D-Day Hero CSM Stanley Hollis VC

D-Day’s only Victoria Cross winner, Company Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis, was, uniquely, twice recommended for this coveted award on June 6, 1944. A tough Teesside, working-class rebel, Hollis was no model soldier. Earlier in the war he was forever being "busted" for various misdemeanors. However, few soldiers saw more close-quarter action than Stanley Hollis, who killed more than 100 enemy soldiers in combat during World War II, serving at Dunkirk, in the Western Desert, and in Sicily. It was on D-Day that Hollis created history with his inimitable brand of raw courage, being involved in two blistering VC actions. On Gold Beach he single-handedly stormed a hidden German pillbox, saving his company from certain death. Later that day, he saved the lives of two more comrades trapped by heavy enemy gunfire. He was undoubtedly a D-Day hero.

Mike Morgan is a journalist and author of Daggers Drawn, Geordie, and Sting of the Scorpion.