A farewell to arms... Green Howards’ proud heritage of battlefield heroes

It was a touch of pure military irony.

Yesterday when the Government announced it was to disband the 2nd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment (The Green Howards) as part of its programme of swingeing cuts to the structure of the Army by 2020 it had no idea of the significance of the date.

However, as it turned out the announcement by Defence Secretary Philip Hammond that a proud regimental title will disappear forever from the British Army’s Order of Battle after more than 250 years of distinguished service came 64 years to the day – almost to the hour – when one of the regiment’s most famous sons won the Victoria Cross during the early stages of the Battle of the Somme.

Harrogate born Donald Simpson Bell was a schoolmaster at Starbeck Council School in Harrogate and a professional footballer with Bradford Park Avenue in civilian life. However, on July 5, 1916, he was a junior officer serving with the Green Howards’ 9th Battalion when he attacked a German machine gun which was flaying his men with a withering fire near the village of Contalmaison.

Taking two men, Bell climbed from the safety of his trench and charged across the open throwing a grenade towards the gun pit with his left hand and firing at the crew with his revolver in his right hand.

The gun was silenced, but Bell ran on, bombing further trenches as he went. When it was all over 50 Germans lay dead and Bell was recommended for the VC. Unfortunately, he did not survive to receive the coveted cross of bronze.

Five days later he was killed performing a similar action and was buried close by. Today a memorial stands on the spot to the only English professional footballer to have earned the world’s most prestigious award for valour.

Yesterday, as news of the demise was just sinking in, the Green Howards Museum in Richmond was referring all calls back to the Ministry of Defence, but in the days and weeks to come those with a proud association to the battalion, which has roots stretching back to the 17th-century, will no doubt have plenty to say about the decision which brings to an end more than 300 years of history.

While Bell’s story may have an added touch of colour thanks to his sporting associations, tales of valour and courage in the line of fire are legion among the Green Howards.

Bell is one of 18 men of the Green Howards who earned the right to have the letters “VC” after their name. The first was Private John Lyons of the 19th Regiment of Foot – an early ancestor of the Green Howards – who, with quick wits and sheer Yorkshire bloody mindedness, picked up a live Russian shell with his bare hands and threw it back over the parapet of his trench at Sebastapol in the Crimea on June 10, 1855 and saved the lives of many others in the process.

However, if there is one man whose name always recurs when anyone talks of the Green Howards, it is probably VC winner, Company Sergeant Major Stan Hollis of the 6th Battalion whose childhood was spent in Robin Hood’s Bay where his father ran a fish and chip shop.

Hollis was one of the first men to hit Gold Beach in Normandy on D Day, June 6, 1944 and tenaciously fought his way inland to the village of Crepon with his platoon, single-handedly capturing several trenches, pill boxes and famously charging German guns in an orchard to save his men.

In the space of 24 hours he took more than two dozen German troops prisoner, but no one will ever know how many of his fellow soldiers would have lost their lives had it not been for his selfless display.

Stan Hollis was the only man to win the VC on that most historic of days in British military history and again the honour went to a Green Howard.

In addition to those 18 VCs, three Green Howards – Thomas’s Alder, Atkinson and McAvoy – have been awarded the George Cross.

The actions and tales of men like Lyons, Bell, Hollis and the three GC winners duly passed into the annals of the regiment; each one being absorbed into the tribal lore and handed down from generation to generation of Green Howards soldiers adding further lustre to a proud regimental history built on a history of service to monarch and country since 1688.

Raised by Colonel Francis Luttrell at Dunster Castle in Somerset, for service under William, Prince of Orange, the regiment first became known as The Green Howards during the Wars of the Austrian Succession in 1744.

At the time the regiment was known simply as “Howard’s Regiment” being under the command of the Honourable Charles Howard, second son of the 3rd Earl of Carlisle.

There was, however, another regiment under the command of a “Colonel Howard” so to avoid confusion Charles Howard looked to his men’s uniforms which had green facings and his regiment went by the nickname of ‘The Green Howards’. The name stuck and by 1920 had become part of the official title of the regiment – “The Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own Yorkshire Regiment)”.

First associated with the North Riding of Yorkshire in 1782 when the title of “The 19th (First Yorkshire North Riding Regiment) of Foot” was conferred on the regiment’s return from the American War of Independence, it was not, however, based in the county until almost 100 years later when in 1873 Richmond became the regiment’s home town.

In 1875, the late Queen Alexandra, then Princess of Wales and formerly a Princess of the Royal House of Denmark, presented the regiment with new Colours to replace those which had been carried throughout the Crimean War which had seen John Lyons win its first ever VC. The regiment was then graciously granted the title of “The Princess of Wales’s Own”.

Later, as Queen, Alexandra became the Green Howards’ first Colonel-in-Chief in 1914, the first lady to be granted that distinction in the British Army. She also designed the cap badge.

This Scandinavian connection led to another unique tradition that the Colonel-in-Chief came from a Scandinavian Royal Family; the current Colonel-in-Chief being King Harald V, King of Norway.

During its long existence the regiment has bred many fine soldiers and some of these have gone on to reach very high office indeed. Two Green Howards – Field Marshal The Lord Inge and Lord Dannatt – both joined the regiment as young officers in the 1950s and 1970s respectively and both went on to assume the pinnacle of any soldier’s career in the Army as Chief of the General Staff, effectively the Head of Army.

Rumours the Green Howards was set to become a victim of the Government’s defence cuts had, in truth, been circulating for some time.

The latest restructure had begun 10 months ago with the Air Force and the Navy and the Army was always next in line. However, that has not made the official announcement any easier to take and the ripples will be felt throughout every regiment.

Reorganisation and efficiency drives are nothing new, but when you lose an entire unit, there is a real danger that you undermine the entire esprit de corps on which the Army depends.

The British Army is a tribe, but the units within it have their own loyalties. Those ties are formed over centuries by the efforts of many thousands of men, but they were severed yesterday in just a few minutes.

There will be many then who have served under the “Cross and Crown” cap badge of The Green Howards, many still serving with the 2nd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment and many more in civilian life who are associated to the regiment due to its proud Yorkshire connections, who will today be mourning the sad passing of a name which can justifiably lay claim to a unique position in Britain’s military heritage.

Last post for Regiments

The 2nd Battalion Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards) is one of 17 major units being lost as part of the defence cuts.

By 2020, the Army will drastically reduce in size, with the number of soldiers set to fall from 102,000 to 82,000.

The reduction will mean the Army will be about half the size of the Cold War era – in 1978 it had more than 163,000 troops

As well as the Green Howards, three other infantry battalions – 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, the 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment and the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh – have also been axed.

The Green Howards is expected to be absorbed into the rest of the regiment by autumn next year.