rcely had it left my hand and reached the outside of
the trench than it exploded with a terrific report. We were all
buried under falling earth, but fortunately no one was hurt,
although my cap was blown to pieces. My men were very
appreciative of my action, and cheered and thanked me.
Afterwards they wrote and signed a statement of what I had done,
which they handed to the Colonel."

Another gallant Meath man was the late Lieutenant Maurice James Dease,
4th Batt. Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), who fell during
the retreat from Mons, and was the first officer to gain the Victoria
Cross in the great war. He was the only son of Mr. Edmund F. Dease,
Culmullen, Drumree, Meath, and heir-presumptive to his uncle, Major
Gerald Dease, of Turbotston, Westmeath. He was born September 28th,
1889, and was educated at Stonyhurst and at the Army Class, Wimbledon
College. He entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was
gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers in February, 1910,
becoming Lieutenant in 1912. In the same year he was appointed
machine-gun officer to his regiment, and it was whilst in command of
this section at Nimy, near Mons, on August 23rd, 1914, that Lieutenant
Dease was killed and awarded the Victoria Cross. The official record
is as follows:--

"During the action the machine-guns were protecting the crossing
over a canal bridge, and Lieutenant Dease was several times
severely wounded, but refused to leave the guns. He remained at
his post until all the men of his detachment were either killed
or wounded and the guns put out of action by the enemy's fire."

From the South of Ireland came the late Captain Gerald Robert
O'Sullivan, 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, who won the V.C. in
Gallipoli. A son of the late Lieutenant-Colonel George Ledwill
O'Sullivan, 91st Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and of Mrs.
O'Sullivan, of Rowan House, Dorchester, he was born at Frankfield,
near Douglas, county Cork, and spent most of his boyhood in Dublin. He
passed into Sandhurst in 1907, and was gazetted to the Inniskillings
on May 15th, 1909. Captain O'Sullivan was awarded the V.C. for
conspicuous gallantry on two occasions, the official record of his
deeds being as follows:--

"For most conspicuous bravery during the operations south-west
of Krithia, on the Gallipoli Peninsula. On the night of July
1st-2nd, 1915, when it was essential that p