Stanley Hollis
Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox military person Stanley Elton Hollis VC (21 September 1912 – 8 February 1972)Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn was a British recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
He had the distinction of receiving the only Victoria Cross awarded for actions on D-Day (6 June 1944).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Early life
Stanley Hollis was born in Middlesbrough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England, where he lived and attended the local school until 1926. Then his parents (Edith and Alfred Hollis) moved to Robin Hood's Bay, where he worked in his father's fish and chip shop.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 1929 he was apprenticed to a Whitby shipping company, to learn to be a Navigation Officer.Template:Sfn He made regular voyages to West Africa, but in 1930 fell ill with blackwater fever, which ended his merchant navy career.Template:Sfn Returning to North Ormesby, Middlesbrough, he worked as a lorry driver, and married Alice Clixby, with whom he had a son and a daughter.Template:Sfn
Military career
In 1939 he enlisted in the Territorial Army, part of the British Army, in the 4th Battalion, Green Howards.Template:Sfn At the outbreak of the Second World War he was mobilised and transferred to the 6th Battalion, Green Howards, and went to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force in 1940, where he served as the commanding officer's despatch rider. He was promoted from lance corporal to sergeant during the evacuation from Dunkirk. He then fought from El Alamein to Tunis as part of the British Eighth Army in the North African Campaign. He was made company sergeant major shortly before the invasion of Sicily in 1943, where he was wounded at the battle of Primosole Bridge.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Sfn
On D-Day, the 6th Green Howards landed on Gold Beach. As his company moved inland from the beaches after the initial landings, Hollis went with his company commander to investigate two German pillboxes which had been by-passed.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He rushed the first, taking all but five of the occupants prisoner; and then dealt with the second, taking 26 prisoners.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He next cleared a neighbouring trench. Later that day, he led an unsuccessful attack on an enemy position containing a field gun and multiple MG 42 machine guns. After withdrawing, he learned that two of his men had been left behind. He said to his commanding officer, Major Lofthouse, "I took them in. I will try to get them out." Details below in the citation for his VC.
In September 1944 he was wounded in the leg and evacuated to England, where he was decorated by King George VI on 10 October 1944.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Citation
The citation published in the London Gazette read: Template:Cquote
Later life
After the war, he worked for a time as a sandblaster in a local steelworks.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He then became a partner in a motor repair business in Darlington, before becoming a ship's engineer from 1950 to 1955.Template:Sfn He next trained as a publican, and ran the 'Albion' public house in Market Square, North Ormesby: the pub's name was changed to 'The Green Howard'.Template:Sfn After the pub was demolished in 1970, he moved to become the tenant of the 'Holywell View' public house at Liverton Mines near Loftus.Template:Sfn
He died on 8 February 1972, and was laid to rest in Acklam Cemetery, Middlesbrough.Template:Sfn
Legacy
Hollis Crescent, a military accommodation estate, was named after him in the 1980s/90s in Strensall, North Yorkshire. A memorial plaque was put on the side of number 2 Hollis Crescent to commemorate his Victoria Cross.
A statue honouring him, sculpted by Brian Alabaster ARBS, was unveiled on 26 November 2015 by Vice Lord Lieutenant of North Yorkshire, Peter Scrope.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The walk-in memorial is located close to the Middlesbrough cenotaph outside the gates of Albert Park in front of the Dorman Museum.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Another statue of Stanley Hollis was erected in Crépon, Normandy, France near the Green Howard Pub. Hollis Court, a retired/sheltered accommodation complex in Coulby Newham, Middlesbrough, is named after him.Template:Sfn His Victoria Cross was bought by medal collector Sir Ernest Harrison OBE, chairman of Racal and Vodafone. Harrison presented the medal to the Green Howards Regimental Museum in Richmond, North Yorkshire in 1997. Ten years later, he purchased, for the Green Howards, the Normandy hut which Hollis had attacked.<ref name=GuardObit>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2016, a school in Middlesbrough that converted to academy status, was named Hollis Academy in his honour.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
References
Bibliography
- Template:Cite book
- D-day Victoria Cross: Story of Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis, VC (Philip Wilkinson, 1997)
- Monuments to Courage (David Harvey, 1999)
- The Register of the Victoria Cross (This England, 1997)
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
External links
- The Green Howards Hollis Memorial - Hollis Hut, Ver-sur-Mer
- Location of grave and VC medal (Cleveland)
- News Item (VC medal donation to regimental museum)
- D-Day Template:Webarchive (highly detailed site on the D-Day landings)
- Template:Find a Grave
- Press articles
- Pages with broken file links
- 1912 births
- 1972 deaths
- Burials in North Yorkshire
- People from Middlesbrough
- Green Howards soldiers
- British Army personnel of World War II
- British World War II recipients of the Victoria Cross
- British Army recipients of the Victoria Cross
- British Battle of Normandy recipients of the Victoria Cross
- Military personnel from North Yorkshire
- People from Robin Hood's Bay