Bravest of the Light Brigade: Unarmed and injured, hero soldier charged into battle - and survived

Hero: Captain Smith in 1917, more than 60 years after the Battle of Balaclava

Charging with the Light Brigade into the valley of death, Lieutenant Percy Shawe Smith was risking more than most.

Because unlike his comrades, he was not carrying a weapon.

Lt Smith, who had an injured hand, awoke that morning to find the metal arm support he needed to let him hold a sword was missing.

But, undeterred, he surged into battle unarmed – and survived while scores were slaughtered.

His extraordinary tale of heroism during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War has only come to wider attention now his medals have been donated to a museum by his great-grandson.

On the day of the most celebrated cavalry charge in history, October 25, 1854, Lt Smith reached enemy lines and found himself surrounded by three Russian lancers. He was ‘scratched’ by one and hit in the chest by the point of another lance as he leapt off his horse.

According to one account of the battle, ‘as he was mounted on a good hunter he jumped right on his assailant. The lance-point luckily hit on a bone and came out as the Russian went down’.

Comrades then came to Lt Smith’s rescue and he was able to remount and return to base – the only officer in his regiment to return on his own horse.

He had suffered a serious injury to his right hand in a shotgun accident before the war. This meant he relied on a metal support, fixed to his arm, to hold a weapon.

But on the morning of the Charge of the Light Brigade, he could not find the support in the darkness of his tent and had to leave for the battlefield without it. Gary Locker, a regimental expert and retired captain, said: ‘The arm was useless, but he had feeling in it and had been passed fit for service. The arm support was like a splint and without it he couldn’t hold his sabre.

‘He would have thought to himself “this is the biggest charge of my life and I need to be with my men”.’ 

A communication mix-up among top brass sent more than 600 men into an unwinnable battle immortalised by the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who wrote of the ‘noble six hundred’. The Light Brigade rode into the valley and were blasted on both sides and from the front by Russian guns. Around 113 died and 250 were wounded The death toll of horses was put at 475.

In the valley of death: The charge was immortalised by the poet Tennyson

Lt Smith’s valour earned him a promotion to captain. He eventually left the Army in 1858. Six years later he married his wife Annette, and they had a son. He died at 88 in 1917. But his descendants knew little about his role until his medals were found in an old family chest. 

Handing them to the museum of Lt Smith’s regiment, the 13th Light Dragoons, in a ceremony yesterday, the soldier’s great-grandson Tony Kent said: ‘He was a very brave man and we have letters saying he should have been nominated for a VC.’