CSM Stanley Elton Hollis VC


Stan Hollis was born in Middlesborough on 2 Sep 1912. His parents, Alfred and Edith Hollis, moved the family to Robin Hood’s Bay on the North Yorkshire coast in 1926 and set up a fish and chip shop where Stan worked until 1929. He then took up an apprenticeship to a Whitby shipping company to learn Navigation. He made regular voyages to West Africa but fell ill with blackwater fever. When he recovered he moved to Middlesborough and worked as a lorry driver. He married Alice Clixby and they had a son and daughter.

In 1939 he enlisted in the Green Howards and went to France with the 6th Battalion, in the BEF, in 1940. He worked as the CO’s despatch rider but the regiment had to endure the retreat and evacuation at Dunkirk. By this time he was a sergeant and was next sent to North Africa, fighting at El Alamein and Tunis. He was promoted to Company Sergeant Major just before the invasion of Sicily in 1943. He was wounded at the battle of Primosole Bridge. The allied invasion of Normandy was the next battle and CSM Hollis had the distinction of being the only recipient of the VC in the D-Day Landings of 6 June 1944.

When the landing craft came to a stop on Gold Beach, having negotiated a minefield, Hollis related: ‘I lifted a stripped Lewis gun off the floor of the landing craft and I belted this thing with a full pan of ammunition. It was then that I received the most painful wound I had in the whole war.I lifted the Lewis off and it was white hot. I got a blister across my hand - as big as my finger and very painful.’ He and his platoon were subjected to heavy fire and they concentrated their own fire on a small hut which turned out to be a tram shelter, not occupied by Germans. (see picture below)  The officer commanding the Green Howards pointed out two pillbox fortifications that had been by-passed in the beach assault. Hollis was now armed with a Sten gun and charged the pillbox under fire. He climbed on top, changed the magazine on his firearm and ‘posted’ a grenade through the firing-slit. He then entered the pillbox and found two dead and ‘quite a lot of prisoners…quite willing to forget all about the war.’

  Hollis then attacked a second pillbox with the same result. He collected around 20 prisoners and it was realised that these two pillboxes had been the command post for an important German gun emplacement, the Mont Fleury battery, into which Hollis and his men now advanced. From its heights, the beaches were visible, and Hollis reflected later that, until then, he ‘had been firmly convinced that the Green Howards were the only people fighting this bloody war.’ Only at that point did he realise the vast scale of the landings that had followed the first wave. Later that morning, his company was held up on the edge of the village of Crepon. He entered a barn to find a small boy cowering from fire coming from beyond an orchard. As his men fanned out across the orchard they were hit by a huge explosion killing 8 men. When Hollis crept along a rhubarb patch to get clear sight of the enemy, the two Bren gunners with him were wounded. Determined to get his men out he provided covering fire with his sub-machine gun.

He was put up for a VC which was gazetted on 17 Aug 1944. The citation said:

‘Wherever fighting was heaviest, CSM Hollis appeared and, in the course of a magnificent day’s work he displayed the utmost gallantry, and on two separate occasions his courage and initiative prevented the enemy from holding up the advance at critical stages. It was largely through his heroism and resource that the Company’s objectives were gained and casualties were not heavier, and by his own bravery he saved the lives of many of his men.’

Although a hero, Stan Hollis was no angel. During his army career he had been demoted from sergeant to corporal and re-promoted a few times. He was modest about his achievements: ‘What I did was nothing to do with courage, I just got mad at seeing my mates go down around me. The bravest thing I ever did was to allow an Arm dentist to pull out one of my teeth.’ He did not settle for a quiet life after the war. He worked as a sandblaster, a partner in a motor repair business, and a marine engineer. He then managed pubs, one of which he re-named The Green Howard, from 1955 until his death on 8 February 1972 from a stroke. His medals were bought at Sotheby’s on 4 Mar 1982 for a record 32,000 pounds by Sir Ernest Harrison of Racal/Vodafone and presented to the Green Howards Museum. It was Sir Ernest who also put up 4,500 euros to buy the tram shelter which amazingly was found to be still standing in June 2005, and for sale. 

A distinguished group of tourists with Green Howard connections was strolling along the King Beach sub-section of Gold Beach in June 2005 when they spotted the shelter, still pock-marked with bullet holes and displaying a For Sale sign. This was the focus of Green Howards firing when they first landed on the beach on D-Day. It was initially mistaken for a German pillbox and heavily fired upon. The tourists thought it was in danger of demolition and made the decision to buy it immediately. Sir Ernest Harrison contributed 4,500 euros for the purchase. The picture is from an article in the Daily Telegraph 16 June 2005.


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by Stephen Luscombe