Fighting Through: From Dunkirk to Hamburg- A Green Howards Wartime Memoir - Hardcover

Cheall, Bill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1848844743 ISBN 13: 9781848844742

Publisher: Pen & Sword Military, 2011

Synopsis

When Bill Cheall joined up in April 1939, he could not have imagined the drama, rewards and near continuous action that lay in store. First and foremost a Green Howard (a Northern regiment), as a member of the British Expeditionary Force he saw the sharp end of Hitler's May 1940 Blitzkrieg and was evacuated exhausted from Dunkirk. His next move was to North Africa, courtesy of the Queen Mary, to be part of Monty's 8th Army. After eventual victory in Tunisia, the Sicily invasion followed. Alongside a number of other battle-hardened units, the Green Howards were then ordered back to England to form the vanguard of the Normandy Invasion. In the fierce fighting that followed the D-Day landing on GOLD Beach, he was wounded and evacuated. His comrade Sergeant Major Stan Hollis, won the only VC to be awarded on 6 June 1944. Once fit, Bill returned to the war zone and he finished the war with the East Lancs as a Regimental Policeman in devastated occupied Germany. For all this he earned seven medals and a wounded-in-action stripe. Bill experienced many adventures during those action-packed years. Unlike too many, he survived to share these with the reader. Told with humility and humour, Fighting Through From Dunkirk to Hamburg is, by any measure, a superb fighting soldier's memoir. Bill passed away peacefully in 1999 following a battle with prostate cancer.

About this title

About the Author

Bill Cheall left school aged 14 and worked in the family grocery business. He died in 1999 at Cambridge.

The Editor - Paul Cheall, Bill's son, started a business selling car insurance on the internet and he is now semi-retired. He lives in Norfolk.

After leaving school at fourteen, BILL CHEALL worked in the family grocery business. He joined the Territorial Army in April 1939 and was called up just before the outbreak of war and became a Green Howard. His wartime experiences with the BEF in France, North Africa, Sicily and North West Europe are the subject of this book. After recovering from his D-Day wounds he was assigned to the Regimental Police of the East Lancashire Regiment in Germany. He was discharged on 8 January 1946 and returned to the family grocery business which he ran until he retired. He passed away peacefully in 1999 and is much missed by his wife Anne and children, Pauline and Paul.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1848844743
• ISBN 13: 9781848844742
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176
• Editor: Cheall Paul