Stan Hollis was the only British serviceman awarded the Victoria Cross for actions on D-Day. A Middlesbrough man who had enlisted in the Territorial Army in 1939, he served through the British Expeditionary Force's withdrawal from France in 1940 — promoted from lance corporal to sergeant during the Dunkirk evacuation — then through North Africa with the Eighth Army and the invasion of Sicily, where he was promoted again to Company Sergeant Major. On the morning of June 6, 1944, Hollis landed on Gold Beach with the 6th Battalion, Green Howards. By nightfall he had personally cleared two German pillboxes — taking the second one single-handed and capturing twenty-six prisoners — cleared an enemy trench, and led an unsuccessful but determined assault on a German artillery position bristling with MG42s. He was wounded in September 1944 and evacuated to England, where King George VI invested him with the Victoria Cross on October 10.

This King & Country figure depicts CSM Hollis on the move behind Gold Beach: standard British battledress and webbing of mid-1944, MkII steel helmet wrapped in scrim and threaded with hedgerow foliage in the manner the Normandy infantry adopted on landing, the regimental flash of the Green Howards visible at the shoulder. He carries his weapon ready and a grenade in the off hand, haversack and rolled groundsheet across the back, water bottle and ammunition pouches at the hip. The open-mouthed shout and mid-stride posture are deliberately mid-action — the senior NCO leading his men forward by example, in the way his VC citation specifically credits: "Wherever fighting was heaviest, C.S.M. Hollis appeared… By his own bravery he saved the lives of many of his men." He fought under the operational command of K&C's Field Marshal Montgomery in Normandy, who led 21st Army Group through the campaign, and the wartime leadership of Winston Churchill in London. Closest to him on the ground was his battalion's Gold Beach radioman — same 6th Battalion Green Howards, same morning, the signaller relaying his company's progress up to brigade as Hollis fought his way through the pillboxes.

Model: DD418 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set