The Second Afghan War ‘Maiwand Gallantry’ D.C.M. awarded to Gunner T. Tighe,...

The Second Afghan War ‘Maiwand Gallantry’ D.C.M. awarded to Gunner T. Tighe, Royal Horse Artillery, for ‘conspicuously gallant conduct during the action at Maiwand and subsequent retreat to Kandahar’; Tighe served a muzzle-loading 9-pounder gun of E Battery, B Brigade (E/B), during a three-hour artillery duel with thirty Afghan guns until fanatical Ghazi tribesmen were about to overrun his gun - he and his crewmates kept firing until the last minute, ‘hooked up’ their gun to its horses and dramatically burst out of the melee, making a fighting retreat to Kandahar, saving the lives of many casualties by loading their bodies onto their horses and gun carriage

Distinguished Conduct Medal, V.R. (4278. Gunr. T. Tighe. R.H.A.) nearly extremely fine £5,000-£7,000

Footnote
D.C.M. recommendation submitted to the Queen 1 February 1881, approved 5 March 1881:
‘For conspicuously gallant conduct during the action at Maiwand and subsequent retreat to Kandahar on 27th and 28th July last.’

Thomas Tighe was born in 1846 in St George’s Parish, Dublin, and worked as a labourer before enlisting in the Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) at Dublin on 27 December 1864, aged 18. His medical examination took place on 5 January 1865. It is possible, based on his Royal Hospital Chelsea Pensioner Service Record, that earlier in 1864 Tighe first enlisted in the 19th Regiment of Foot (the Green Howards), but left them before he could be drafted to join the Regiment, which was on foreign service in India. On 1 August 1871, Tighe’s Royal Horse Artillery Medical History sheet recorded his conduct as ‘Regular. Good. Temperate.’

Tighe became a Gunner in E/B Battery R.H.A., the former 3 Troop, 1 Bengal Horse Artillery. In 1880 it was in cantonments at Kirkee, India, equipped with six 9-pounder Rifled Muzzle Loading (R.M.L.) guns, which fired common shell, shrapnel or case ammunition. Studs protruding from each shell slotted into three spiral rifled grooves in the barrel and were rammed home onto the cartridge bag. Loading and ramming was Tighe’s primary responsibility when the gun was in action.

E/B Battery was usually brigaded with cavalry, and it was ordered to join the second phase of the Second Afghan War. Up until then, the war had gone well for the British, enabling them to depose the Afghan Ruler and appoint a new Wali of Kandahar, who was presented with a battery of obsolete 6-pounder muzzle-loading smooth-bores (four unrifled guns and two howitzers) to stiffen his local levies. However, Ayub Khan took over from the deposed ruler and advanced into southern Afghanistan with a mixed force, which included Afghan Regular Army artillery and infantry, local irregular cavalry and hordes of tribal Ghazi fanatics, who had sworn to kill idolators and had been promised entry to paradise if they died in battle.

E/B left Kirkee on 16 January 1880, marched to Bombay, embarked for Karachi, and marched through the Bolan Pass to Quetta and Kandahar, arriving on 5 April 1880. As part of Brigadier-General Burrows’s Brigade flying column, the Battery marched from Kandahar to Girishk on the Helmand River to support the Wali. However, the Wali’s troops defected en masse to Ayub Khan. In an encounter with the mutinous local troops on 14 July, E/B succeeded in getting into action four times, and ‘did a fair amount of execution’. This contributed materially to the defeat of the enemy, who abandoned all their guns and retreated. These 6-pounder smooth-bore guns were formed into a Battery manned by men of the 66th Regiment of Foot, with a few E/B N.C.O.s detached to command each gun crew.

The Maiwand disaster
On 26 July, information was received that Ayub Khan’s Afghan army was making for the Maiwand Pass. Stimulated by telegrams from Army HQ at Simla, Brigadier Burrows decided to move towards Maiwand the next day. His men, led by two guns of E/B, left camp much later than planned, although his Indian infantry had still not been fed by the Commissariat.

They were crossing a barren, arid, dusty plain, when distant hostile movements became visible through the heat haze. An infantry line was gradually formed, with the guns in the centre, two Battalions on the right, one on the left. Initially the heat haze and dust prevented any accurate estimate of the enemy strength being made. Then enemy artillery began to come into action, until eventually the fire of 30 guns, including breech-loading rifled Armstrong guns, was concentrated on the British line. For nearly three hours this artillery duel continued, while the hordes of Afghan cavalry and infantry strove to work around the British left flank. Burrows moved his entire Indian infantry reserve to his left to meet this threat. E/B fired at least 120 rounds from each gun and still had a good supply of ammunition close at hand. The British 66th Foot anchoring the right flank also seemed to have enough ammunition for their Martini-Henry rifles.

Fatally however, the Indian infantry units on the left had fired off most of their Snider rifle ammunition, and their arrangements for supplying more rounds and more drinking water to their firing line had broken down. The smooth-bore battery had no ammunition wagons and when it ran out of ammunition after firing its stock of some 50 rounds per gun, it withdrew to the baggage train, well behind the firing line. The disappearance of the smooth-bore guns was followed by a general development of the Afghan attack. The Indian companies on the left, whose British officers had all been killed, were broken, mixed up with swarms of Ghazi tribesmen, and forced back upon the guns of E/B.

The melee around the guns
E/B transformed its 9-pounders into giant shotguns, by firing off case rounds at Afghan infantry formations. Gunner Williams, who was holding a team of limber horses ‘some twelve or fourteen yards behind the guns in action’ recalled: ‘the case-shot proved very effective, rows and rows of their infantry falling before us… but the enemy became more and more daring, and led on by their chiefs who carried silken banners of various colours, they charged down on our guns yelling and shouting as they came...’

E/B began using ‘reversed shrapnel’, loading every round reversed (base fuse-end first) to achieve a deadly muzzle-burst of balls. Even this could not stop the crowds of swordsmen. All the N.C.O.s and men on the gunline had only a sword as their personal weapon. Swords provided individual close-quarter defence at best, and were completely unsuited to fighting off a determined charge by hostile warriors. However, those gunners responsible for ramming the charges and rounds home down the gun barrels wielded long, stout ramrods, and each gun was equipped with sturdy handspikes (long crowbars) to help traverse and point it. In determined and agile hands, a ramrod or a handspike was an excellent close-quarter weapon, capable of being jabbed or swung to prevent swordsmen from closing within five metres. This is possibly what Tighe did to hold the Ghazis back from his comrades as they struggled to get their guns limbered up to their horse teams.

The History of the Royal Artillery 1860-1914, Vol III, records: ‘The gunners, who had borne the brunt of the Afghan fire throughout, made a gallant stand, until Captain Slade gave the order to limber up. Fortunately, the limbers and detachment horses were formed up, according to the drill of the period, only ten yards from the gun trails, so there was no delay, and the two of the sections [four guns, including Tighe’s] got away.’ Saving the Guns at Maiwand, a painting by Richard Caton Woodville, was a famous 1882 dramatic illustration of this critical moment.

Captain Slade, the Senior Captain of E/B, who took over its command when Major Blackwood was hit by a shell fragment, wrote an account of the R.H.A.’s battle: ‘For three hours, we were exposed to a very heavy artillery fire, and our horses and carriages suffered greatly, almost all our men were killed by artillery fire, in fact I don't know of any individual being killed by infantry fire, two or three were wounded by sabre cuts when we were retiring, and one man had his left arm smashed by a Snider bullet. The enemy had to advance a distance of about 600 yards and during this time were exposed to a very heavy fire of both musketry and artillery but though they fell in hundreds they were not to be deterred - and poor [Lieutenant] Maclaine waited a moment too long and lost his [two] guns - they were within 15 yards of us when I limbered up - besides being in our rear. I then formed closed interval and retired to a position about 400 yards back where I came into action again to cover the retreat. Owing to the artillery fire being so heavy I had to leave 67 horses dead or severely wounded on the field beside three wagons completely disabled.’

E/B lost 3 officers and 18 men killed, an officer and 12 men wounded, i.e. 24% out of a total of around 140 effectives, two of its own 9 pounders and all but one of the smooth-bores. The casualty rate among E/B’s gun crews in the firing line was 40-50%. In the subsequent waterless straggling retreat to Kandahar, the guns and their carriages were crammed with wounded and exhausted men.

Aftermath
During the siege of Kandahar by Ayub Khan in August 1880, E/B’s remaining 9-pounder guns were mounted on the city ramparts, three on the Herat face and one over the Idgah Gate. At the decisive Battle of Kandahar on 1 September 1880 the Battery covered the advance of Brigadier Baker’s Left Infantry Brigade and recovered its two ‘lost’ guns plus the five smooth-bores after the defeated Afghans abandoned them. On 8 October 1880 E/B left Kandahar and returned to Kirkee via Bombay, where it was complimented by the Commander-in-Chief and the Governor of Bombay. A public dinner was given to the Non-Commissioned Officers and men.

For its service in Afghanistan E/B received the special thanks of the Commander-in-Chief in General Orders. Two VCs and eight DCMs were...