So proud to have two grandads who fought for freedom
11/11/1918-11/11/2018: 100 years since end of World War 1
Readers share their memories of loved ones who fought… and died
As we near the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, Alexandra Jones, 77, of Droitwich, Worcs, tells of her two grandfathers who fought in the conflict. One collected messages from Lawrence of Arabia, and the other died in a battle pivotal in the Allies’ victory.
People boast about every little thing these days. But real heroes, the men who fought in the First World War, never boasted. They were so humble. Hardly anyone knew what my grandad Thomas Clayton did in the Great War because he didn’t like to talk about it. But, sitting on his knee in front of the range in his cottage, he told me some stories I’ve never forgotten. Grandad fought in the Dardanelles Campaign in Turkey and had to ride a horse into the desert to collect messages from Lawrence of Arabia. During an exchange, Lawrence – a British intelligence officer who fought with
FAMILY PRIDE Thomas Clayton and John Bird guerrilla Arabs rebelling against Ottoman rule – gave him two oranges, a gift he never forgot.
Grandad, who enlisted with the Herefordshire Regiment in 1912, fought in France and had red foot for the rest of his life because of frostbite.
He told me of the 7,000 men who fought from Hereford, seven came home. He was demobbed in 1919 and worked as head gardener for former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. He died in 1987, aged 94. I discovered, only after my mum died in 1980, that Thomas wasn’t my biological grandad. Mum’s birth certificate listed her surname as Bird. Her dad was killed during the war and her mother went on to marry Thomas.
Mum’s dad was Private John Bird, a machine gunner. He was killed, aged 36, in the Battle of Cambrai, in France, on November 30, 1917.
I feel immensely proud to have had two hero grandads. I wish I’d known more about them.
Last week, an eight-year-old girl from San Diego, California, left the United States for the first time in her life to travel to Windsor in Berkshire.
She had been given special permission by her teacher to be absent and she has to write a journal for her class. And it is going to be quite a story. Clara Levacy had come with her family to honour her great-greatgrandfather, one of the most decorated men in British military history.
A hundred years ago on Tuesday, October 23, Harry Greenwood was fighting in the Battle of the Selle, in North-West France, and was awarded the Victoria Cross for a series of acts of gallantry that many people have said mark him out as a “lunatic”.
Lieutenant Colonel Greenwood was leading the 9th Battalion of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry on October 23, 1918, in a fierce battle against a battered but determined German army.
Many of his men had been killed by a machine gun. Harry got up and, with bullets flying all around him, ran towards the gun post and killed the crew with grenades. Later that day, he again rushed a gun in the same way before, leading his men to capture 150 prisoners and eight machine guns.
The following morning he again ran towards Germans as they fired a machine gun. As the citation for his Victoria Cross put it: “He showed the greatest gallantry... in the face of heavy fire. His valour was beyond all praise.”
Harry is my great-great-uncle and I’ve read a letter in which he says he enjoyed “killing Bosche”.
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 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
self received a Military Cross for bravery in Afghanistan, said: “His (Harry’s) was an xceptional life that showed a pattern of selfless behaviour in which he routinely placed the interests of others before that of his own.
“He understood that a successful life was not one that pursued self-gratifiation but rather one that brought to serve others and uild society.”
As we watched that paving stone seing unveiled by a representative of the Queen and listened as a bugler from The Rifles sounded Last Post, I read out the names of the 47 men from Harry’s battalion who had died during the two days for which he was awarded the VC. Among them was the name Harry Greenwood – when I first read it, I thought it was a mistake but then I checked. By sad coincidence, on the day one Harry Greenwood got the VC, another Harry Greenwood from the same battalion was killed in action. Private Harry Greenwood was the son of a musician from Wombwell, near Barnsley – and he was just 18.
We remembered him as we remembered our Harry.
■ You can order the fully illustrated 156-page magazine Armistice: A Century of Commemoration for £7.99 plus P&P from Key Publishing by visiting shop.keypublishing. com and searching “Armistice”, or by calling 01780 480404.