So valiant... the war hero who was my great-grandfather
ALBERT Broomhead used to recount how a bent spoon in his Army haversack saved his life by diverting a sniper’s bullet in the First World War.
When he produced the spoon and told the story, it was a rare insight for his grandchildren in to the colourful life he had led during the conflict. But it was only earlier this year that my branch of his family found that, Albert, my great-grandfather, was a real war hero.
At the age of 43 and as a Company Sergeant Major, Albert, from Derby, had received the Distinguished Conduct Medal – the second highest award for gallantry in the field after the Victoria Cross for all ranks below commissioned officers between 1854 and 1993.
Albert had bravely, and single-handedly, stormed a German machine gun post capturing several enemy soldiers during the Third Battle of Ypres, otherwise known as Passchendaele.
With the last of the generation gone that fought in the mud and bullets at Passchendaele, the Somme and other brutal battles, there has been a boom in people researching their family histories, perhaps because it has become our best way of connecting with the trials and tribulations of that generation and telling the story of our nation in conflict.
Albert, a former Grenadier Guardsman born in March 1874, enlisted three months after the start of the First World War, joining a territorial unit, the 2/5 Sherwood Foresters, on November 5, 1914. Part of the 59th (2nd North Midland) Division, a second line territorial force raised as a duplicate of the 46th North Midland Division, they were sent to Ireland in 1916 to suppress the Easter Rising before joining the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front in February 1917.
Through March and April, he and his comrades pursued the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line but it was during the Passchendaele offensive that they felt the full force of the conflict, engaging with the enemy in the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge and the Battle of Polygon Wood in September.
It was at some point during those two battles that my great-grandfather won his medal for storming the machine gun nest.
It was announced in the New Year’s Honours List of 1918. The accompanying citation reads: “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty.
“He has done consistent good work on all occasions, especially when his company has been deprived of platoon commanders. His courage and energy have always been marked.”
He and his wife, Ellen Kate (Kit) were admitted to hospital together aged 91 and 83 and died within 12 hours of each other a few days later, on January 24, 1966.
I have no memory of meeting him, but as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge marked the centenary of Passchendaele yesterday, we were raising a glass to the memory of our own war hero.