Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
My great-g uncle... awa the VC for ‘lu acts of valo TRIBUTE
Band of 4 fighting brothers
That’s a frightening and incomprehensible thing to read about someone who shares a significant amount of your DNA. But now I have read about how he handled himself in the trenches and fought so bravely to protect his men, I am incredibly proud.
Prior to being awarded the VC he had got the MC (Military Cross) for gallantry in 1915 and in July 1918 a DSO (Distinguished Service Order) for bravery under fire.
In December, 1918, it was confirmed he was also being awarded a “Bar” to add to his DSO for an occasion when he fought off two enemy attacks, even after being blown off his feet by a shell.
As a Lt Col, Harry was one of the most senior ranks in the field – he did not have to stick his head above the trenches or run in front of his men. He could send “boys”, cannon fodder, to do the risky stuff. But not Harry. He led from the front and fought with his THEIR local paper described the Greenwood brothers as “Tottenham’s famous fighting family”. Harry and siblings Arthur, David and John were all wounded but survived.
Their dad was a plumber from Nottingham who joined the Grenadier Guards in 1875 and fought in Egypt, rising to Regimental Sergeant Major before becoming a Yeoman of the King’s Bodyguard for King George V.
In a war where some women lost their husbands and all their sons, the family were very lucky as well as very brave. men to protect them as best he could. He had been at war for four years, blown off his feet by shells including friendly fire, been gassed and watched hundreds of his friends killed.
Shortly after the announcement of his VC, Harry wrote: “I did nothing really, save drive on, kill a few huns and cheer our own fellows on a bit when they flagged.” His brother David explained to family that Harry “lacked imagination” – while most in combat worried about what would happen to them if they ran in front of the machine guns, Harry was somehow able to block that out of his mind.
He was given his medal by King George V at Buckingham Palace in 1919 and the Daily Mirror published his picture with that of four others awarded the VC that day. The following year he was part of the guard of honour when the Unknown Warrior was laid to rest at Westminster Abbey.
In 2002, Harry’s family donated his medals to the Regimental Museum of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in Doncaster.
In 2014, the Government said every VC winner from the First World War born in the UK would get a paving stone in the town of their birth.
So that is why I was joined last week by my
3rd cousin Clara Levacy and 50 other relatives from the extended Greenwood family to mark the centenary of Harry’s actions.
If anyone at the ceremony in Windsor – where Harry was born before his family moved to Tottenham, North London – was in doubt of the significance of his achievements, Colonel Dan Reeve of The Rifles regiment, who himse fo sa ex pa in th th
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