by Chris Lloyd | Victoria Cross
Private William Short, of Eston, near Middlesbrough, was 31 when he died. The Green Howard was still priming guns and encouraging comrades while dying of terrible wounds. Pte Short was fighting at Munster Alley, a key area in the Battle of the Somme, for the Green...
by Chris Lloyd | Victoria Cross
THE story of Stockton’s only Victoria Cross winner who inadvertently sparked the protest against the “damnable banquet” is worth re-telling. Edward Cooper was born in Portrack in 1896, left school at 14 and worked as a fruit cart salesman for the...
by Chris Lloyd | Victoria Cross
“I must confess that it was the biggest fluke alive and I did nothing, ” Second Lieutenant Donald Bell of the Green Howards wrote home on July 7, 1916. “I only chucked one bomb, but it did the trick. The C.C. says I saved the situation for this gun...
by Chris Lloyd | Victoria Cross
A MILLION or more men were pitched into a battle which precipitated the end of the First World War a fortnight later. Of those million or more fighting to the north of Venice, one stood out: a pitman from Murton on the east Durham coast. He was Sgt William McNally...
by Chris Lloyd | Victoria Cross
JOHN Scott Youll, known as Jack, was born in Thornley on June 6 1897 and from the age of 15 worked as an electrician until he joined the army. He worked his way up the ranks to become a temporary second lieutenant for the Northumberland Fusiliers. While commanding a...
