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2nd Lt. Rees Morris Bullock MM.
British Army 7th Btn, F Coy Middlesex Regiment
from:Herne Hill
Rees M. Bullock was born in Holloway North London and was living in Wood Green when he joined the Territorial Force enlisting at Enfield in F Company of the 7th Battalion the Middlesex Regiment. His Regimental number was 2438. He was mobilised on 5th August 1914 and moved to the Battalion Mobilisation station on the Isle of Grain involved in coastal defence. The Battalion sailed to Gibraltar on September 3rd moving back to the UK on the 8th February 1915 where they went in to billets in Barnet. The Battalion then sailed for France on the 12th March 1915.
Rees Bullock must have made steady progress through the ranks to at least Sergeant as he appears to have been commissioned to 2nd Lieutenant on 25th May 1918. His name does not appear on the 7th Bn roll of Officers’ so it must be assumed that he was transferred to another battalion on commissioning.
Cpl Bullock was awarded the Military Medal for Gallantry in the face of the enemy whilst in the line at ‘Hebuterne’ between Arras and Albert from May 4th to May23rd 1916. On the night of May 8th 1916: "Lance Corporal Bullock’s small patrol ran into a hostile patrol twice their size. The German soldiers drew first blood, a grenade wounding Private Ede, but Bullock and the third man returned fire and were able to withdraw taking their wounded colleague with them."
The night of Saturday, 13th May 1916: "B Company of the 1/7th Middlesex were determined to give the ‘Z’ Hedge a thorough going over. The field artillery were asked to shell the hedge at 11 p.m. at which point a patrol led by the intrepid L/Cpl. Bullock was to go and investigate. 11 p.m. came and the sharp crack of 18 pdrs could be heard from behind the village, then the shells whined overhead to explode loudly deep in Gommecourt Park – nearly three hundred yards off target! Hurried phone calls were made to the Divisional Artillery and a new time of midnight set for the bombardment. This time the shells fell smartly into the hedge and, as they did, fourteen men slipped out of the trenches and through the British wire. Five men were sent into the Gommecourt Road to act as a covering party and the rest, led by Bullock, approached the corner of the hedge. Six Germans then appeared and a brief fight ensued resulting in one German soldier being killed. An attempt to recover the body was thwarted when the patrol found three feet of barbed wire on the far side of the hedge and any further action was prevented when they came under fire from more Germans lined up along the stretch of the hedge that ran parallel to the road. Having achieved all they could, Bullock led his men back to the sanctuary of the British lines.
His Commanding Officer Lt Col EJ King commented as follows: “The 7th Middlesex were facing the German 169th Infantry Regiment who had to learn that they could not send out patrols against us with impunity. It was now that Cpl R Bullock made his name as one of the boldest and most enterprising of Patrol Leaders eventually gaining the Military Medal.â€
Rees Morris Bullock MM survived the war and died at Chelmsford Essex in 1972 aged 80.
