Source: Wikipedia. -
Mangonui
He farmed at Mangonui in the Far North, served as a Justice of the Peace and Coroner, and in his seventies worked as a cargo handler on the Auckland waterfront before retiring to Kohimarama.
Source: Wikipedia; Birkenhead RSA Medals. -
Auckland
He died at Mount Eden, Auckland, aged 90 — on the exact fifty-fourth anniversary of the action at Bapaume that won him his Victoria Cross. He was buried at Waikumete Cemetery.
Source: Wikipedia; Find a Grave.
Afterwards
His medals — the VC, DCM and MM together — are held at the Queen Elizabeth II Army Memorial Museum, Waiouru. In December 2007 they were among nine Victoria Crosses stolen in a notorious raid on the museum; all were recovered within weeks after a $300,000 reward, and formally returned to the museum with his descendants present. He is remembered with plaques at Oratia School and at Stockade Hill, Howick, near an oak he helped plant from a Windsor Castle acorn during a royal visit in 1927, and on the Victoria Cross winners’ memorial in Dunedin.
His sign
Judson is one of the eleven soldiers in The VC Gallery, our stock series honouring New Zealand’s First World War Victoria Cross recipients, on the same corflute sign we make every soldier’s record on.
Photograph
We haven’t hosted a photograph here
Rather than copy someone else’s image onto our own site, we’d rather send you to see it where it’s properly held: his full record at the Auckland War Memorial Museum’s Online Cenotaph.
Sources
- Reginald Stanley Judson, Online Cenotaph, Auckland War Memorial Museum.
- Reginald Judson, Wikipedia.
- Judson, Reginald Stanley, Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
- Reginald Stanley Judson VC, Birkenhead RSA Medals.
- London Gazette, Issue 30982, 29 October 1918.
- Stolen medals returned to National Army Museum, NZHistory.
- From a royal acorn, VC’s oak tree grows, New Zealand Herald.
One detail sometimes repeated about him — that he later received a knighthood — appears in only one source and is not confirmed anywhere else, so we have left it out.