Philip Neame

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Photo submitted by Gerald Napier - (from the Royal Engineers Library with permission)

Lieutenant-General Sir Philip Neame, VC, KBE, CB, DSO, Chevalier Legion d'Honneur, Croix de Guerre (France), Croix de Guerre (Belgium) (12 December 1888 - 28 April 1978) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was also the winner of an Olympic Gold medal, making him the only person to win both this and the Victoria Cross.

He was 26 years old, and a lieutenant in the 15th Field Company, Corps of Royal Engineers, British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

On 19 December 1914 at Neuve Chapelle, France, Lieutenant Neame, in the face of very heavy fire, engaged the Germans in a single-handed bombing attack, killing and wounding a number of them. He was able to check the enemy advance for three-quarters of an hour and to rescue all the wounded whom it was possible to move.

1 Further information
2 The medal
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Further information

Neame and other officers following their capture in North Africa.

Educated at Cheltenham College. Later Sir Philip Neame (awarded KBE). He was a member of Great Britain's 1924 Olympic Running Deer Team at Paris and is the only Victoria Cross recipient who has won an Olympic Gold Medal. He later achieved the rank of lieutenant-general. He was captured in 1941 during the North African Campaign in World War II after an offensive by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. While a prisoner in Italy, he made a number of escape attempts with colleagues, including Major-General Richard O'Connor and Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, a fellow VC recipient. Neame eventually made a successful escape attempt.