Oswald H. Hanson

Oswald Hesketh Hanson was born at Massworth, Buckinghamshire, on 20th September 1873. His parents were Reverend Hesketh Hanson and Jane Anna (née Johnston). He was the second youngest of their eight children; Mary Beatrice (1863), Wilfred Julius (1865), Anna Rosalind (1867), Mary Machin (1868), Gertrude Mary (1870), Reginald John Edward (1870) and Herbert James (1875). Oswald was educated at Marlborough College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He qualified as a solicitor in 1898 and became a partner in the London firm of Beamish, Hanson, Airy and Fielding, featuring in several noteworthy cases. Originally with the Inns of Court OTC, in 1903 Oswald joined the RNVR as a Lieutenant and was appointed Lieutenant-Commander in March 1912. As the O.C. of Benbow’s D Company at the defence of Antwerp, he was taken prisoner when the Germans derailed the train at Moerbeke on 9th October. Believed to have been held at the Halle POW Camp, Oswald’s service record contains the following entries:
The article as it appeared in The Times:
Oswald, as the senior Naval officer on the train, would be a significant figure at the Court of Inquiry investigating the capture of over 900 men at Moerbeke.
Captain H.F.H. Stockley. Portsmouth Battalion: A naval officer came up to me (I think his name was Hanson and that he is since dead) and said the train had been surrendered, and that I had to surrender, and get my men to do so. I was extremely rude to him I am afraid, and asked him by whose authority the train had surrendered. He told me that Colonel Lywood had surrendered the train. I said that Colonel Lywood was not my commanding officer, and that I should not accept the order.      Lieutenant I. Fraser, Hawke Battalion: I waited for some time, when Hanson came up. He was in a frightful state, and said it was all his fault and dashed off in the dark.
A further article in The Times dated 23rd November 1915 suggests that Oswald never made it to Halle, and this was picked up by the mass-circulation newspapers. This article has been disregarded as propaganda by a number of sources.
A letter from Commodore Henderson to the Secretary of the Admiralty, dated 15th February 1918, is held in The National Archives that contains a statement from Lt.-Commander Grover of Hawke Battalion: Poor Hanson was shot by the Germans on the 10th October 1914. He had struggled with a sentry who was about to fire on one of our own men trying to escape after we were taken prisoner on the night of the 9th, and under German Military Code such an act can be punished with death. I tried to get the sentence mitigated, and so did the Commandant of the troops guarding us, for it was evident that Hanson was overwrought by the fatigues of the previous days. The matter was referred to the highest authority; at that time, General von der Goltz was Military Governor of Belgium, but it was of no avail, and Hanson was shot by firing squad at midday, and is buried by the Church at Exaerde. Henderson concludes with: I call Their Lordships attention to the pathetic message to myself, and his Battalion. His last thoughts were evidently not concerned with his own fate, but with what to him was a very much higher consideration, viz. his duty. Lieutenant Hanson during the short time that I knew him, impressed me as being one of the most zealous and earnest officers in my Brigade. I felt his death, and still feel it, very deeply. Perhaps the gist of this letter of mine may be some consolation to his relations. Oswald is interred in the Dendermonde Communal Cemetery, his gravestone giving the eleventh as the date of death. It is likely there will always be questions regarding the circumstances of his demise.