Henry Kelly

The Manchester Soldier Who Charged an Enemy Trench With Three Men

What kind of courage drives a man to lead just three soldiers into an enemy trench under devastating fire, keep fighting when two of them fall, then turn back into danger to carry wounded comrades to safety? That was the courage of Major Henry Kelly VC, MC and Bar, one of Manchester's most remarkable soldiers and a highly decorated officer of the First World War. His story stretches from the trenches of the Somme to the mountains of Italy, through the turbulent years between the world wars and back into British Army service during the Second World War.

Born in Manchester in 1887, Henry Kelly was working as a Post Office sorting clerk when the First World War changed the course of his life. He enlisted on 5 September 1914 as a private in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, transferred to the Manchester Regiment, and rose with extraordinary speed through the ranks. By May 1915 he had been commissioned as a second lieutenant in The Duke of Wellington's (West Riding) Regiment and was soon serving with the 10th Battalion in France. From an ordinary civilian occupation to commissioned leadership on the Western Front, Kelly's transformation had taken only months.

His defining moment came on 4 October 1916 near Le Sars during the Battle of the Somme. With his company under intense enemy fire, Kelly twice rallied his men and drove the attack forward. Eventually, with only three men immediately available, he personally led them into the German trench and continued bombing the position. Two of his companions became casualties and enemy reinforcements began arriving, but Kelly's part in the battle was still not over. He returned through the fire, carried his wounded Company Sergeant Major approximately 70 yards back to the British trenches, and then helped rescue three more wounded soldiers. The official Victoria Cross citation praised his "most conspicuous bravery in attack" and concluded that he had set an exceptional example of gallantry and endurance. The award was published in the Supplement to The London Gazette, issue 29836, page 11526, on 24 November 1916, and Kelly later received his Victoria Cross from King George V at Buckingham Palace on 14 February 1917.

For many soldiers, the Victoria Cross would have been the defining achievement of an entire military career. For Henry Kelly, it was not the last time his leadership would be recognised for gallantry.

By 1918 Kelly was fighting with the 10th Battalion in Italy, where the British Army had been deployed against Austro Hungarian forces. On the night of 21 to 22 June 1918, near Ave on the Asiago Plateau, Kelly commanded approximately a company and a half in a difficult raid. A bright moon increased the danger of detection, yet Kelly successfully assembled his force and launched the attack. His men inflicted heavy losses and returned with 31 prisoners and two machine guns. The official citation for his Military Cross credited Kelly's gallantry and leadership as major reasons for the raid's success. The citation was published in the Supplement to The London Gazette, issue 30915, page 11301, on 20 September 1918.

Only months later Kelly distinguished himself again. On 27 October 1918, during operations across the River Piave, he led his company against Austrian positions and successfully captured its objectives. Under heavy fire, his composure and aggressive leadership inspired the men around him. His company captured numerous machine guns and several hundred prisoners. For this action Kelly received a Bar to his Military Cross, signifying a second award of the decoration. His citation praised his "greatest dash and gallantry" and his ability to inspire all ranks while under intense fire. The detailed citation appeared in the Supplement to The London Gazette, issue 31680, page 15302, on 9 December 1919.

By the end of the First World War, Kelly had been wounded twice and had risen from private soldier to officer and eventually temporary major. His wartime service had taken him through some of the defining battlefields of the conflict, including the Somme, the Ypres sector, the Asiago Plateau and the Piave. He left the British Army in January 1920 after serving in command of a rest camp in France.

But Henry Kelly's military story did not end with the Armistice. In the early 1920s he served with the Irish Free State Army during the Irish Civil War, holding the rank of major. Later accounts also place him in the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Some claims concerning his Spanish service and decorations are contradictory, however, so those details require more primary documentation before they can be treated with the same certainty as his British gallantry awards. Regimental history also associates Kelly with the French Médaille militaire and Belgian Croix de Guerre, but those foreign awards remain subject to further verification of the original award and British authority to wear them.

Then came another remarkable chapter. More than two decades after the Somme, Kelly returned to British military service during the Second World War. He served from 1940 to 1944, including service with the Pioneer Corps and Cheshire Regiment, and undertook responsibilities connected with the defence of Speke Aerodrome and later War Office survey and claims work. His final wartime service ended in 1944 following a court martial concerning travel expense claims, after which he resigned his commission.

Kelly's verified medal record reflects an extraordinary span of service. Alongside the Victoria Cross and Military Cross with Bar, his established British entitlement includes the 1914 to 1915 Star, British War Medal 1914 to 1920, Victory Medal 1914 to 1919, Defence Medal, War Medal 1939 to 1945, King George VI Coronation Medal 1937, and Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal 1953. His surviving regimental medal group confirms all of these except the War Medal 1939 to 1945. That medal is included in his reconstructed entitlement because his documented full time Second World War service substantially exceeds the official qualifying period, although individual issue of the physical medal has not yet been confirmed. The Victoria Cross and George Cross Association independently records his VC, MC and Bar, First World War medals, Defence Medal and both Coronation Medals.

Henry Kelly died in Manchester on 18 January 1960 and was buried in Southern Cemetery. His Victoria Cross is preserved with the Duke of Wellington's Regimental Museum collection in Halifax. More than a century after the attack at Le Sars, the words of his official citation still capture the quality that defined his battlefield career: courage was not simply a single dramatic act for Henry Kelly. It was the willingness to keep going when the attack had almost collapsed, when the men beside him had fallen, and when returning to safety would have been the easier choice.

Major Henry Kelly VC, MC and Bar remains one of Manchester's outstanding Victoria Cross recipients, a soldier whose record at the Somme and in Italy placed personal courage, battlefield leadership and devotion to his men at the centre of an extraordinary military life.