Welsh policeman Ernest Rollings was one of millions of men who enlisted for active duty in #WorldWarIThirteen years after the guns fell silent, he was hailed as The Man Who Ended The War.
During the Battle of Amiens in 1918, Lieutenant Rollings led a daring armoured cars raid 10 miles behind enemy lines. He and his men killed many Germans before they reached a farmhouse in the village of Framerville that was being used as an enemy base.
Rollings burst in to find the occupants had just fled, leaving a pile of hastily-torn documents.Rollings, who gathered up the papers, received a bar to his Military Cross for his bravery during the raid.
After the war, he returned to his career in the police service. Then in 1931, the Sunday Express reported that the papers recovered in Framerville contained detailed plans of all the gun posts, troop placements and defensive points along the seemingly impregnable Hindenburg Line.
The paper revealed that this intelligence and the subsequent Allied offensive probably shortened the war by six months and saved 500,000 lives.
Until then, the incredible importance of the papers had been unknown to the public and to the man who recovered them.
Neath police sergeant Ernest Rollings was tracked down by reporters and hailed in newspaper headlines as The Man Who Ended The War. At last, the extraordinary effects of his gallantry had been revealed.
Lieutenant Ernest Rollings, MC and Bar
September 15, 1893 – February 3, 1966
