When Bill Cheall joined up in April 1939, he could not have imagined the drama, trauma, rewards and near continuous action that lay in store. First and foremost a Green Howard, as a member of the BEF 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 8thArmy. After eventual victory in Tunisia, the Sicily invasion followed. Alongside a number of other battle-hardened units, the Green Howards were 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 colleague, Sergeant Major Stan Hollis, won the only VC to be awarded on 6 June 1944.
Every cloud has a silver lining and Bill fell in love with his nurse. That did not prevent his return, once fit, 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 modesty, humility and humour, Fighting Through From Dunkirk to Hamburg is, by any measure, a superb fighting soldier’s memoir.
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