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Bt.Col. William Eagleson Gordon VC.
British Army 1st Btn. Gordon Highlanders
Captain W.E. Gordon received the Victoria Cross for most gallantry during the battle of Leeheehoek in the Second Boer War. After 1888, he was an officer in the 1st Gordon Highlanders and served them in many conflicts.
During the First World War, Brevet Colonel William E. Gordon VC was taken prisoner during the Battle of Le Cateau on 26th of August 1914. He and Lt. Col. Neish got in a big argument when they were cut off from the rest of the force and eventually some 90 percent of the regiment surrendered during the "Chances of War", although W.E. Gordon was convinced there was a chance to break through the enemy lines and get back to the British Army. During his capture, he was wounded and interned at Fort Zinna in the German POW camp in Torgau near the river Elbe. His brother, Major A. A. Gordon, a Belgian king’s messenger, reports that he was a fellow prisoner with the Belgian General G. Leman, who defended the city of Liege most gallantly. However, it is reported that General Leman was a prisoner at Blankenburg, which is located some 100 km north of Torgau. In Torgau, Bt. Col. Gordon was questioned for the use of "flat nose" bullets in his revolver. Eventually, he was exchanged for a German aristocrat prisoner in Madagascar in early 1916.
He returned home to his wife and son, who was only 3 years old at the outbreak of the war. Once he set foot on British soil, he filed a report assigning responsibility for the fate of the regiment in August 1914. After Lt. Col. Neish was released from captivity due to illness and brought through Switzerland in 1916, the investigation began and a Court of Inquiry was appointed for the trial. When in 1919 an article was published by Cedric Fraser in the Dundee People's Journal, W.E. Gordon's name was smeared by the company of John Leng & Co., which owned the journal. Fraser had interviewed Corporal Mutch after his return in 1917, but had altered Mutch's words and had put words in his mouth. After W.E. Gordon confronted Corporal Mutch, he sued John Leng & Co. for £5,000 pounds in a libel case alleging slander. What it made more suspicious was that two brothers of Lt. Col. Neish and Corporal Mutch were shareholders of John Leng & Co. Eventually the Court decided in favour for W.E. Gordon, and he received a claim of £500.
W.E. Gordon's son also joined the Gordon Highlanders as a 2nd Lieutenant. Being a sportscar enthusiast, he was killed at the age of 20 during practice in Donington Park on August 19th, 1933 when the car in which he was a passenger overturned.The accident was reported in The Times on August 21st, 1933.
