An EXTRAORDINARY former Monmouth pupil who was awarded the Victoria Cross was remembered in a special Armistice Day service on Monday.

Captain Angus Buchanan served in the 4th Battalion, South Wales Borderers during the First World War.

The former Monmouth School head boy, from Coleford, was awarded Britain’s highest military decoration for bravery for his heroic deeds while fighting in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) in 1916.

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South Wales Argus:

Victoria Cross recipient Captain Angus Buchanan (right), and at the inauguration of the Monmouth School war memorial

On April 5, as the London Gazette recorded at the time, 21-year-old Capt Buchanan rescued two wounded comrades by running out, “under heavy machine gun fire”, across 150 yards of open ground.

He pulled the first man to safety and then returned for the second. He was also awarded the Military Cross for his actions.

But later in the war he was seriously injured when a sniper’s bullet struck him in the head, blinding him.

South Wales Argus:

Head girl at Monmouth School for Girls, Rachel Badgami, and head boy at Monmouth School for Boys, Joe Harrison, lay a wreath at the school’s War Memorial

But in a remarkable tale of perseverance, Capt Buchanan returned home and after the war resumed his studies at Oxford University, where he read law and rowed for Jesus College.

Capt Buchanan opened Monmouth School’s war memorial in 1919, dedicated to the 76 former pupils who died in the war. The school has a boarding house named in his honour.

After graduating in 1921, he worked in a solicitor’s office in Oxford before returning to his family home in Coleford in the Forest of Dean to work until his death in 1944.

South Wales Argus:

Major-General Lennox Napier, aged 91, dedicates the plaque in memory of Angus Buchanan

At Monday’s service, guests gathered for the re-dedication of the school’s war memorial and the unveiling of a new plaque unveiled in honour of Capt Buchanan.