IN SEARCH OF WILLIAM SAVAGE A family link remembered from childhood sends Chief Feature Writer Jason Beattie on a quest to find an everyday hero from Smethwick. The grand red-brick facade of Cape Hill School in Smethwick is a monument to the spirit of industrial enterprise which powered the British Empire. Some of the labourers who worked in the M & B brewery and the two foundries on the opposite side of the street were educated at this fine Victorian establishment in the rudimentary arts of reading, mathematics and handwriting. The daughters learned sewing, cooking and home improvement. In 1917 a five-year-old boy called William Savage left his house in Raglan Avenue, walked 50 yards down the road, checked his cap was on straight, entered the large school hall, went down the corridors lined with splendid copper-brown tiles and took his place in the beginners’ classroom where his six elder brothers and sisters had also been taught. Twenty-five years later Bill Savage was to go on another big adventure for which he was covered in glory - but which also cost him his life. Bill Savage was a gunner on a small naval launch which took part in the Raid on St Nazaire in France on March 28, 1942. The dry dock at St Nazaire was the only one on the Atlantic coast capable of holding the German warship the Tirpitz. Strategists believed if the dock could be put out of action then the Tirpitz would be confined to the North Sea and would be unable to wreak havoc on the Atlantic convoys. On March 26 the destroyer HMS Campbeltown and 18 motor launches left Falmouth on a mission to sail up the Loire estuary into the harbour of St Nazaire where the Campbeltown, packed with explosives, would ram the dock gates. Savage’s boat, MGB314, would sail in front of Campbeltown before darting out of the way at the last moment to give the destroyer a clear run at the dock. As soon as the convoy entered the narrow estuary shortly before midnight it was under attack from enemy batteries on both sides. The boats were traced by glaring searchlights and strafed with machine gun fire and heavy artillery. MGB314 led the Campbeltown in, swerved out of the way, landed its complement of commandos, waited for them to lay charges round the dock, picked up the survivors and headed back to the sea. Throughout the raid Savage stood on the deck of the flimsy mahogany boat firing his pom pom gun at the German installations. The launch was within yards of clear water when he was hit by an enemy shell. The raid was an undisputed success but the human cost was horrific. Only four of the 18 launches crept home, 24 officers (55 per cent) and 157 ratings (53 per cent) were killed. The official report reads “William Alfred Savage AB C/JXL 73910: the layer of the Pom Pom, who throughout the action fought his gun with exceptional skill and courage, and was eventually killed by shrapnel from a large calibre shell during the withdrawal.” For this exceptional piece of bravery he was awarded the Victoria Cross. His heroics were immortalised in a Victor comic beneath the headline: “Savage’s Last Stand.” I know this story well. I have known it for years because my grandfather was the captain of the Campbeltown. I first came across Bill Savage in a book on St Nazaire called The Greatest Raid of All. One of the pages contained the black and white photographs of the five men who were presented with the VC for the raid. At the top was my grandfather, Lt Cdr Stephen Beattie, then my grandfather’s best friend Bob Ryder, below was Sgt T F Durrant (posthumous), next to him was Lt Col A C Newman? and finally there was the smiling, bearded face of W A Savage (posthumous) from Smethwick. As a young man, when I thought of that mysterious, northern place (I come from Dorset) called the Midlands, I thought of Spaghetti Junction, pictures of which I gazed at with awe, the Bull Ring (I really did imagine finely tuniced matadors prancing through the market) and Bill Savage. Little was I to know that his city would one day become my adopted home; the place where I was to live, where I studied at University, where I was married, where my first child was born (at the same hospital where Savage’s great niece works) and the place where I would find work. For years I have wanted to find out what this man was like, a man who represented not just incredible bravery but a whole, swirling, concrete-blocked conurbation. At its simplest, I wanted to make a black and white photograph a colour one. Did he speak with a Black Country accent? Did he have that sense of pathos and resignation only found in the Midlands, which said “Savage was known to his shipmates as “Henry the Eighth” or “Beardy”. He was secretary of the bottling store’s darts club, a member of the brewery swimming team, keen on water polo and fond of cats, weightlifting and his firm’s product.” In 1936 he married his childhood sweetheart, Doris, a vivacious character who was a “clippy” on the buses. The couple moved into a two bedroom house in Durban Road round the corner from Raglan Avenue and a short walk from the brewery. Until the outbreak of the war Savage had spent his whole life in the same tiny sector of Smethwick surrounded by friends and family. Considering he never went anywhere which was further than five minutes’ walk from the house where he was born, it is difficult to imagine how he coped when he left this small and stable world in the heart of the industrial Midlands to join the Navy. Bill and his brother Jack signed up on December 18, 1939, without telling their families. They had chosen to join the “Senior Service” rather than be conscripted into the army. Jack was posted to Rosyth and Bill went to Chatham to be trained as a gunner. Soon afterwards he was running missions in small motor launches to drop agents off in France and Norway. Because these trips were fairly erratic, Savage was given more leave than other sailors. “My father used to tease him about being a weekend sailor but in fact he was given more leave because of the nature of his job,” said Jeanne. She remembers the last time he came home. “He had a bad leg and he could have ducked out of the raid but he wanted to go. He would never shirk responsibility. “It was the tradition in those days to touch the sailors’ collars for good luck and I went to touch Bill’s collar but he wouldn’t let me because he didn’t feel very well. “He then said “I’ll see you when I come home again” and he was gone,” she said. Savage was killed on his wedding anniversary. His body was brought back from France and he was buried in Falmouth. His brother Roland was the only member of the family able to attend the funeral. He was awarded the Victoria Cross on May 28 the same year. The citation read: “Completely exposed and under heavy fire he engaged positions ashore with cool and steady accuracy. “On the way out of the harbour he kept up the same vigorous and accurate fire against the attacking ships until he was killed at his gun. “This award, too, is in recognition not only of Savage’s gallantry and devotion to duty, but also of the valour of many others, unnamed, in motor launches and motor gunboats who carried out their duty in exposed positions”. In an interview at the time his widow said: “He was a most conscientious man and utterly loyal to his comrades. He would never tell me anything of the dangerous sort of work he was doing. No matter how closely he was questioned he would never give us the slightest clue.” Doris, who later remarried, kept the VC in her handbag until she was forced to sell it for financial reasons in 1990. It is now in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Three years ago a tribute to Savage was unveiled at Cape Hill School. The headteacher, John Robinson, says the day will stay with him for the rest of his life. “There were all these old sailors and soldiers, who came from nowhere, and the mayor was here and there were all these standards parading through the school. “Our children are usually well behaved but I will never forget the quiet dignity of the dedication ceremony. There was a lot of civic pride. “It brought home to me it was ordinary men, next door neighbours, who went away, fought and died. “A lot of the heroism was ‘they just did it.’ “For some the heroism was conscious but for the major part it was something they did, it was their duty and they were ordinary blokes”. Savage was an ordinary bloke. A man’s man who liked sport and a drink and a laugh. He was also, for one brief, glorious moment, an extraordinary bloke who showed immense personal bravery. Everyone I spoke to about him appeared to have been inspired by what he did. “He had such courage and it colours you. If there is something I don’t want to do I think, if he had that much courage, what I’ve got to do can’t be that bad. “You feel whatever happens, you can get through it,” said Jeanne Davis. His house in Durban Road is still there but there is no blue plaque to this ordinary hero - just a satellite dish. With acknowledgements to The Birmingham Post Back