DIAMOND, Bernard

Sergeant, Bengal Horse Artillery

CITATION

Victorai Cross

His VC citation (in conjunction with Fitzgerald's) states:-

For their act of valour performed in action against the rebels and mutineers at Bolandshahr, on September 28, 1857, when these two soldiers evinced the

most determined bravery in working their gun under a very heavy fire of musketry, whereby they cleared the road of the enemy, after every other man

belonging to it (their unit) had either been killed or disabled by wounds

KNOWN AWARDS

Victoria Cross

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Waiouru Army Museum

NOTES

Born January 1827, Port Glenone, County Antrim, Ireland

Died 25 January 1892, Masterton, NZ

Archer Street Cemetery, Masterton, New Zealand

BIOGRAPHICAL

Only a matter of months after the end of the Crimean War, British soldiers found themselves in the midst of another major campaign – the so-called Indian Mutiny.  In this ferocious episode, a man born in the tiny village of Portglenone was to win the town's second VC.

Bernard Diamond was an Irishman who found himself in a regiment whose traditions lay far away from his home village of Portglenone on the banks of the Bann.  As a sergeant in the Bengal Horse Artillery, whose role would have been in support of the much more famous Bengal Lancers, he was a skilled man serving with a battery of artillery.

On September 28, 1857, his unit was involved in an attack on the town of Bolndshahr, which had been captured by Indian 'rebels'.

The British came under very heavy counter-battery fire and all their guns, with the exception of Diamond's were knocked out.  Nevertheless, both Diamond and Gunner Richard Fitzgerald from Cork, continued to keep up a steady fire on the enemy. Both men were subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross.

After his military service, Diamond emigrated to New Zealand. His co-winner, Fitzgerald, disappeared from war office records after 1886 and he is believed to have died in India about this time.

THE PRO PATRIA PROJECT