https://www.royalsignalsmuseum.co.uk/on-this-day-27th-october
On this day, 27 October 1917, British forces in Palestine were preparing for General Allenby's forthcoming attack on Beersheba (Israel) which was scheduled for the 31st October.
The Middlesex Yeomanry, with two sub-sections of the 21st Machine-gun Squadron, were tasked with holding the flank of the main front line, comprising the long ridge between fortified points 720 and 630, between El Buggar and Bir el Girheir. Behind this line, and closer to Gaza, Allenby’s Army was forming up and prepared for the forthcoming assault and it was imperative that preperations were kept secret from the enemy.
At dawn on the 27th October the small force of less than 30 men at point 720, which were drawn from B Squadron of the Middlesex Yeomanry under command of Major Alexander Malins Lafone, faced a fierce attack by a superior force of Turks, comprising some 1200 cavalry supported by a heavy volume of shell and machine-gun fire.
Major Lafone was ordered to hold the position at all costs and and having beaten off two charges, and with most of his small force having been killed or wounded he ordered the remaining three survivors to go back, as the enemy commenced its third charge on his position. Firing at point blank range, in the open and from the shoulder, he covered the withdrawal of his men who carried his last message 'I shall hold out to the last'. The enemy eventually gained possession of the hill at 11.15 hrs, after the detachment had held out for over six hours.
The Turks held the position in strength for the remainder of the day against the 3rd Australian Light Horse until, that evening, 2 Brigades of the British 53rd Division advanced up the hill in attack formation and the Turks retreated to their original defence positions taking a number of wounded yeoman with them, and without discovering Allenby's preperations.
Soldiers from the 53rd Division recovered the bodies of the Middlesex yeoman who perished that day and they were initially buried on Hill 720 but were subsequently reinterned in the CWGC cemetery at Beersheba.
For his actions that day, Major Alexander Malins Lafone, was awarded the Victoria Cross.
https://vcgca.org/our-people/profile/621/Alexander-Malins--LAFONE
MIDDLESEX YEOMANRY
The Middlesex Yeomanry was raised in 1797 as a light cavalry unit, and it retained that role until it was re-tasked as Cavalry Signals on the 20th May 1920. Subsequently it became one of the founding formations of the Corps of Signals on the 28th June 1920, which 6-weeks later received its Royal Warrant to become the Royal Corps of Signals.
Today, the title 'Middlesex Yeomanry' is carried by 31 Signal Squadron, part of 71 Yeomanry Signal Regiment.
