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Buckden Roundabout
January 2020
Crossword
John Leslie Green VC
John Leslie Green was a recipi-
ent of the Victoria Cross, the
highest award available to the
armed forces for gallantry in
action with the enemy.
Known as Leslie to his family, he
was born in Buckden on 4 De-
cember 1888 to John George
and Florence May Green and
was one of three siblings. His
father was a landowner and
Justice of the Peace. The Green
family give their name to Green-
way in the village.
Green attended Felsted School, Essex, and went on to study at
Downing College, Cambridge, where he gained an honours
degree in natural sciences and was a good sportsman, includ-
ing being a keen rower. Pursuing a career as a doctor, he stud-
ied medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. After
qualifying in 1913, he became house surgeon at Huntingdon
County Hospital.
Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War in August
1914, 25 year old Green was commissioned into the Royal Ar-
my Medical Corps. The early part of his military career was
spent attached to the South Staffordshire Regiment as a medi-
cal officer before being transferred to the Field Ambulance. He
was later posted to the Sherwood Foresters with whom he
went to France.
On New Year’s Day 1916, he married Edith Moss, a fellow doc-
tor.
On the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916,
the task of Green’s division was to capture Gommecourt
Wood. They moved off in three waves: the advancing troops
faced a heavy machine-gun fire from the wood and heavy
smoke. Green, who was by now a captain, advanced at the
rear of the battalion. On reaching the German wire, he found
an officer, Captain Frank Robinson, lying badly wounded and
entangled in the wire.
Despite being under heavy fire, Green, who already had a
wound himself, went forward to reach Robinson. Green
dragged the injured officer to a shell-hole where he dressed his
wounds, despite coming under further fire from bombs and
grenades. Next, Green carried Robinson back to the British
positions but, just as he was about to reach safety, Green was
shot again and fatally wounded.
On 3 July, just two days after the incident, Robinson also died
from his wounds. By the time the Sherwood Foresters were
relieved at 18.10 hours on 2 July, the battalion had suffered
491 casualties – dead and wounded – out of the 734 men that
it had started with.
Leslie Green’s posthumous VC ‘for most conspicuous devotion
to duty’ was announced on 5 August 1916. His decoration was
presented to his widow, who worked at Nottingham Hospital,
by King George V at an investiture in Buckingham Palace on 7
October 1916.
Green’s widow later remarried and presented her first hus-
band’s medals to the Royal Army Medical Corps in Aldershot,
Hampshire. Today they are on display at the Army Medical
Services Museum in Mytchett, Surrey.
Reference: http://www.lordashcroft.com/wp-content/
uploads/2016/11/04-bawgreen_July-2016.pdf
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Across
1.A lighter of mine (4,4)
5.Cash dispenser contain-
ing nothing or tiny amount
(4)
8.Bitter cold in very dry
environment (5)
9.Bird going round an
Italian city (7)
11.Small collar around a
vegetable (7)
12.Name of man taking
Dolly out (5)
13.Large girl finding way to
have two husbands? (6)
15.Car that's made of
glass? (3,3)
18.Flat obtained by a
woman in the Fifties (5)
20.Gallery constructed in a
royal manner (7)
23.Part of oven is only for
meat (7)
24.Biblical patriarch's
investment account (5)
25.Objectives set in Siam
(4)
26.Communist beginning
to get a bird (8)
Down
1.Small distance back for
beer deliverers? (5)
2.Altering navy rig at sea
(7)
3.She requires daily move-
ment (5)
4.Spud for lawman? (6)
6.It takes two to make
colour vanish (5)
7.Terribly dear men wan-
der aimlessly (7)
10.Home team? (5)
13.Country club finally
seen by girl (7)
14.Manuscript about beer
for men (5)
16.After half a month
tropical vine is seen by
Dutch queen (7)
17.Edge hoop in iron (6)
19.Poison that makes
some live no more (5)
21.Profits in gas distribu-
tion (5)
22.Cathy's new boat (5)
Answer on page 25