Captain Harry Ranken VC and the Wounds He Refused to Treat First
On this day in 1914, Captain Harry Ranken VC began the action that would define his short life and end it. During the First Battle of the Aisne, this RAMC doctor stayed with wounded soldiers under heavy fire near Haute-Avesnes, France, even after he himself was badly hurt. His courage earned him the Victoria Cross, though he never lived to receive it.
Who Was Captain Harry Ranken?
Harry Sherwood Ranken was born in Glasgow on 3 September 1883, the son of a minister. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 1905 after winning eight academic prizes along the way. Before the war, he worked at Glasgow’s Western Infirmary and later served with the Sudan Government’s Sleeping Sickness Commission, where his research earned him further recognition.
Ranken joined the RAMC as a lieutenant in 1909 and was promoted to captain in 1912. When war broke out in August 1914, he was on leave, yet he immediately volunteered for active service. He was attached to the 1st Battalion, The King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
The Action at Haute-Avesnes
On 19 and 20 September 1914, during the First Battle of the Aisne, Captain Ranken treated wounded men in the trenches at Haute-Avesnes under sustained rifle and shrapnel fire. While doing so, he was himself severely wounded in the thigh and leg. Rather than seek treatment for himself, he stopped his own bleeding, bound the wound, and carried on dressing the injuries of the soldiers around him.
Only once the immediate danger to his patients had passed did he allow himself to be carried to the rear. By then, however, his own wounds had become critical.
The Cost of His Courage
Captain Ranken died of his wounds on 25 September 1914, just six days after the action that would earn him the Victoria Cross. He was 31 years old. He is buried at Braine Communal Cemetery in the Aisne region of France.
His VC citation, published in the London Gazette on 13 November 1914, records simply that he was recognised “for tending wounded in the trenches under rifle and shrapnel fire at Hautevesnes on 19th September, and on 20th September continuing to attend to wounded after his thigh and leg had been shattered.”
- He treated casualties under direct enemy fire for two consecutive days
- He continued working after sustaining wounds that would ultimately kill him
- He delayed his own evacuation until his patients had been cared for
His Legacy
Captain Ranken’s story embodies the RAMC motto, In Arduis Fidelis, or “Faithful in Adversity”. He chose the welfare of wounded soldiers over his own survival, and that choice cost him his life within days. His Victoria Cross, along with a Mention in Despatches and the French Legion of Honour, stands as recognition of a doctor who never stopped working, even as his own body was failing him.
Today, we remember Captain Harry Ranken VC alongside every RAMC officer who has placed patients before self.
The Victoria Cross and George Cross Association: Captain Harry Ranken VC
