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Company Sergeant Major Stanley Elton Hollis was 28 on D-Day. He was married
and had two children Brian Elton aged 10 and Pauline aged 5. His wife' s
name was Alice and they were married in February 1932. He lives at
33, Henry Taylor Court, Old Ormesby, Middlesbrough, Yorkshire. He is a
sand blaster by trade.

He saw action in France in 1940 and had been evacuated from Dunkirk.
He fought with the 8th Army in Egypt and North Africa, then came the
invasion of Sicily and finally D-Day, all with the 50th Division.

Single handed he had captured a gun in Sicily and was mentioned in
despatches. He had been wounded four times before D-Day. Three times
he had been asked to take a battlefield commission, but it would have meant
leaving his 50th Division.

He was a tall, quiet man of simple tastes, he rarely got angry, but when
he did he seemed to be colder, almost oblivious to what was happening around
him. This generally happened when men of his own battalion, boyhood
friends from his own town of Middlesbrough were killed or wounded. He had
been known to cry with anger. He was tough as a Sergeant Major. At no
time did he think he would be wounded or killed. But "I was always able
to tell the men who were going to get it. I don't know how-- but I could
sense it. 80% of the time I was right."

He was with the 6th Battalion of the Green Howards. He was C.S.M. of
D Company. The Green Howards in his opinion "were the finest trained
group to go in on D-Day, but within a few weeks their losses were so
terrible that the Battalion was shot to pieces and the reinforcements
weren't the same - it was never the same again."

"Fear is a grand thing for a man. It educates you. It teaches humility.
Once upon a time I thought I was the bravest man in the world. I was big-
headed. But fear taught me humility and in that way God."

He's not a religious man although C. of E. The only time he had been to
church during the war had been a memorial service in Sicily. That day
in an open field with 700 soldiers a German sniper opened fire from somewhere
and damned near hit him. The bullet hit a tree on which he was leaning.
" The only time", he said, "I go to church during the war I damned near get
killed."

He killed 102 men throughout his entire war career. One he beheaded
with a machete (he came across a machine gun post by accident; the German
raised his Schweisser pistol. Hollis swung the knife and was surprised to
see the man's head roll off!) In his first bayonet charge in Sicily
he bayonneted a German directly through the stomach with such force that
his bayonet punctured the circular belt buckle (with the words "Gott mit
Huns" around the edge) went in and came out of the man's back. He pulled
out the bayonet. The German stood there looking at him without saying a
word. Then he turned and walked steadily away. Hollis watched him,
amazed. He raised his rifle when the German was more than 100 yards away
from. Then the German fell dead. Hollis couldn't understand what made
him walk that far.

He had often lain for 2 days at a time watching a machine gun post before
attacking it. He was cold but not brutal in his way of fighting. He
appeared to take chances, but actually it was all finely calculated,
carefully worked out. It was in a sense the perfect example of the hunter
and the hunted. Hollis was a superb hunter.

He was fighting "to prevent somebody stepping on his front and back lawn".
When he landed back in England from Dunkirk (minus his pants - somebody had
stolen them and he was wearing a blanket) and when he saw the roadblocks
and hastily erected strongpoints along the coastal roads, he was dumbfounded.
He had no idea of the size of the debacle. He had thought that only his
division had suffered. It wasn;t until much later that he realised the
full scope of the defeat.

He had been at sea from 1929-1933; and a lorry driver from 1933 to 1939.