Excerpt from "The Children's VC" - copyright Jonathan Fisher:
In the first light and early morning mist of Sunday, 30th July 1916, George Evans, Company Sergeant
Major of 'B' Company, 18th Battalion, Manchester Regiment, his fellow Brigade NCO's and officers led their men through the
shattered ruin of Trones Wood.
Their advance had been hampered by gas shelling
and after filing past the bodies of fallen comrades and enemy soldiers, they emerged from the wood at the Brigade's assembly
trenches facing the vast expanse of No Man's Land. At zero hour set for 4.45am and after a swig of rum, the men climbed out
of the trenches and moved forward through the mist over the gently undulating ground towards the German defensive positions
one mile distant in Guillemont. Of those who survived the advance through the hail of machine gun and rifle fire, the 18th
Manchesters gained their objective of the centre of the village.
George and his comrades would spend the following
hours trying to consolidate their positions and desperately fighting for their lives against German counter-attacks. By mid-afternoon,
the Brigade had been decimated, their foothold in Guillemont had been lost and George had been wounded performing his deed
for which he would later be awarded the Victoria Cross. With only a handful of surviving comrades from his Battalion, George
had been captured and would remain a Prisoner of War in Germany for two years.
