Frederick Pusch

Lieutenant Frederick Leopold Pusch, DSO was an English officer of the British Army who died during the First World War.
He was born in 1896, in Islington, the eldest son of Russian-born parents Emile, a banker originally of Riga,Lawrence, Alberta (1978), Who was who among English and European authors, 1931-1949, Volume 3, p. 1158. and Helen Pusch (née Jacobs). Pusch attended Harrow and was studying law in Canada on the outbreak of war in 1914. He duly returned to Britain, rejoining the 19th Londons,The Times (41209), Col A, p. 12: "Fallen Officers". 3 July 1916. into which he had been commissioned in May 1913.The London Gazette (28730), p. 4401, london-gazette.co.uk. 20 June 1913. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
In 1915, Pusch went to the Western Front with his battalion and fought with particular distinction in the Battle of Loos, in September. It was for his conduct at Loos that Pusch received the Distinguished Service Order, making him one of only eight junior officers to be awarded the medal during the war,Green, Howard (1976), The cockpit of Europe: a guide to the battlefields of Belgium and France, p. 125. and was mentioned in despatches. His citation for the DSO, which King George V presented him with at Warley Barracks in March 1916, read:
"For conspicuous gallantry, marked ability and resource at Loos on 25th and 27th September, 1915. During the advance through Loos he led a party of bombers, and, going alone into a house, captured seven Germans, although badly shot in the face by one of them. Notwithstanding his serious injury this very gallant Officer continued clearing the enemy out of the cellars in the town.Lieutenant Pusch organized the bombing attack of Grenadiers on 27th September, operating from the Chalk Pit against the Copse, at great personal risk, and helped materially in its capture."The London Gazette (29351), p. 10889, london-gazette.co.uk. 2 November 1915. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
Pusch transferred to the Special Reserve of the Irish Guards in November and returned to the front in mid-1916. On 27 June, Pusch and an orderly were bandaging a soldier who had been shot by a sniper. As they attended to him, the sniper fired a second shot, killing Pusch instantly and wounding the orderly. Pusch had joined the 1st Irish Guards from the Entrenching Battalion only a few days prior to his death.Kipling, Rudyard, The Irish guards in the Great War, Volume One, p. 172. His younger brother, Ernest, a second lieutenant in the 11th Royal Fusiliers, died less than a month later.
He is buried in Essex Farm Cemetery, Belgium.
==Notes==
==References==
*Ancestry.co.uk.
*Pusch, Frederick Leopold, cwgc.org. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
Category:1896 births
Category:1916 deaths
Category:British military personnel
Category:British Army
Category:British people of Latvian descent
Category:British people of Russian descent
Category:Buried in Belgium
Category:Lieutenants