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An Ashburner's L.H. man wounded at Tweebosch on 7 March 1902 3 years 9 months ago #76538

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Daniel William Ross O’ Connell – Wounded in Action, Klipdrift, 7 March 1902

Trooper, Border Horse
Trooper, Kimberley Light Horse
Corporal, Ashburner’s Light Horse – Anglo Boer War

- Queens South Africa Medal with clasps Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901 & 1902 to 34445 CPL. D.W.R. O’CONNELL, KIMBERLEY L.H.

Dan O’Connell was born in George in the Southern Cape of South Africa on 10 March 1870. His father, Michael O’Connell, was a Merchant in the town and married to Emma Kate, born Haswell. Dan was baptised in the church of St. Mark’s in what was then known as Georgetown, on 26th March of that year.

A mere 10 years later Dan, his mother and siblings, were left to fend for themselves on the death of his father at the age of 76 years and 4 months on 26 January 1880, whilst living at 8 York Street in George. These siblings were; Elizabeth Anne, Geoffrey Haswell, John Hamilton, Mary Helen, Emma Lucy and Helen Mathilda. Having started late, Mr O’Connell was making up for lost time with all but Elizabeth Anne being minor children. He was described as a Gentleman on his death notice, implying that he had departed this life as a man of means.

What young Daniel got up to as a young boy is unknown but he was obviously reasonably well educated (for the time), pursuing the occupation of Clerk once he had finished his schooling.

War clouds which had been gathering between the two Boer Republics of the Orange Free State and Transvaal and Great Britain burst into open conflict on 11 October 1899 and, with there being so few Imperial troops stationed in the Colonies of the Cape and Natal, an urgent call went out to Colonial men to enlist with either one of the established militia outfits, or to join the ranks of those specially created for the purpose. The Eastern Cape, not very far from where O’Connell was raised, saw a number of these regiments being raised and it was to one of these that he gravitated, enlisting with the Border Horse at East London on 8 December 1900 at the age of 30.

Border Horse – 8/12/1900 – 10/6/1901

The Border Horse had been in the Eastern Cape in February 1900, under the command of Colonel Crewe. They were soon to see quite a bit of action. O’ Connell was assigned the rank of Trooper with no. 21780. Towards the close of 1900 the Border Horse were with Colonel Crewe in the Winburg district, and at Tabaksberg, on 29th January 1901, they had 10 casualties, including Captain Cameron wounded. They took part in further fighting about Winburg towards the end of February.

Under Colonel Crewe a portion of the corps were engaged in the pursuit of De Wet in Cape Colony, and the very arduous work by which he was driven back across the river and through the central district of the Orange River Colony in February and March 1901. Sergeant Major Cruden and 1 man were wounded at Petrusburg in that district on 9th March. Throughout the remainder of the year the Border Horse operated chiefly in Cape Colony under various column commanders, and saw much fighting.

His six months of initial service over, O’Connell took his leave of the unit in Cape Town and, after a hiatus of less than a week, enrolled in the Kimberley Light Horse at Green Point, Cape Town on 16 June 1901. Assigned no. 34445 and the rank of Trooper, he confirmed that he was 31 years of age and that his next-of-kin was his mother. He was still unmarried.

Kimberley Light Horse – 16/6/1901 – 22/12/1901

O’Connell joined the K.L.H. long after the relief of Kimberley at which point the Kimberley Light Horse and Diamond Fields Horse troops were amalgamated under the title 'Kimberley Mounted Corps' – some 613 in number. Among the numerous columns at work during the second phase of the war was one known as the Kimberley Column, which for some months was composed as follows: 74th Squadron Imperial Yeomanry, 125; Kimberley Light Horse, 94; Dennison's Scouts, 81; Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 20; Volunteer Company of the Northumberland Fusiliers, 102; 3rd Leinsters, 100; 2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers, 38; 2 guns of the 38th Battery RFA; and 13 men of the Diamond Fields Artillery with a maxim. During 1901 this column under Major Paris long operated in the west of the Orange River Colony, and was also at work in the south-west of the Transvaal. On 2nd August 1901 Captain G C Gory Smith, of the K.L.H., was wounded at Zwartputs, and there were several other casualties on this occasion. O’Connell served his six months with the Kimberley Mounted Corps before taking his leave of them on 22 December 1901.

Finding himself at a loose end and the war showing no signs of abating, O’Connell applied to Ashburner’s Light Horse for service, completing the attestation forms at Kimberley on 15 January 1902. For the first time, he revealed his physical characteristics – these showed that he was a tall man at 6 feet 1 ¾ inches in height; that he weighed 175 lbs, had a fair complexion, blue eyes and light brown hair. He also had a scar on his right arm and was a member of the Church of England. His mother, of George in the Cape Colony, was mentioned by way of his next-of-kin and he confirmed 13 months prior with the Kimberley Light Horse and the Border Horse. Assigned no. 40195, he commenced service on the day of his attestation.

Ashburner’s Light Horse – 15/1/1902 – 24/3/1902 – Wounded at Tweebosch

Ashburner’s was employed in the Warrenton-Vryburg-Kuruman district of the Northern Cape Colony, and in the south-west of the Transvaal during the last sixteen months of the war, and saw much hard work and a lot of fighting. The corps suffered casualties on many occasions. They had the ill-fortune to be part of the column of Major Paris, and under Lord Methuen, when that General was defeated by De la Rey on 7th March 1902. This particular action is worth covering in some detail and, to this end, I have included Amery’s account, in Volume V of The Times History of the War. He wrote as follows:

On March 2 Methuen left Vryburg and marched north- east. The country before him, for some distance, was arid, his oxen were in bad condition, and doubt existed as to the places where water could be found. Progress, therefore, was slow. At the end of the second day, when the column camped at Grootpan, just on the Transvaal frontier, only 20 miles had been covered, and Methuen had to wire to Kekewich that he would be late. On the 5th, at Barber's Pan, rumours of the enemy came to hand, but so far only of one small force under Van Zyl of Bloemhof. Although Methuen was now only 35 miles from the proposed point of junction, the waterless state of the country still made it difficult to determine the direction of the march. Ultimately he resolved on a circuit to the south-east. On the 6th, accordingly, the column crossed the Great Hart's River at its junction with the Little Hart's, and, after dislodging Van Zyl, who had hovered round the column all day, camped at Tweebosch.

The day had been marked by an ominous incident. Van Zyl on one occasion had sparred somewhat vigorously with Methuen's rear screen, composed of some Colonials and the 86th Yeomanry. It became evident at once that the troops were not efficient, the officers losing their heads and the men lacking coolness and fire discipline. A few shells from the 38th Battery dispersed the commando and Methuen in person restored order, but the impression left was unpleasant. That night, at Tweebosch, Methuen was definitely warned by his Intelligence officer that Van Zyl had joined a large Boer concentration under De la Rey; beyond that, all was uncertainty. Methuen had no news of Grenfell; Grenfell none of Methuen, and neither knew precisely where De la Rey was.

De la Rey had concentrated at Doornbult, 30 miles north-west of the scene of his last success and ten miles south of Rooirantjesfontein. Deducting Liebenberg's force, which had been left behind in the south, 1,100 men were present from the Lichtenburg, Krugersdorp and Rustenburg commandos, under Generals Celliers and Kemp, together with Van Zyl's detachment from Bloemhof, and the guns captured at Yzer Spruit. There was little room for doubt as to which was the most vulnerable. Grenfell, moving light with 1,500 good mounted men, was just the sort of foe whom, on correct guerrilla principles, he persistently avoided. Methuen's nondescript and heavily weighted force was a prey after his own heart.

Early on the 7th March both British columns marched north, and Grenfell, reaching the rendezvous without incident. Methuen, having learnt that there was water at Leeuwkuil, 13 miles to the north-east of Tweebosch, made Leeuwkuil the objective for the day. In accordance with the usual practice, the column moved in two divisions. The ox convoy started at 3 a.m., escorted by the Cape Police, the 86th Yeomanry, all the infantry, two guns of the 4th Battery, and the E.F.A. pom-pom; the whole under Captain Geoghegan, R.A. An hour later the main column and the mule wagons started; the Cape Specials, Ashburner's Horse, and the Diamond Fields pom-pom forming the advance guard, Dennison's Scouts and the Diamond Fields Horse the rear-guard. For a few miles the march lay across the open, undulating plain in the angle formed by the Great and Little Hart's Rivers, both, at this season, wholly insignificant streams.

About 5 A.M., when day had broken and the head of the column had reached De Klip Drift, on the Great Hart's River, De la Rey opened his attack by assailing the rear screen with a cloud of skirmishers. The screen was reinforced by the 38th Battery and the Diamond Fields pom, whose fire for a short time was effectual. Methuen now took steps to give more cohesion to his column. At 5.30 the ox convoy, which was a mile in front of the mule convoy, was ordered to halt, an order scarcely needed, for the terrified native drivers were already seeking cover underneath their wagons. At 6 o'clock, before the convoys had closed up, De la Rey's attack assumed serious proportions.

While the direct pressure on the rear was steadily sustained, another movement was developed against the right flank and right rear. In accordance with an arrangement made previously, Methuen had stationed himself with the infantry, who were marching with the ox convoy, while Paris directed the mounted troops. To resist the latest attacks, Paris sent Ashburner's Horse and Cullinan’s Horse to the rear-guard, and transferred from the advance-guard to the right flank part of the Cape Police. The 43rd Company and details of the 5th Battalion of Yeomanry formed an inner screen round the mule convoy, and, alongside the ox convoy, Methuen extended the infantry and brought into action the guns of the 4th Battery and the E.F.A. pom-pom.

Meanwhile line after line of hostile horsemen, moving in widely extended order, but with remarkable regularity, came into view over the gentle rise which slopes to the river-bed. Reckless of the shells that both British batteries dropped among them, contemptuous of the ill-aimed, undisciplined rifle-fire of the screen, the Boers galloped into decisive range, flung themselves from their ponies, and pressed upon the British semi-circle. Paris, in the course of active endeavours to steady the mounted troops, ordered the 43rd Yeomanry to reinforce the right rear, where, if anywhere, the fire was hottest; but before the Yeomanry could gain the outer firing line the crisis of the action had come. It was about 6.30. De la Rey, whose handling of mounted riflemen on this, as on many other occasions, is well worth the study of tacticians, judged that the time had arrived for one of his thunder strokes. He had thrown forward three successive lines of skirmishers; the fourth line, firing from the saddle, galloped straight home, impinging on and piercing the already tottering screen and overlapping it on the left rear.

A rout ensued, shameful in one sense, natural enough if we consider the character and training of the medley of troops concerned. Nearly all the Colonials broke and fled. Galloping down the slope in a disorderly mob, they met the reinforcing Yeomanry. Seasoned soldiers might well have caught the contagion of this miserable rout, and we can scarcely wonder that the Yeomanry failed to withstand it. Some held firm, however, and interposed a slight screen between the Boers and the mule-convoy.

Meanwhile, the horde of fugitives swept along the left flank of both convoys, crossed the river, sucked into the current of flight the 86th Yeomanry and Cape Specials, who had not fired a shot, and never drew rein till they reached the top of a rise some three miles away. Few stopped for long even there. Of the troops who had lately composed the outer screen on the rear and right rear, nothing was left but Nesham's section of the 38th Battery and the Diamond Fields pom-pom, without a rifle to protect them. The latter managed to retire for the time being; the regulars fought where they stood to the bitter end. Nesham, the last survivor, declined to surrender and was shot dead.

The Boer charge continued. On the right flank of the convoy it was brought to a stand by the disciplined fire of the infantry and guns, under Methuen's personal direction; on the flanks of the mule convoy, further to the rear, there was nothing to stop it but a thin line of Yeomanry, already shaken and bewildered by the spectacle of officers leading troops at a gallop to other quarters of the field. The Boers charged over the Yeomen, bore down on the mule wagons, which were already stampeding in disorder, and captured them. Then the whole of the enemy closed in upon the ox convoy standing in a confused mass close to the bed of the river, hedged by the scanty lines of infantry, with Venning's section of the 4th Battery and Geoghegan's pom pom.

Paris, in the meantime, was making strenuous but well- nigh fruitless efforts to recall the mounted men to their duty. About a mile further up the road, on rising ground above the east bank of the river, there was a cattle-kraal which he chose as rallying-point. But he could gather only forty brave men—Cape Police and Yeomanry—to hold the kraal. Hold it they did, however, though De la Rey sent Celliers with the Lichtenburg commando to surround this second nucleus of resistance and for the first time in the action brought into play against the kraal the three guns captured at Yzer Spruit. The fight in these two quarters lasted for another two hours. Then the cattle-kraal was rendered untenable and its few survivors capitulated.

Round the convoy the situation was equally hopeless. The guns were silent; Methuen had been incapacitated by a severe wound, the infantry had suffered heavy losses, and surrender became inevitable. Grenfell was too far away to render assistance to Methuen. Hearing of the disaster on the next day, he decided that his best course was to reinforce the weak garrison of Lichtenburg, which De la Rey, with nine guns in his possession and large supplies of rifle-ammunition, might think of attacking. De la Rey, however, was not disposed to expend his limited resources in assaulting fortified towns.

It was whilst in the thick of the action that O’Connell was wounded, one of 11 of his unit. A further 10 men were killed in action – all this out of a total of 126 men – an almost 20% casualty rate. All the wounded and prisoners were gathered together near Coetzee's house on the farm de Klipdrift. The Boers provided a burial party and bodies were located and buried in batches, while prisoners were fed and later released on the other side of Lichtenburg. One of the houses on the farm was turned into a hospital, and the ambulance men and Mrs. Hessie Coetzee did what they could for the wounded.

It wasn’t long after this that he took his discharge from the A.L.H. – this was on 24 March 1902, in the Kimberley District.

The war almost over, O’Connell played no further part in it. His medal, issued off the Kimberley Light Horse roll, was returned in 1906, unclaimed. On 12 January 1926, he applied for the issue thereof and this was sent to his address, P.O. Box 1, Brakpan, Transvaal. It was also whilst living at Brakpan that he and his wife, Muriel Douglas Stamler O’Connell, born Taylor, whom he had married in Johannesburg on 30 September 1919 (when he was 49 years of age), drew up a joint Will in 1933.

Daniel William Ross O’Connell passed away in the Grey Hospital, King Williams Town on 23 June 1937, at the age of 67 years and 4 ½ months. His address at the time of his death was Pottinger Street in that town. He was survived by his wife, there being no children of the marriage. He was an Accountant with a commercial firm when he died.