Brave man’s fight to save his country

July 29 , 2003

GRISTOCK PLACE
(Knowland Grove)

EVER heard of George Gristock? He is a man worth remembering. A rough, tough, hard-drinking professional soldier who died fighting for our freedom.

George was one of five brave members of the Royal Norfolk Regiment to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the Second World War.

If there was fighting to be done, then George was your man.

Courageous: George Gristock, a true hero of the Second World War.

Company Sergeant Major Gristock was a soldier to the core. A regular with 21 years’ service who could hold his own in any Army bar room.

In the Sergeants’ Mess, he was well-liked and respected as a typical hard-riding and hard-drinking ex-cavalryman who spoke his mind without fear or favour.

But there were others, usually senior officers, who took exception to his regular drinking binges.

That was probably the reason why he had not advanced beyond the rank of sergeant in four years with the Royal Norfolks. But not all the battalion’s officers shared the COs’ doubts.

In a decade of soldiering, Peter Barclay, who went on to became Brigadier, recognised a true leader when he saw one — and he was convinced George had all the qualities required. He wanted him as platoon sergeant major for his company before they set off for France in September 1939.

“The CO flatly refused. I flatly refused to have anyone else. I had a hell of a row with him and he wouldn’t speak to me for a couple of days,” Brig Barclay told the Evening News a few years ago.

In the end he got his way. It was a move that was to save lives.

The company was involved in many skirmishes with the Germans in Europe.
One earned Barclay the Military Cross, but then they ran into more trouble.
They were under all-out attack, Barclay was on a stretcher — only a handful of men could be spared to lead a desperate fight back.

Gristock was in charge, but as he edged closer to the enemy he was machine-gunned in both legs. His knees were smashed. He was in terrible pain. For a moment he stopped.

Barclay watched as Gristock dragged himself up, rolled to his side, threw a grenade at the post, and, twisting himself round, he raised his tommy gun and killed the soldiers.

He then refused to move until the battalion lines were safe again.

Barclay, who was evacuated with Gristock, said: “He was in a jolly bad way.
His legs were smashed to hell and his wounds had become gangrenous. It was only sheer guts that kept him alive until we reached England.”

George Gristock later died of his wounds and from his own hospital bed Peter Barclay wrote out his recommendation for the Victoria Cross.

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