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Lesley Stelfox, believed to be one of Britain's oldest war veterans, has died at his Sheppey care home. He was 107.
Mr Stelfox passed away on December 30 at Blackburn Lodge in Sheerness Broadway. Before moving there, he had been living on his own in Sittingbourne.
He was born in Dover Street, Sittingbourne, on May 9, 1913, a year before the start of the First World War.
His earliest memory, he said, was being pushed in his pram and seeing a Zeppelin fly overhead on its way to bomb London.
After the war his father, a chief petty officer in the Royal Navy, was posted to North Shields on the Tyne as a ship minder aboard the old battleship HMS Satellite. It was there that Mr Stelfox learned to shoot at an indoor firing range. His younger sister was also born aboard the Satellite.
In the 1920s the family moved to Cheshire where Mr Stelfox joined the Territorial Army. At the age of 18, his father gave him half a crown (12.5p) to go to Warrington to join the Navy.
Mr Stelfox later admitted: "Unfortunately, there was no naval recruitment office in Warrington so I walked into the Army recruitment office and joined the Cheshire Regiment instead."
After six months, he was posted to Malta and from 1933-39 served in India at Ambala, Simla and Bombay where was promoted to Lance Corporal.
When he left the Army he signed up for the Palestine Police Force because he said there was no work back in Britain.
When he did decide to return to the UK his troop ship the Georgic was bombed while at anchor at the Port of Suez.
He escaped with the clothes he stood up in and his passport, scrambling down the anchor chain as flames leapt from the ship's portholes.
He finally docked in Southampton in November 1941 but by January 1942 he had rejoined the Cheshires and was ready to fight in the Second World War.
As part of the 6th Battalion he was sent to Egypt where he was promoted to Corporal. After training with the Desert Rats of the 8th Army he helped prepare for the Battle of Alamein, later complaining that there had been no water for washing for 10 weeks. His tour of duty was not without mishaps.
He suffered burns when an improvised petrol stove exploded and in Tripoli the strong swimmer rescued a soldier from drowning. The soldier had been caught by deadly undercurrents. Mr Stelfox recalled that six months later he had to bury the same soldier.
Towards the end of the war Mr Stelfox was among the first soldiers to be landed at Salerno beach and watched as an entire platoon was either killed or captured. He dodged bullets by hiding in a stream only to be injured when his machine gun post was the target of a grenade attack. Despite his wounds he shot back, taking several prisoners which he used to take one of his wounded colleagues, Leslie Kearnes, back to the beach for treatment which saved his life. Mr Stelfox later met up with that soldier's son, Peter Kearnes, on Sheppey who said at the time: "I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for Leslie."
Mr Stelfox also survived being bombed by the Americans and saw action at Naples before he was injured again and hospitalised for two weeks which meant he missed being sent to Anzio. It was at the time Italy joined the Allies.
Mr Stelfox said he saw the bodies of Italian men and women left hanging by the roadside by retreating German troops. He said: "It was gruesome. I will never forget that sight."
He was sent to Kircut in Iraq and then Monte Cassino in Italy where he took part in the ill-fated crossing of the River Rapido in December 1943. It was there he was blown up by an anti-personnel mine.
He was blasted along a footpath and sent back home with tinnitus.
He arrived in Sittingbourne on D-Day - June 6, 1944 - to discover nearly everyone else was fighting on the beaches of Normandy. He was sent to the Isle of Wight to convalesce before returning to his wife in December 1945. After a short stint trying to help his mother run a pub in Cheshire the couple returned to Sittingbourne and set up home in Cherry Close, Milton Regis. Mr Stelfox remained in the Territorial Army Reserves until 1966 chalking up 35 years in uniform.
In civvy life he became a stevedore at Ridham docks until 1973 when he was made redundant at 60 and moved to the Kemsley paper mill. He took on gardening jobs until he retired in 1978 aged 65.
He was married to Harriett Gertrude Caroline Gregory, the youngest of 12 children who was known as 'Arty', for 50 years. When Mrs Stelfox died in 1988 Mr Stelfox joined the Sittingbourne and Milton branch of the Royal British Legion, which helped with this article.
Mr Stelfox insisted on keeping fit and lived alone. Twice he was burgled and his medals stolen, once in 2014, after which police found and returned them, and then again in 2019. The medals are still missing.
The couple had a son, Anthony, but he died three years ago. Mr Stelfox leaves two grandsons, Lee and Marc, and two great grandchildren, Caitlin and Jackson.
