James Scully

James Patrick Scully, GC (20 October 1909 – 28 December 1974) was an Irishman who served in the Royal Pioneer Corps of the British Army during World War II and was awarded the George Cross, the United Kingdom's highest award for civilian gallantry and for military gallantry outside combat. He is the only member of the Corps to have won that distinction.

Early life

He was born in Crumlin, a suburb of Dublin, to Thomas and Bridget Scully . He had two brothers and five sisters. After a basic education in Dublin, he moved to London in 1925 at the age of 16 to seek work, and gained employment as a labourer.

Pioneer Corps

In January 1941, he volunteered for the British Army, and was assigned to 256 Company, Royal Pioneer Corps, which was deployed to Birkenhead, Merseyside. On the night of 13–14 March 1941, that town was subjected to heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe (a part of what was to become known as the Liverpool Blitz). It was then he performed the deed which won him the George Cross, by sheer determination and physical strength protecting a couple trapped in a ruined house from collapsing masonry while rescue workers laboured for over seven hours to clear the rubble. All three survived. In May 1943, he was discharged on medical grounds as unfit for further service, in consequence of injuries received during his medal recipient action.

George Cross

Scully was recommended for the George Cross by the Chief Constable and the Mayor of Birkenhead. The citation was published in the London Gazette on 8 July 1941, and reads:

Scenes opposite the town hall (Wallasey) after the Merseyside/Liverpool Blitz.

When the Commanding Officer of 46 Group, Pioneer Corps, Temple Gray, learned from G.O.C. Western Command of the approval of the award, he took swift action, as recounted by Marion Hebblethwaite in One Step Further - The George Cross:'I then heard that Scully was to be presented to the King so I arranged for him to be fitted out by a skilled tailor. He was taken by a Sergeant to Liverpool and put on a train to London.

There he was met by an R.S.M. from the Brigade of Guards who took him to the War Office. Here he was quizzed by a number of Generals before being taken into a room and fitted with a new outfit supervised by two tailors.

The R.S.M. then gave him a light lunch in a Whitehall restaurant with no alcohol and they were driven to Buck House. He was taken up to see King George VI, who asked him to sit down, was very kind, listened to his story and pinned the George Cross on him remarking that it was only the second one to be awarded. With his escort, he then had an enormous high tea and was taken to a cinema; after a few drinks he was put on the train to Liverpool thoroughly bewildered by his crowded day. Warned by a message of his E.T.A., an escort of a Sergeant and four men was arranged to meet him, as it was thought his "Irish temperament" might have caused trouble but on arrival he was sound asleep'.

Scully was commemorated by a sculpture at Simpson Barracks, Northamptonshire. Scully Troop of the Royal Logistic Corps is named after him. He is among those portrayed in a painting by Anthony Richard Grenville Cowland titled The Fighting Pioneer which was commissioned to commemorate the final removal in 2014 of the Royal Pioneer Corps from the British Army Order of Battle. the Olympic runner and BBC commentator, in Hebburn-on-Tyne, and died. The buyer later revealed himself to be Lord Ashcroft, and the medal group has since been on display in rotation as part of the Lord Ashcroft Collection in the Imperial War Museum.