Additions will be checked before being published on the website and where possible will be forwarded to the person who submitted the original entries. Your contact details will not be forwarded, but they can send a reply via this messaging system.
please scroll down to send a message
Lt. Cecil Howell Sewell VC
British Army 3rd (Light) Tank Bn. Tank Corps
from:Greenwich, London
(d.29th August 1918)
Cecil Sewell was killed in action on 29th August 1918 aged 23 and is buried in the Vaux Hill Cemetery in France. He was the son of Harry Bolton Sewell and Mary Ann Sewell, of 26 Crooms Hill, Greenwich, London. His brothers Harry Kemp Sewell and Herbert Victor Sewell also fell.
An extract from The London Gazette, No. 30982, dated 29th Oct., 1918, records the following:- "When in command of a section of Whippet Light Tanks in action this officer displayed most conspicuous bravery and initiative in getting out of his own Tank and crossing open ground under heavy shell and machine-gun fire to rescue the crew of another Whippet of his section which had side slipped into a large shell-hole, overturned and taken fire. The door of the Tank having become jammed against the side of the shell-hole, Lt. Sewell, by his own unaided efforts, dug away the entrance to the door and released the crew. In so doing he undoubtedly saved the lives of the officer and men inside the Tank as they could not have got out without his assistance. After having extricated the crew, seeing one of his own crew lying wounded behind his Tank, he again dashed across the open ground to his assistance. He was hit in doing so, but succeeded in reaching the Tank when a few minutes later he was again hit, fatally, in the act of dressing his wounded driver. During the whole of this period he was within full view and short range of the enemy machine guns and rifle-pits, and throughout, by his prompt and heroic action, showed an utter disregard for his own personal safety."
