Victoria Cross

BORN
13 March 1937

DIED
13 November 1965

Warrant Officer Kevin ‘Dasher’ Wheatley

Kevin Arthur Wheatley (1937-1965), soldier, was born on 13 March 1937 at Surry Hills, Sydney, third child of Raymond George Wheatley, labourer, and his wife Ivy Sarah Ann, née Newman, both born in Sydney. Educated at Maroubra Junction Junior Technical School, Kevin worked as a milk carter, food sterilizer, machine operator and brick burner. At the registrar-general’s office, Sydney, on 20 July 1954 he married a 14-year-old milk-bar assistant Edna Aileen Davis, who used her stepfather’s surname, Gimson.

On 12 June 1956 Wheatley enlisted in the Australian Regular Army. Following recruit training he joined the 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, in September 1956 and transferred to the 3rd Battalion in March 1957. He served in the Malayan Emergency from September that year to July 1959, before transferring in August to the 2nd Battalion and in June 1961 to the 1st Battalion. In January 1964 he was promoted sergeant and in August, temporary warrant officer, class two. Short and stocky, he was a highly respected and well-liked non-commissioned officer with a reputation as a rough, wild man who was a good soldier. He was known as ‘Dasher’ for his Rugby Union football prowess.

Arriving in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) in March 1965, Wheatley joined the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam. He distinguished himself on 28 May by risking heavy fire to rescue a 3-year-old girl. On 18 August, when South Vietnamese troops ceased advancing during an assault, he took the lead and inspired them to continue charging up a hill. His men routed some fifty People’s Liberation Armed Forces (Viet Cong) soldiers.

Wheatley and another Australian, Warrant Officer R. J. Swanton, were on a search and destroy mission in the Tra Bong valley, Quang Ngai province, with a platoon of the Civil Irregular Defence Group on 13 November 1965 when it was attacked by the Viet Cong. The platoon broke in the face of heavy fire and began to scatter. Swanton was shot in the chest. Although told that Swanton was dying, Wheatley refused to leave him. Under heavy machine-gun and rifle fire, he half-dragged and half-carried Swanton out of open rice paddies into the comparative safety of nearby jungle. He refused a second request to withdraw, pulled the pins from his two grenades and waited with his motionless colleague while the enemy approached. Two grenade explosions were heard, followed by several bursts of fire. Wheatley and Swanton were found at first light next morning, dead from gunshot wounds.

The Australian policy at the time was to bury war dead overseas but Wheatley’s body was returned to Australia after funds were raised privately. Survived by his wife, and their son and three daughters, he was buried with full military honours in Pine Grove cemetery, Eastern Creek, Sydney. A public outcry resulted in the government announcing on 21 January 1966 that the remains of service personnel who died overseas would in future be returned to Australia at public expense if their families desired.

For refusing to abandon a wounded comrade in the face of overwhelming odds Wheatley was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. He had also been awarded the United States of America’s Silver Star. The Republic of Vietnam had appointed him a knight of its National Order and awarded him its Military Merit Medal and Cross of Gallantry with Palm. In 1993 Wheatley’s V.C. and other medals were presented to the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

BORN
7 June 1981

DIED
22 June 2013

Corporal Cameron Stewart Baird

For the most conspicuous acts of valour, extreme devotion to duty and ultimate self-sacrifice at Ghawchak village, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan, as a Commando Team Commander in Special Operations Task Group on Operation SLIPPER.

Corporal Cameron Baird enlisted in the Australian Regular Army in 2000, was discharged in 2004, and re-enlisted in 2006. In both periods of service, he was assigned to the 4th Battalion(Commando), Royal Australian Regiment. His operational service includes Operations TANAGER, FALCONER, BASTILLE and four tours on Operation SLIPPER. He was awarded the Medal for Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan in 2007–08.

On 22 June 2013, a commando platoon of the Special Operations Task Group, with partners from the Afghan National Security Forces, conducted a helicopter assault into Ghawchak village, Uruzgan province, in order to attack an insurgent network deep within enemy-held territory. Shortly after insertion, Corporal Baird’s team was engaged by small arms fire from several enemy positions. Corporal Baird quickly seized the initiative, leading his team to neutralise the positions, killing six enemy combatants and enabling the assault to continue.

Soon afterwards, an adjacent Special Operations Task Group team came under heavy enemy fire, resulting in its commander being seriously wounded. Without hesitation, Corporal Baird led his team to provide support. En route, he and his team were engaged by rifle and machine gun fire from prepared enemy positions. With complete disregard for his own safety, Corporal Baird charged towards the enemy positions, supported by his team. On nearing the positions, he and his team were engaged by additional enemy on their flank. Instinctively, Corporal Baird neutralised the new threat with grenades and rifle fire, enabling his team to close with the prepared position.

With the prepared position now isolated, Corporal Baird manoeuvred and was engaged by enemy machine-gun fire, the bullets striking the ground around him. Displaying great valour, he drew the fire, moved to cover, and suppressed the enemy machine gun position. This action enabled his team to close on the entrance to the prepared position, thus regaining the initiative.

On three separate occasions Corporal Baird charged an enemy-held building within the prepared compound. On the first occasion he charged the door to the building, followed by another team member. Despite being totally exposed and immediately engaged by enemy fire, Corporal Baird pushed forward while firing into the building. Now in the closest proximity to the enemy, he was forced to withdraw when his rifle ceased to function. On rectifying his rifle stoppage, and reallocating remaining ammunition within his team, Corporal Baird again advanced towards the door of the building, once more under heavy fire. He engaged the enemy through the door but was unable to suppress the position and took cover to reload. For a third time, Corporal Baird selflessly drew enemy fire away from his team and assaulted the doorway. Enemy fire was seen to strike the ground and compound walls around Corporal Baird, before visibility was obscured by dust and smoke. In this third attempt, the enemy was neutralised and the advantage was regained, but Corporal Baird was killed in the effort.

Corporal Baird’s acts of valour and self-sacrifice regained the initiative and preserved the lives of his team members. His actions were of the highest order and in keeping with the finest traditions of the Australian Army and the Australian Defence Force.

BORN
19 June 1889

DIED
04 October 1957

Lieutenant Robert Cuthbert Grieve

Robert Cuthbert Grieve (1889-1957), soldier and businessman, was born on 19 June 1889 at Brighton, Melbourne, son of John Grieve, clerk and later warehouseman, and his wife Annie Deas, née Brown, both Victorian-born. Educated at Caulfield Grammar School and Wesley College, he became an interstate commercial traveller in the softgoods trade. On enlistment in the Australian Imperial Force on 16 June 1915, after nine months service in the Victorian Rangers, he was posted to the 37th Battalion. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant on 17 January 1916 and promoted lieutenant on 1 May; a month later the battalion embarked for training in England. When the 10th Light Trench Mortar Battery was organized there Grieve was seconded to it in January 1917 but on 19 April he rejoined the 37th Battalion in France, receiving his captaincy and the command of ‘A’ Company. The appointment was well received by his fellow soldiers who respected his quiet, understanding style of command.

The 37th Battalion took part in no major action, although its strength had been tested in several sharp raids, until the battle of Messines in June. Grieve was to receive the Victoria Cross for gallantry in this attack. Before the battle the unit made a detailed study of its role and Grieve ensured that his men were as fully informed as possible. On the night of 6 June the 37th began its approach march and soon suffered an intensive gas-attack. Just before dawn it reached its assembly trenches, moved about 11 a.m. towards its objective and came under heavy shell-fire; the resulting casualties, with those of the previous night, seriously depleted its strength.

In the afternoon of 7 June, Grieve’s company was in position on the battalion’s left flank. In front of its objective lay a thick band of wire and as the company ran through several gaps it came under intense fire from a German pillbox. An attempt to mortar this strong point was unsuccessful. Grieve, the only unwounded officer in ‘A’ Company, decided to attack the pillbox alone. Taking a supply of Mills bombs he dashed forward, taking cover wherever possible. His well-aimed grenades silenced some of the gunners, allowing him time to reach the nearby trench and bomb the rest of the machine-gun crew. His company was then able to advance and had scarcely gained its objective when a sniper’s bullet severely wounded Grieve in the shoulder. He was the first member of the 3rd Division to receive the Victoria Cross.

He was evacuated to England and returned to his unit on 29 October but soon afterwards suffered acute trench nephritis and double pneumonia and was invalided to Australia in May 1918. On 7 August, at Scots Church, Sydney, he married Sister May Isabel Bowman of the Australian Army Nursing Service who had nursed him during his illness. She died some years later and there were no children of the marriage. After demobilization Grieve established the business of Grieve, Gardner & Co., softgoods warehousemen, in Flinders Lane, Melbourne, and was managing director until 4 October 1957 when he died of cardiac failure; he had suffered from nephritis since 1917. He was buried with military honours in Springvale cemetery. He was a staunch supporter of Wesley College to which his Victoria Cross was presented in 1959.

BORN
31 December 1885

DIED
20 December 1935

Private Martin O’Meara

Martin O’Meara (1885-1935), sleeper-cutter and soldier, was born on 6 November 1885 in the parish of Lorrha, Tipperary, Ireland, son of Michael O’Meara, labourer, and his wife Margaret, née Connor. He arrived in Western Australia as a youth, having worked his passage as a stoker.

Giving his occupation as sleeper-hewer, he joined the Australian Imperial Force in Perth on 19 August 1915 and left Australia with the 12th Reinforcements for the 16th Battalion in December. After training in Egypt in early 1916 the battalion moved to the Western Front in France where it fought on the Somme. On 9-12 August the 16th mounted an attack on German positions at Mouquet Farm near Pozières. Devastating German artillery fire caused heavy casualties, an entry in the battalion war diary on 12 August stating laconically that ‘the trench as a trench had ceased to exist’.

During this period O’Meara, then acting as a stretcher-bearer, behaved in a manner which led one officer to describe him as ‘the most fearless and gallant soldier I have ever seen’. He was credited with having saved the lives of over twenty-five wounded men by carrying them in from no man’s land ‘under conditions that are undescribable’. Even after the battalion was relieved its commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel E. Drake-Brockman, saw O’Meara returning to the front line through the bombardment to rescue two wounded comrades despite having himself ‘reached a position of comparative safety’. At other times he had, on his own initiative, brought up much-needed supplies of grenades, ammunition and food. For these actions O’Meara was awarded the Victoria Cross.

O’Meara spent the rest of the war with the 16th Battalion; he was wounded three times and promoted sergeant. In November 1918 he returned to Australia and was discharged from the A.I.F. in Perth in November 1919. His war experiences caused a complete breakdown in his health for he spent the rest of his life in military hospitals, suffering from chronic mania. He was too ill to attend a special Armistice Day dinner in 1929 given by the governor of Western Australia for the State’s V.C. recipients. He died in Claremont Mental Hospital, Perth, on 20 December 1935. His death certificate gave his occupation as ‘returned soldier’. He was buried with full military honours in Karrakatta Catholic cemetery by Fr John Fahey. The mourners included three V.C. recipients, C. Sadlier, J. Woods and Thomas Axford. Senator Sir George Pearce was a pallbearer.

In 1917 O’Meara had revisited his native Ireland where money was raised as a testimonial to him from Lorrha and neighbouring parishes; he left it to the parish for restoring historic Lorrha Abbey. That task being beyond this sum, it was instead applied to repairs of the existing parish church. In 1986 his V.C. was donated to the West Australian Army Museum.

Little is known about O’Meara personally but one officer of the 16th described him at Mouquet Farm as ‘always cheerful and optimistic’, willing ‘to volunteer for any job’. He was unmarried.

BORN
21 January 1892

DIED
25 May 1975

Lieutenant Lawrence Dominic ‘Fats’ McCarthy

Lawrence Dominic McCarthy (1892?-1975), named at birth Florence Joseph, soldier, commercial traveller and building superintendent, was born probably on 21 January 1892 at York, Western Australia, son of Florence McCarthy of Cork, Ireland, and his wife Anne, née Sherry. His parents died when he was very young and he was brought up in Clontarf Orphanage, Perth, and educated in Catholic schools.

McCarthy was working as a contractor when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 16 October 1914; he was posted as a private to the 16th Battalion and sailed for Egypt in December. On 26 April 1915 ‘Fat’—the appropriate and affectionate nickname earned by his ‘ample frame’—landed at Gallipoli with ‘C’ Company. Appointed lance corporal on 13 May, he was promoted corporal on 19 July and sergeant on 1 September.

The 16th Battalion reached France in June 1916 and took part in heavy fighting around Pozières and Mouquet Farm in August. On 8 March 1917 McCarthy was appointed company sergeant major and on 10 April was commissioned second lieutenant. Next day he was wounded at Bullecourt and evacuated to England, rejoining his unit on 9 July. A lieutenant from 1 November, he received the French Croix de Guerre at Beaumetz two days later. From 31 January 1918 he was posted to the 13th Training Battalion, Tidworth, England, returning to the 16th in time for the offensive of 8 August.

Near Madam Wood, east of Vermandovillers, France, on 23 August McCarthy performed what the official war historian rated as ‘perhaps the most effective feat of individual fighting in the history of the A.I.F., next to Jacka’s at Pozières’. The 16th Battalion, with McCarthy commanding ‘D’ Company, had attained its objectives but the battalion on the left was unable to make headway. Accompanied by Sergeant F. J. Robbins, D.C.M., M.M., McCarthy attacked the German machine-gun posts which were preventing its advance. They raced into the enemy trench system, shooting and bombing as they went, destroying three machine-gun positions. When his mate fell wounded, McCarthy pressed on, picking up German bombs as he continued to fight down the trench ‘inflicting heavy casualties’. Coming upon another enemy pocket, he shot two officers and bombed the post until a blood-stained handkerchief signalled the surrender of the forty occupants.

This feat of bravery, which resulted in the award of the Victoria Cross, had an extraordinary conclusion. As the battalion historian records, ‘the prisoners closed in on him from all sides … and patted him on the back!’ In twenty minutes he had killed twenty Germans, taken fifty prisoners and seized 500 yards (460 m) of the German front. This jovial hero believed that there was ‘a V.C. in everybody if given a chance’.

In England, on 25 January 1919, he had married Florence (Flossie) Minnie Norville, at Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. Their only child Lawrence Norville was killed in action on Bougainville in 1945.

A most popular, generous and unassuming man, he took a keen interest in community affairs.

Laurie McCarthy died at Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, Melbourne, on 25 May 1975 and was cremated with full military honours. He was survived by his wife who donated his V.C. and medals to the Australian War Memorial, which also holds his portrait by Charles Wheeler.

BORN
30 August 1933

Warrant Officer Keith Payne

Keith Payne was born at Ingham, Queensland, on 30 August 1933. He attended Ingham State School and afterwards became an apprentice cabinet-maker. During this time he also served with the 31st Australian Infantry Battalion in the Citizens’ Military Force. Seeking greater opportunities, Payne joined the Australian Regular Army in August 1951 and after his basic and initial employment training was posted to the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (2RAR) in December 1951.

Payne was transferred to the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) in July 1952 and later that month was sent to Japan as an infantry reinforcement. In September 1952 he was sent to Korea, where he joined his unit. He served with the battalion until they were rotated out of Korea in March 1953, whereupon he was taken on strength of Headquarters, 28th British Commonwealth Brigade. He remained with this formation until the end of the Korean War, and returned to Australia in August 1953.
In December 1954 Payne married Florence Plaw, a member of the Women’s Royal Australian Army Corps. He was promoted to corporal the following year and spent much of the next five years attending various courses and schools of instruction to further his army career.

On 24 February 1969 he was appointed to the Australian Army Training Team in Vietnam. In May that year he was commanding the 212th Company of the 1st Mobile Strike Force Battalion when it was attacked by a strong North Vietnamese force. His company was isolated and, surrounded on three sides, Payne’s Vietnamese troops began to fall back. Payne, by now wounded in the hands and arms and under heavy fire, covered the withdrawal before organising his troops into a defensive perimeter. He then spent three hours scouring the scene of the day’s fight for isolated and wounded soldiers, all the while evading enemy troops, who kept up harassing fire. He found some 40 wounded men, brought some in himself and organised for the rescue of the others, leading the party back to base through enemy-dominated terrain. Years later, asked whether he was afraid, Payne replied, “My God yes, yes, I was.” Payne’s actions that night earned him the Victoria Cross.

He was evacuated to Brisbane in September suffering from an illness, receiving a warm reception at the Brisbane airport before entering hospital. He had recovered by November, and in January 1970 was posted as an instructor to the Royal Military College, Duntroon.

Payne received his VC from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II aboard the Royal Yacht, Britannia in Brisbane on 13 April 1970. He was made a Freeman of the city and of the shire in which his hometown was located. A park in Stafford, Brisbane, where Payne lived, was also named after him. He received the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star from the United States, and the Republic of Vietnam awarded him the Cross of Gallantry with Bronze Star. He retired from the army in 1975, but saw further action as a captain with the Army of the Sultan of Oman during the Dhofar War.

Payne returned to Australia and became active in the veteran community, particularly in counseling sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder.

BORN
30 August 1933

Warrant Officer Keith Payne

Keith Payne was born at Ingham, Queensland, on 30 August 1933. He attended Ingham State School and afterwards became an apprentice cabinet-maker. During this time he also served with the 31st Australian Infantry Battalion in the Citizens’ Military Force. Seeking greater opportunities, Payne joined the Australian Regular Army in August 1951 and after his basic and initial employment training was posted to the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (2RAR) in December 1951.

Payne was transferred to the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) in July 1952 and later that month was sent to Japan as an infantry reinforcement. In September 1952 he was sent to Korea, where he joined his unit. He served with the battalion until they were rotated out of Korea in March 1953, whereupon he was taken on strength of Headquarters, 28th British Commonwealth Brigade. He remained with this formation until the end of the Korean War, and returned to Australia in August 1953.
In December 1954 Payne married Florence Plaw, a member of the Women’s Royal Australian Army Corps. He was promoted to corporal the following year and spent much of the next five years attending various courses and schools of instruction to further his army career.

On 24 February 1969 he was appointed to the Australian Army Training Team in Vietnam. In May that year he was commanding the 212th Company of the 1st Mobile Strike Force Battalion when it was attacked by a strong North Vietnamese force. His company was isolated and, surrounded on three sides, Payne’s Vietnamese troops began to fall back. Payne, by now wounded in the hands and arms and under heavy fire, covered the withdrawal before organising his troops into a defensive perimeter. He then spent three hours scouring the scene of the day’s fight for isolated and wounded soldiers, all the while evading enemy troops, who kept up harassing fire. He found some 40 wounded men, brought some in himself and organised for the rescue of the others, leading the party back to base through enemy-dominated terrain. Years later, asked whether he was afraid, Payne replied, “My God yes, yes, I was.” Payne’s actions that night earned him the Victoria Cross.

He was evacuated to Brisbane in September suffering from an illness, receiving a warm reception at the Brisbane airport before entering hospital. He had recovered by November, and in January 1970 was posted as an instructor to the Royal Military College, Duntroon.

Payne received his VC from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II aboard the Royal Yacht, Britannia in Brisbane on 13 April 1970. He was made a Freeman of the city and of the shire in which his hometown was located. A park in Stafford, Brisbane, where Payne lived, was also named after him. He received the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star from the United States, and the Republic of Vietnam awarded him the Cross of Gallantry with Bronze Star. He retired from the army in 1975, but saw further action as a captain with the Army of the Sultan of Oman during the Dhofar War.

Payne returned to Australia and became active in the veteran community, particularly in counseling sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder.

BORN
26 October 1884

DIED
19 November 1933

Captain Hugo Vivian Hope Throssell

Hugo Vivian Hope Throssell (1884-1933), soldier and farmer, was born on 26 October 1884 at Northam, Western Australia, youngest son of George Throssell, storekeeper and later premier, and his wife Anne, née Morrell, Hugo was one of fourteen children.

With the outbreak of war Hugo and Ric joined the 10th Light Horse Regiment, formed in October 1914. Hugo was commissioned as second lieutenant and remained in Egypt when the 10th was sent to Gallipoli in May 1915. He landed on Gallipoli on 4 August, three days before the charge at the Nek-’that FOOL charge’ as he described it-when 9 officers and 73 men of his regiment were killed within minutes.

At 1 a.m. by moonlight on 29 August the 10th Light Horse was brought into action to take a long trench, 100 yards (91 m) of which was held by Turkish troops on the summit of Hill 60. As a guard, Throssell killed five Turks while his men constructed a barricade across their part of the trench. When a fierce bomb fight began, ‘a kind of tennis over the traverse and sandbags’, Throssell and his soldiers held their bombs on short fuse until the last possible moment before hurling them at the enemy on the other side of the barricade. Throughout the remainder of the night both sides threw more than 3000 bombs, the Western Australians picking up the bombs thrown at them by the Turks and hurling them back. Towards dawn the Turks made three rushes at the Australian trench, but were stopped by showers of bombs and heavy rifle-fire. Throssell, who at one stage was in sole command, was wounded twice. His face covered in blood from bomb splinters in his forehead, he repeatedly yelled encouragement to his men. For his part in the battle Hugo Throssell was awarded the Victoria Cross. It was the first V.C. to be awarded to a Western Australian in the war.

Evacuated to hospital in England, Throssell was promoted captain and joined his regiment in Egypt. He was wounded in April 1917 at the 2nd battle of Gaza where his brother Ric was killed. On the night that Ric disappeared, Hugo crawled across the battlefield under enemy fire, searching in vain for his brother among the dead and dying, and whistling for him with the same signal as they had used when boys.

Throssell married the Australian author Katharine Susannah Prichard whom he had met in England. They settled on a 40-acre (16 ha) mixed farm at Greenmount, near Perth. His wife wrote that those early years of marriage with Hugo, whom she called Jim, were her happiest. When she became a foundation member of the Communist Party of Australia in 1920, Hugo joined her as a speaker supporting unemployed and striking workers. He claimed that the war had made him a socialist and a pacifist. The combination of her award-winning novels and Communism, and his Victoria Cross, brought them fame and notoriety.

Hard times came in the Depression. Katharine believed that her political activities lost Hugo his job with the settlement board, and that his passion to own land led him to borrow recklessly from the banks. He joined the search for gold at Larkinville in the early 1930s. When that proved unsuccessful, he devised a scheme which he hoped would prove a money-spinner. While Katharine was on a six-month visit to Russia, he organized a rodeo on his Greenmount property on a Sunday, not knowing that it was illegal to charge entry fees on the sabbath. The only money Hugo raised from the 2000 people who attended was a meagre silver collection for charity. The episode plunged him further into debt and shattered his optimism.

Imagining that he could better provide for his wife and 11-year-old son if he left them a war service pension, he shot himself on 19 November 1933 at Greenmount. Friends blamed his melancholy on an attack of meningitis at Gallipoli and saw it as the cause of his suicide. He was buried with full military honours in the Anglican section of Karrakatta cemetery, Perth.

In 1954 a memorial to him was unveiled at Greenmount, opposite his home. In 1983 his son Ric presented Hugo’s Victoria Cross to the People for Nuclear Disarmament. The Returned Services League of Australia bought the medal and presented it to the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

BORN
10 February 1896

DIED
06 July 1967

Sergeant Major Joseph Maxwell

Joseph Maxwell (1896-1967), often claimed as the second most decorated Australian soldier in World War I, was born on 10 February 1896 at Annandale, Sydney, son of John Maxwell, labourer, and his wife Elizabeth, née Stokes.

Employed as an apprentice boilermaker in Newcastle, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 8 February 1915. He was posted to the 18th Battalion and served at Gallipoli before proceeding with his battalion to France in March 1916. Promoted sergeant in October, he went to a training battalion in England, briefly returning to France in May 1917 before being sent back to attend an officer training school. Involved in a brawl with civil and military police in London, he was fined and returned to his unit. He was promoted warrant officer in August and appointed company sergeant major.

In September, during the 3rd battle of Ypres, Maxwell took command of a platoon after its officer had been killed and led it in the attack. Later he safely extricated men from a newly captured position under intense enemy fire. For this action he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and a few days later was commissioned in the field as second lieutenant; he was promoted lieutenant in January 1918. In March he led a scouting patrol east of Ploegsteert and after obtaining the required information ordered his men to withdraw. He was covering them when he saw a large party of Germans nearby. Recalling the patrol, he organized and led a successful attack, an action for which he was awarded the Military Cross.

In August, during the offensive near Rainecourt, Maxwell, the only officer in his company who was not a casualty, took command and, preceded by a tank, led his men into the attack on time. The tank received a direct hit and Maxwell, although shaken by the explosion, rescued the crew before the tank burst into flames. He continued the attack and the company reached its objective. He was awarded a Bar to his Military Cross.

Maxwell was awarded the Victoria Cross after an attack on the Beaurevoir-Fonsomme line near Estrées on 3 October. After his company commander was wounded he took charge. Reaching the strong enemy wire under intense fire, he pushed forward alone through a narrow passageway in the wire and captured the most dangerous machine-gun, disposing of the crew. His company was thus able to penetrate the wire and take the objective. Shortly afterwards, again single-handed, he silenced a machine-gun holding up a flank company. Later, with two men and an English-speaking prisoner, he encouraged about twenty Germans in a nearby post to surrender, and in doing so was briefly captured himself. Awaiting his opportunity, he drew a pistol concealed in his respirator haversack, killed two of the enemy and escaped with his men under heavy rifle-fire. He then organized a party and captured the post.

In just over twelve months Maxwell was awarded the D.C.M., the M.C. and Bar and the V.C., and he was only 22 when the war ended.

In 1932, helped by Hugh Buggy, Maxwell published the very successful Hell’s Bells and Mademoiselles, an account of the war as he saw it; at the time he was working as a gardener with the Department of the Interior in Canberra. His health was often very unstable. He attempted, unsuccessfully because of his age, to enlist in the 2nd A.I.F., but eventually succeeded in enlisting in Queensland under a false name; his identity was discovered and he was discharged.

On 6 July 1967 Maxwell collapsed and died of a heart attack in a street in his home suburb of Matraville; he had for some time been an invalid pensioner. After a service with military honours at St Matthias Anglican Church, Paddington, he was cremated. His widow donated his medals to the Army Museum, Victoria Barracks, Paddington.