Leominster, UK. 18th Aug, 2017. Allan Lewis VC collection tin at the fundraising stall in Corn Square. Dawn Lewis Grand-Uncle Allan Lewis was the only soldier from Herefordshire to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the First World War. Dawn Lewis is the Chair of the A L Lewis VC Memorial Fund which is working with the support of Herefordshire Council to honour the local war hero with a life-size bronze statue of him. The statue will be created by artist Jemma Pearson who sculpted the statue of Elgar which stands in the grounds of Hereford Cathedral. Credit: Jim Wood/Alamy Live News
LEOMINSTER – AUGUST 18: Allan Lewis VC collection tin at the fundraising stall in Corn Square. Dawn Lewis Grand-Uncle Allan Lewis was the only soldier from Herefordshire to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the First World War. Dawn Lewis is the Chair of the A L Lewis VC Memorial Fund which is working with the support of Herefordshire Council to honour the local war hero with a life-size bronze statue of him. The statue will be created by artist Jemma Pearson who sculpted the statue of Elgar which stands in the grounds of Hereford Cathedral. To enable the sculpture to be completed in time for the centenary of Allan’s death the Fund needs to raise £60,000. Lance-Corporal Lewis of the Northampton Regiment was born in Whitney-on-Wye in 1895. On the 18th September 1918 at Rossnoy, in France, during the Battle of Épehy which was part of the Hundred Days Offensive. The 23 year old Allan was in command of a section during a push against the German outpost positions in front of the Hindenburg Line. Held up by intense machine-gun fire, he saw that two guns were directing a volley of bullets along the length of the line and crawled forward alone, he successfully bombed the guns with grenades, he continued the attack with rifle fire and made the machine gun nests surrender. He was killed three days later on 21 September 1918, on that fateful day he had rushed his company through an enemy barrage, but was killed while getting his men under cover from heavy machine-gun fire. The Victoria Cross was presented to his parents by King George V at Buckingham Palace in April 1919. The wooden war memorial on the side of Whitney Church was carved by his father.
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Keywords: 2010s, 2017, allan, centenary, cross, dawn, day, exterior, fundraising, herefordshire, hero, jemma, leominster, lewis, pearson, sculpture, statue, victoria, war, world
