John Leslie Green

Wounded himself, he freed an officer caught on hostile wire.

John Leslie Green was born at Buckden in Huntingdonshire on 4 December 1888, the son of John George Green, a landowner and magistrate, and Florence May, née Toussaint. He attended Felsted School and Downing College, Cambridge, before training at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He qualified in medicine in 1913 and worked as a house surgeon at Huntingdon County Hospital.

Commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps after the outbreak of war, he reached France in March 1915 and became a captain the following month. By the end of the year he was medical officer to the 1/5th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters. His brother Alan had been killed in October 1915. In January 1916 Green married Edith Mary Nesbitt Moss at St Andrew's, Holborn.

On 1 July 1916, during the attack at Gommecourt on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, Green was wounded but went to an officer caught on the enemy's wire. He freed the man and brought him into a shell hole, where he treated him despite rifle and grenade fire. He then attempted to bring him back to the British lines. Green was killed before the rescue could be completed.

His Victoria Cross was awarded posthumously. His widow received it from King George V on 7 October 1916. Green was buried in Foncquevillers Military Cemetery in France. His medals are held by the Army Medical Services Museum, preserving the record of a young doctor who continued treating a casualty after being wounded himself.

Official Victoria Cross citation

For most conspicuous devotion to duty. Although himself wounded, he went to the assistance of an officer who had been wounded and was hung up on the enemy's wire entanglements, and succeeded in dragging him to a shell hole, where he dressed his wounds, notwithstanding that bombs and rifle grenades were thrown at him the whole time. Captain Green then endeavoured to bring the wounded officer into safe cover, and had nearly succeeded in doing so when he himself was killed.