Description
India General Service Medal 1935, bar North West Frontier 1936-37, Private later Sergt Charles George Hill, 1st Bn South Wales Borderers.
Wounded in Action on 29th July 1944, as Acting Sergeant in 2nd Bn Monmouthshire Regiment during the fighting following the Normandy Landings as part of the 53rd Welsh Infantry Division.
Officially impressed: “3908083 Pte C.G. Hill. S. Wales Bord.”
Confirmed on the medal roll.
Charles George Hill was a Welshman, born on 5th June 1914 in Talywain, Pontypool, Monmouthshire, Wales.
The son of Israel Hill and Edith Jane Hill, although when Charles was only 11 his father set off from Liverpool Docks for a new life in Boston, Massachusetts, having probably divorced.
He was since raised by his mother who remarried to be Edith Jane Saunders and his Step Father Arthur Saunders.
He enlisted into the South Wales Borderers on 5th April 1932, around the time he was turning 18, and was discharged in April 1939.
He then joined the 2nd Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment on 15th May 1940, likely being remobilised once the war had begun.
In the meantime, he married Hilda J. Ashworth during October 1942 in Sittingbourne, Kent.
He went into the Normandy Campaign as Acting Sergeant in the 2nd Bn Monmouths.
The battalion was stuck at home training at first, receiving their opportunity to be deployed in the upcoming D-Day invasion, the regiment landing at Normandy on 28th June 1944, where they landed with the 53rd Division, taking part first in the Battle for Caen at Normandy from June to August 1944.
Sergeant Hill was recorded in the casualty lists as having been wounded in action on 29th July 1944.
The battalion saw extensive fighting once they landed in France, taking part in the Battle for Caen, also having spent 2 weeks in the trenches between Hill 112 and the River Odon fighting in Operation Epsom at the end of June 1944.
After being wounded the battalion when fought in the Battle of the Falaise Gap in August 1944, suffering heavy casualties, followed by the liberation of Merville and crossing the border over to the Netherlands, where they reached Nederrjin and took part in the attack on ‘s-Hertogenbosch (aka Den Bosch).
By December 1944 they took part in the counter offensive against the German advances in the Ardennes FOrest, and in January 1945 moved to the Netherlands to train for Operation Veritable, aka Battle of the Reichswald.
They entered into Germany on 8th February 1945, taking part in a month of heavy fighting where they suffered 300 casualties before having to be withdrawn.
They would advance across Germany, forcing a crossing of the River Aller at Rethem on 11th April 1945, their last major action of the war.
After the war was over he is on USA shipping records going there probably to visit family
