Morgan D-Day Hero

CMS Stanley Hollis VC
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7524-6955-3
Verlag: The History Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 174 Seiten

Stanley Hollis won the Victoria Cross when, on the 6th of June 1944, he single-handedly stormed a German pillbox before going on to save the lives of two comrades. D-Day's only Victoria Cross winner, Hollis was uniquely recommended for this coveted award twice on 6 June. A tough, working-class rebel, Hollis was no model soldier: he was forever being 'busted' to corporal for various misdeameanours, only to win his stripes back again. Few soldiers can have seen as much close combat action as Stanley Hollis. He fought with the Green Howards at Dunkirk, in the Western Desert, in Italy, on D-Day and through France and Germany to the end of the war. Seriously wounded and taken prisoner by the Afrika Korps, Hollis was personally congratulated by Rommel, then made a daring escape. In Italy, he was recommended for the Distinguished Conduct Medal and was later mentioned in despatches, going on to undertake a dangerous undercover reconnaissance of the Normandy invasion beaches. On 6 June 1944 Stanley Hollis was involved in two actions that led to his award. During the primary assault, Hollis single-handedly stormed a German pillbox, saving his company from certain injury and death and enabling them to open the main beach exit. Later that day he saved the lives of two comrades trapped by heavy gunfire in a collapsing house. Fully illustrated with archive photographs and ephemera, this unique biography of a little-known British Second World War hero shows the real man behind the heroic image. Mike Morgan has received the Hollis family's full co-operation and draws exclusively on personal diaries, letters and other memorabilia.

MIKE MORGAN is a senior journalist with the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette and is the author of Sting of the Scorpion, Daggers Drawn and D-Day Hero (The History Press). He lives in North Yorkshire.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Morgan, Mike

Leseproben

PROLOGUE

D-Day Cataclysm

The violence, speed and power of our initial assault must carry every-thing before it.

General Bernard Law Montgomery, the Allied Invasion Land Commander

Wherever the fighting was heaviest throughout the day, Hollis displayed daring and gallantry … he alone prevented the enemy from holding up the advance of The Green Howards at critical stages. … By his own bravery he saved the lives of many of his men.

From the VC citation of CSM Stan Hollis

D-Day was dubbed Deliverance Day by the British and American war leaders Churchill and Roosevelt to symbolise the liberation of a Europe ensnared under the iron Nazi yoke of terror for four bitter years.

As the clock ticked down to zero hour, at precisely 7.30 a.m., 6 June 1944, an awe-inspiring cataclysm without equal in military history was about to be unleashed at Gold Beach, Normandy, a lynchpin of the three main British and Canadian beachheads. Although he did not yet know it, just one man among the Allied invaders who would strike the first blow would win the highest honour for valour which Britain can bestow this day – Company Sergeant Major Stanley Elton Hollis, of D Company, 6th Battalion The Green Howards.

And, as the records show, he was recommended not once for the VC during the first few hours of this Anglo-American-Canadian quest to liberate Europe, but twice, in separate hair-raising actions which displayed courage well beyond the call of duty.

The biggest, most complex and in many ways most risky invasion that the world has ever seen, or is ever likely to see, was about to explode into violent action on the beaches of Normandy. Meanwhile, as the huge Allied fleet approached France, Hollis and his young British comrades waited aboard their assault ship just off the coast, checked their weapons and equipment and prayed for the action to get under way to break the near-unbearable tension.

Their vital mission was to be the first Allied troops ashore on D-Day to neutralise the heavy guns of the Mont Fleury battery, sited in a commanding position on higher ground just beyond the beachhead. Intelligence sources indicated four well-protected fortified casemates, each containing 122mm guns, supported by a mobile battery of four 100mm guns. Another concrete emplacement at La Rivière housed an 88mm gun and other casemated 50mm guns. This powerful 88mm weapon was well protected by thick concrete defences from shell fire from the sea, but was designed to pour fire at right angles to the coast – in effect right along Gold Beach, where The Green Howards and supporting tank units of the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards and elements of the 79th Armoured Division were about to forge ashore. There was a further 50mm gun in an open casement at Mont Fleury lighthouse and, further inland near the village of Crépon, there was another mobile battery of 100mm guns in open emplacements. These strongpoints were well protected by minefields, numerous machine-guns and well-armed and camouflaged infantry positions. All, naturally, were prime targets for the first wave attackers of The Green Howards, who had trained meticulously for their task using hundreds of photographs and models and realistic rehearsals so that they each intimately knew and could recognise without hesitation every landmark and feature of the vital King Sector of Gold Beach, where they would be the first invasion troops ashore.

German defenders of the 716th Division, supposing themselves safe and secure in their concrete pillboxes, trenches and steel-reinforced gun emplacements all along the Normandy coast, were still totally unaware of the overwhelming force which was rapidly approaching in the early morning mist, waiting to destroy them, just out of sight over the horizon.

This unprecedented invasion fleet massed in the English Channel involved an immense armada of nearly 7,000 ships, 250,000 soldiers and sailors and a protective aerial umbrella flying in the skies overhead of 3,000 of the latest combat planes – fighters, rocket-firing fighter bombers and heavy bombers.

British and American battleships would soon bombard enemy positions and key sites more than 20 miles inland of the invasion beaches, and bombers would further soften up numerous pre-ordained enemy targets. The British First World War veteran battleship Warspite was one of those dreadnoughts which would unleash the immense power of her eight 15-inch guns on targets which her crew could not see, yet could hit with devastating effect using sophisticated radar and range finders. Many cruisers and destroyers would also soon join in the bombardment closer to the shore – striking at many of the strongpoints on and behind the Gold Beach area.

Cruisers included the redoubtable HMS Orion, which was to register no fewer than twelve direct hits on the Mont Fleury battery behind King Sector in an amazing display of good shooting. HMS Belfast, which still survives to this day as a wartime attraction to the public moored in the River Thames in London, also did much solid work with her 6-inch guns. Other cruisers operating close inshore off Gold Beach included Ajax – one of the three cruiser conquerors of the scuttled pocket battleship Graf Spee at the Battle of the River Plate in 1939 – plus Argonaut, Emerald and Flores.

Hunt class destroyers Cattistock, Pytchley, Cottismore and Krakowiak and fleet destroyers Ulysses, Urania, Jervis, Grenville, Ursa, Ulster, Undaunted, Urchin and Undine also brought every gun they possessed to bear on the enemy positions throughout the Gold Beach area. However, the crucial knockout blow would be delivered by the elite infantrymen of The Green Howards, their accompanying armour and the follow-up forces who had to storm ashore through withering machine-gun, artillery and mortar fire. British and Allied commanders had already defeated the cream of the Axis forces at the history-making battle of El Alamein in North Africa, in Sicily, parts of Italy and in other theatres of war. But they knew that to beat Hitler and his still formidable Nazi forces they had to fight and defeat the enemy on their home ground – in Occupied France, the Low Countries and finally in the heartland of Germany itself.

The invasion land commander, General Montgomery, legendary victor of El Alamein, had hand-picked the battle-hardened 50th Northumbrian Division to lead the momentous invasion at Gold Beach, and the 6th/7th Green Howards were to land the initial knockout punch. High casualties were predicted.

Montgomery knew from commanding this potent force in previous tough battles won in North Africa and Sicily that these troops were among the very finest that Britain and her allies possessed, and so he entrusted them with this most vital of missions with utmost confidence. The men of the 6th and 7th Green Howards Battalions were to be the key initial spearhead on Gold Beach. It was an extremely hazardous honour and the men were told that up to 70 per cent casualties could be suffered. There was even a distinct possibility of annihilation by the well-dug-in defenders and their cunningly hidden machine-guns, minefields and artillery.

The German commander in this vital spearhead sector, General Major Wilhelm Richter, had deployed behind Gold Beach the 441st East Battalion, which included Russian volunteer auxiliaries and elements of the 726th Regiment. In support, the guns of the 352nd Artillery Regiment covered the beach. The Germans had not had time to install all of these artillery pieces, but still had more than enough in position to wreak widespread devastation. The British invaders, meanwhile, had no knowledge of these developments from their latest intelligence reports.

Lurking inland, less than an hour’s drive away, were the very powerful and well-equipped armoured columns of the 21st Panzer Division, the prime counter-attacking force designed to repel any invasion in Normandy or the adjoining areas. This force was supported by the elite Panzer Lehr Division and the 12th SS Panzer Division (Hitlerjugend). These 10,000 diehard Hitler Youth fanatics would soon be virtually wiped out in their desperate attempts to stem the Allied breakout of Normandy, but more of this later.

CSM Stanley Elton Hollis, of 6th Green Howards assault company, who was in the vanguard of the very first wave, was at this precise moment in history heading, along with 500 well-armed comrades, towards the heavily defended Normandy shores. He was packed in tightly with his men inside a bucking and heaving landing craft along with their bulky equipment. Hollis was just one soldier in hundreds of thousands who would fight for his life this momentous day. Many would not live to see the end of it on both sides, including scores of these young and bold Green Howards attackers.

Hollis Killed More than One Hundred

CSM Hollis had already killed more than ninety enemy soldiers single-handedly during an action-packed war stretching back to the miracle escape of the British Army at Dunkirk in 1940. Here he had had to swim virtually naked, wounded and exhausted many yards from the beaches to a waiting navy vessel, where he was plucked to safety by stalwarts of the Royal Navy. He was later to say that he escaped literally by the skin of his teeth. He also saw exceptional service in Sicily, at Primosole Bridge, in July 1943, where he was again wounded and recommended for the Distinguished Conduct Medal. He was also prominent at the great victory at El Alamein in North...