[1] The day after the start of the First World War[2] he enlisted as a private in the Artists Rifles and was on active duty in France from October 1914.

[1] Fleming-Sandes was 21 years old, and a temporary second lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion, The East Surrey Regiment,[3] British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.

On 29 September 1915 at the Hohenzollern Redoubt, France, Second Lieutenant Fleming-Sandes was sent to command a company which was in a very critical position.

Fleming-Sandes left the Army as a lieutenant at the end of the war and in 1919 he joined the educational department of the Sudan government.

[1] In 1935 he was appointed a Judge of the Sudan High Court and he married Dorothea May Weeks the following year.