Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Great War Somme 1916 operations M.C. group of four awarded to 2nd Lieutenant L. N. Cook, Royal Lancaster Regiment, who, in a daring trench raid, shot dead two enemy soldiers with his revolver and wounded another: killed in action in May 1917, his poem “Plymouth Sound” was posthumously published in the “Soldier Poet” series that December

Military Cross, G.V.R., unnamed as issued; British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut.); Italian Al Valore Militare, silver, unnamed, extremely fine (4) £1200-1500

M.C. London Gazette 25 November 1916:

‘For conspicuous gallantry in action. He led a daring raid with great courage and determination, himself killing two of the enemy and capturing a prisoner. He has previously done very fine work.’



No better summary of Cook’s career may be found than that published in Memorials to Old Rugbeians:‘Leonard Nield Cook was the third and youngest son of Jonathan Nield Cook, M.R.C.S. and L.C.R.P., London, and D.P.H., Cambridge, Medical Officer of Health for Calcutta, and of Lavinia his wife.

He entered the School with a Scholarship in 1910 and left in 1915, after having been for two years Secretary of the School Debating Society. He went into residence at Queen’s College, Oxford, with a Classical Scholarship in October 1915, but obtained a commission in the Royal Lancaster Regiment in December, and went to the Front in France in July 1916.

He was killed instantaneously, with two other officers of the same company, by a shell in their dug-out at the little village of Villers Pluich, near Gouzeaucourt and Beaucamp, in the course of the night after his return from his first leave home. He had volunteered for a raid, and was probably talking over it with the other two officers when they were all killed, 7 July 1917. Age 20.

The following appeared in the Routine Order of the General Commanding the 40th Division on 29 October 1916:
“The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief has awarded the Military Cross to Second Lieutenant L. N. Cook, 11th (Service) Battalion, The King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) for the following act of gallantry:
“On the night of 13-14 October 1916, this officer was in command of a raiding party, strength one officer and eleven other ranks. On getting half-way through the enemy’s wire, the party saw heads looking over the parapet at them. Second Lieutenant Cook promptly ordered bombs to be thrown and rushed into the trench, on gaining which he found himself alone with four Germans, the remainder of his party having entered the trench at another place. Two he killed with his revolver and a third he shot in the leg. The fourth attempted to escape down a dug-out into which Second Lieutenant Cook threw a bomb. He then returned to the wounded man and tried to carry him out of the trench, which he found he was unable to do alone, owing to the depth of the trench (12 feet). Useful information was obtained. Second Lieutenant Cook was slightly wounded in the head and knee. Since this officer joined the Battalion, 20 July 1916, he has done excellent work patrolling on many occasions.”



He was also awarded the King of Italy’s Silver Medal for Military Valour in May 1917, about the time of the capture of Beauchamp.

He had been promised that on his return from leave he should be promoted Captain.

His Commanding Officer wrote:
“His loss will make a gap which will be hard to fill, as he was exceptionally brave, and marked down for a promising career.”

The Chaplain wrote:
“I knew your son well, and had a very great respect for him, both as a soldier and as a real Christian, and lover of his men.”

His report from the Infantry School for Officers was as follows:
“Keen, competent, and reliabale.”

A brother officer wrote:
“I don’t expect your son told you how awfully well he was getting on in the Battalion, as he was not a man to blow his own trumpet. He was certainly the most promising Second Lieutenant we had, and, as you know, the first to get a Military Cross. He was admired and loved by us all. As for the men, they would go absolutely anywhere with him. I shall never forget him at Beauchamp, when we had to advance through the village and dig in the other side in daylight. We were having a very hot time of it, but he kept smiling through it all.”

A notice of him appeared in the Meteor of 31 July 1917 (No. 611).’

Cook’s poem, “Plymouth Sound”, appeared in the Soldier Poet series, More Songs by the Fighting Men (Published by Erskine MacDonald Ltd., December 1917):

‘Obedient to the echoed harbour gun
The homing traffic on the water’s breast
Fold up their tawny wings and take their rest.
The pale-eyed stars already one by one
Steal softly forth to look upon the sun,
So proudly parting. While from island-nest,
Deep-shadowed cove, torn slope, or purple crest,
All things give praise to God in unison.

Then, brothers - for the time is very near
When I, the youngest floweret of the heath,
Will open in the gloomy courts of Fear,
Perchance to crown the pallid brow of Death -
Oh let me, clinging to greensward here,
Drink in God’s quietness with every breath.’

Cook is buried in the Fifteen Ravine British Cemetery, Villers-Plouich, France.

London Gazette 26 May 1917, p.5201