Eric Wilson won the first Victoria Cross to be awarded in the campaigns in Africa during the Second World War. His story is one of persistent yet seemingly nonchalant gallantry as, by his lights, he was simply doing what he was trained to do. He stuck to his precious guns to the bitter end and so certain was the brigade staff that he had been killed in the enemy’s final attack he was awarded a posthumous VC. But he survived to fight in two more campaigns.

Mussolini’s declaration of war on June 10, 1940, two weeks before the fall of France, found him with no enemy immediately to hand. He therefore ordered his forces in Abyssinia to attack the nearby British colonial garrisons. In August, three columns each of brigade strength with tanks and supported by bomber and fighter aircraft crossed into British Somaliland south of Hargeisa and headed for the Tug Argan pass leading to the seaport capital, Berbera, on the Gulf of Aden. The Somaliland Camel Corps delayed the advance from the frontier, covering as best it could preparation of the main defensive position astride the Tug Argan pass.

Wilson, then a captain, commanded the Camel Corps machinegun company. His task was to provide fire support for the Northern Rhodesia Regiment manning the central sector of the front across the enemy’s path. So far as the terrain allowed, he positioned his water-cooled Vickers medium machineguns where they could strike the enemy in the flanks when they moved forward. But, because of the width of the front, several had to be sited frontally with wide arcs of fire. Having briefed all his gun crews, he joined the most forward pillbox on Observation Hill overlooking the enemy’s main approach.

The Italian attack opened on the morning of August 11 with an artillery bombardment of Wilson’s positions. A shell of the first salvo exploded immediately outside the embrasure of his pillbox, blowing the Vickers off its tripod and wounding one of the crew. To Wilson’s surprise the weapon was undamaged and he had it in action again within minutes, but the next salvo killed the corporal in charge of the gun, wounded Wilson in the right shoulder and left eye and smashed his spectacles.

During the afternoon he detected an Italian mountain artillery battery working its way up from the road to the pass. He had its range and opened fire, only to receive an immediate retaliation from the enemy’s fixed-charge high-explosive shells. Counter-battery fire from his own artillery and a tropical downpour brought action to a halt for the day.

Next morning the Italians began to push forward small groups of infantry and artillery that worked their way along the sides of the Tur Argan gap to attack the British positions at close quarters. Then, on August 13, the enemy launched a large-scale assault, overran the British artillery position and renewed their fire on Wilson’s machinegun posts. On the 15th two of his guns were blown to pieces but he continued to man his own gun until the position was overrun. The citation for his VC, gazetted on October 11, 1940, opened with the words, “For most conspicuous gallantry on active service in Somaliland” and ended with, “The enemy finally overran the post at 5pm when Captain Wilson, fighting to the last, was killed.”

He had been taken prisoner, however, not just wounded but suffering from malaria. This only became known in April 1941 when the 5th Indian Division captured the prisoner-of-war camp at Adi Ugri in Eritrea, where Wilson was being held. Together with other prisoners, he had almost completed a tunnel for a mass escape attempt when they awoke one morning to find all their guards had gone. By then he had learnt of his award from an RAF officer who had been shot down and taken to the same camp.

Eric Charles Twelves Wilson was born in Sandown, Isle of Wight, the son of the Rev C. C. C. Wilson. He was educated at Marlborough and Royal Military College Sandhurst from where he was commissioned into the East Surrey Regiment in 1933. He had been attracted to Africa since boyhood through stories told by his grandfather, who had founded the Church Missionary Society station in Buganda in 1876. So, after four years with the East Surreys, he volunteered for secondment to the King’s African Rifles and served in Tanganyika with the 2nd (Nyasaland) Battalion until he secured a second secondment to the Somaliland Camel Corps in 1939.

On release from the Italian PoW camp he volunteered to join the Long Range Desert Group operating round the flanks of Rommel’s Afrika Korps in the Western Desert. His knowledge of desert conditions proved a useful asset but, at the end of the North African campaign, he went to Burma as second-in-command of a battalion of The King’s African Rifles. He took part in the advance of the 11th East African Division down the notoriously disease-ridden Kabaw Valley to establish a bridgehead over the Chindwin at Kelawa. He then contracted scrub typhus and spent two months in hospital before being medically downgraded and returned to East Africa. He spent the final months of the war commanding the Infantry Training Centre at Jinja in Uganda.

Wilson left the Army in 1949 to join the Overseas Civil Service in Tanganyika, where he served until independence of the British East African countries led to his retirement in 1961.

He joined the staff of the London Goodenough Trust for Overseas Students, where his fluency in Kiswahili, Gikuria and Chinyakusa stood him in good stead. He was the honorary secretary of the Anglo-Somali Society, 1972-77, and again from 1988 to 1990.

He married Anne Pleydell-Bouverie in 1943. The marriage was dissolved in 1953, and in that year he married Angela Joy, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel J. McK Gordon. He is survived by his second wife, one of the two sons of his first marriage and one son of his second. His death leaves nine surviving holders of the Victoria Cross.

Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Wilson, VC, was born on October 2, 1912. He died on December 23, 2008, aged 96