Hamo Watts
Sassoon
Male
England
1888-08-04
Matfield, Kent, England
1915-11-01
Suvla Bay, Gallipoli, Turkey
Hamo Sassoon was the son of fellow lawn tennis player Alfred Sassoon and the nephew of another player, Frederick M. Sassoon. Hamo was also the brother of Siegfried Sassoon, the renowned poet and memoirist. Hamo had reached the rank of Second Lieutenant in the British Army by the time he was killed in action in Gallipoli in November 1915 at the age of 27.
--
From: http://ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk/unconventionalsoldiers/the-poets-brother/
The youngest of the three Sassoon brothers, Hamo was born on 4 August 1887. Educated privately then at Marlborough and Clare College, Cambridge, he developed a flair for mathematics and for all things mechanical, creative and scientific. Inclined at first to architecture in the end he opted for civil engineering as a career and, following his degree, worked first for the family firm of Thornycrofts before journeying to Argentina to build breakwaters and bridges in the area of the River Plate with the engineering and construction firm Messrs Walker & Company.
Following the outbreak of war in 1914, like hundreds of other British professionals working abroad, he abandoned his career and returned to England to enlist. He joined the Royal Engineers, and obtained his commission in June 1915. He left for Gallipoli with the 1/1st West Riding Field Company on 17 August and landed on the Peninsula in early October, when the campaign to force the Straits and ‘knock Turkey out of the war’ was in a state of disastrous inertia following the failure of the Suvla offensives in August.
His active service career was very short. On the night of 28th October, during wiring operations in front of the British positions, Hamo Sassoon was shot in the leg – an incident that was recorded starkly in the unit’s War Diary: ‘Casualties: 2nd/Lieutenant Hamo Sassoon wounded; 6 sick.’
Though gravely damaged, Hamo managed to crawl back into a frontline trench. After having his wound dressed he was moved back, first to the Field Ambulance (where his wound was deemed to be very serious) then to a Casualty Clearing Station. He was transferred to the ‘Kildonan Castle’ on 1st November, and died on board that vessel following the amputation of his leg; he was buried at sea that same evening.
--
From De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour (1914-19), Volume 2:
Captain Donaldson wrote: “I have been waiting until I could gather some information about Hamo Sassoon… I saw the C.R.E. of the Division Hamo was in and he said, ‘Will you please tell Sassoon’s people that he was a most gallant officer, and was liked and respected by everyone who knew him, and I am quite sure that Major Bailey, his Commanding Officer, will be very sorry indeed when he hears of his death? I, personally, did not see much of him; but though he was new to soldiering he was shaping extremely well.’”
He went on to tell me all he knew. Apparently, Hamo was sent out with his unit to put up some barbed wire in front of a trench after an advance, and was hit in the leg by a sniper. He fell, and crawled back to the parapet of the trench, from which he fell into the trench itself. They put on his first dressing, and he was shifted back, first to the Field Ambulance, and then to a Casualty Clearing Station, where he found the C.R.E., who got this information out of him.
The C.R.E. asked him how it was that he had to crawl back, and Hamo said that he did not make any noise when he was hit, and not want to expose others to the fire of the snipers. The C.R.E. thought that the crawl back may have aggravated the conditions, and I am inclined to agree with him, considering that his leg was shattered. I think it was simply a glorious piece of self-sacrifice to go back himself rather than expose his men to sniping.
The C.R.E. also said that Hamo seemed to make light of his wound, and was quite cheery, so that the C.R.E. was rather taken aback when the Field Ambulance Officer told him that it was very serious, and that Hamo would almost certainly have to lose his leg.”
1908 - 1911
0
10
3
Round 1
Fredric Samuel Warburg 1 *
Hamo Watts Sassoon
w.o.
Round 2
Hamo Watts Sassoon 1 *
Mr. Neuburger
1-6
6-3
6-3
Quarterfinals
Hamo Watts Sassoon 1 *
Mr. Zurstrassen
6-4
4-6
6-4
Semifinals
J. de K. Bowen 1 *
Hamo Watts Sassoon
6-2
6-2
Round 1
J. de K. Bowen 1 *
Hamo Watts Sassoon
w.o.
Round 1
Dr. Anton Marcotty 1 *
Hamo Watts Sassoon
6-0
6-2
Round 1
Baron Hans Peter Paul Heinrich Sizzo von Noris 1 *
Hamo Watts Sassoon
3-6
6-1
8-6
Round 1
Hamo Watts Sassoon 1 *
T. Prinsep
6-3
6-4
Round 2
Gerald William Chesterman 1 *
Hamo Watts Sassoon
6-3
6-0
Round 2
Friedrich Wilhelm Rahe 1 *
Hamo Watts Sassoon
6-2
6-1