William Kenealy
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox military person Lance Sergeant William Stephen Kenealy VC, (26 December 1886 – 29 June 1915) was an Irish 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.
Biography
Born in Wexford, his father John<ref name=cwgc>Kenealy, William, Commonwealth War Graves Commission</ref> was a colour sergeant in the Royal Irish Regiment. When his father retired from the army, the family moved to the district of Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire where his father worked as a check-weigher at Bryn Hall Colliery. Kenealy became a coal miner at age 13. Ten years later, he enlisted into the army, signing up for 7 years. He joined the 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, British Army as a private in during the First World War.Template:Citation needed
Citation
On 25 April 1915 west of Cape Helles, Gallipoli, Ottoman Turkey, Kenealy was 28 years old when he performed an act of bravery for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.
Kenealy was one of the six members of the regiment elected by their colleagues in the regiment for the award, and described in the press as "six VC's before breakfast".<ref>Lancashire Fusiliers at 1914-1918.net</ref> Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Hamilton, the overall Allied army commander at Gallipoli ordered that the beach be renamed Lancashire Landing because of his conviction that "no finer feat of arms has ever been achieved by the British Soldier – or any other soldier – than the storming of these beaches".<ref>UK Ministry of Defence website, Gallipoli Day Template:Webarchive</ref>
The other five members of the regiment who received the award as a result of the landing were Cuthbert Bromley, John Elisha Grimshaw, Alfred Joseph Richards, Frank Edward Stubbs and Richard Raymond Willis.
Shortly afterwards he was promoted to corporal and then lance-sergeant. He was seriously wounded in the Battle of Gully Ravine on 28 June 1915 and died the next day.<ref name=cwgc/> Kenealy is buried at Lancashire Landing Cemetery on the Gallipoli Peninsula.<ref name=cwgc/>
References
Further reading
- The Register of the Victoria Cross (1981, 1988 and 1997)
- Template:Cite journal
- Ireland's VCs Template:ISBN (Dept of Economic Development, 1995)
- Monuments to Courage (David Harvey, 1999)
- Irish Winners of the Victoria Cross (Richard Doherty & David Truesdale, 2000)
- Template:Cite book
Template:Royal Regiment of Fusiliers Template:Authority control
- Pages with broken file links
- 1886 births
- 1915 deaths
- Military personnel from County Wexford
- People from County Wexford
- People from Ashton-in-Makerfield
- Irish Gallipoli campaign recipients of the Victoria Cross
- Lancashire Fusiliers soldiers
- British military personnel killed in World War I
- British Army personnel of World War I
- Irish soldiers in the British Army
- British Army recipients of the Victoria Cross
- British coal miners
- Burials at Lancashire Landing Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery