1. Sergeant John Patrick Kenneally VC was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
15 Facts About John Kenneally
1. 2.
John Patrick Kenneally was born as Leslie Jackson at 104 Alexandra Road, Balsall Heath, Birmingham.
3.
John Kenneally's mother was Gertrude Nowell Robinson, the 18-year-old daughter of a Blackpool pharmacist who had been sent to live with relatives to conceal her son's illegitimate birth.
4.
John Kenneally changed her surname to Jackson, and had her son christened Leslie.
5.
John Kenneally later attended Tindal Street Junior Council School and then King Edward VI Five Ways.
6.
John Kenneally was assigned to an anti-aircraft battery and overstayed a period of leave.
7.
John Kenneally was sentenced to a period of detention at Wellington Barracks, run by the Irish Guards.
8.
John Kenneally was impressed by their high standards and applied for a transfer but was rejected.
9.
John Kenneally was a 22-year-old lance-corporal in the Irish Guards when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.
10.
On 28 April 1943 at Djebel Bou Azoukaz, Tunisia, Lance-Corporal John Kenneally charged alone down the bare forward slope straight into the main body of the enemy about to make an attack, firing his Bren gun from the hip; the enemy were so surprised that they broke up in disorder.
11.
John Kenneally was remembered in Winston Churchill's famous broadcast speech on 13 May 1945 "Five years of War", as having defended Ireland's honour:.
12.
In 1943, John Kenneally had married Elsie Francis; they had two sons and a daughter.
13.
John Kenneally finished his military career in the newly formed 1st Guards Parachute Battalion and later bought himself out of the army in July 1948 to be with his wife and children.
14.
John Kenneally went into the motor trade after the army and remained in it for the rest of his working life.
15.
John Kenneally briefly appeared in the news again in 2000 when he published his autobiography and wrote to the Daily Telegraph rebuking Peter Mandelson for calling the Irish Guards "chinless wonders".