John Kenneally

Sergeant John Patrick Kenneally (né Leslie Jackson) VC (15 March 1921 – 27 September 2000) 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.

Early life John Patrick Kenneally was born as Leslie Jackson at 104 Alexandra Road, Balsall Heath, Birmingham. His 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. She changed her surname to Jackson, and had her son christened Leslie. Kenneally subsequently understood that his mother, who became a dance hostess, and the female friend with whom she lived in Birmingham were "fairly high-class whores". Kenneally claimed that his father was a wealthy Mancunian Jewish textile manufacturer, Neville Blond, who would later become chairman of the English Stage Company and marry Elaine Marks, the Marks & Spencer heiress. Blond, despite paying maintenance, denied paternity, observing himself to have been "only one of his mother's many friends", and that he "happened to have a bob or two, which meant 'go for that fellow'".

Military career Jackson joined the Honourable Artillery Company on his 18th birthday. He was assigned to an anti-aircraft battery and overstayed a period of leave. He was sentenced to a period of detention at Wellington Barracks, run by the Irish Guards. He was impressed by their high standards and applied for a transfer but was rejected. Jackson deserted and joined a group of itinerant Irish labourers, eventually making his way to Glasgow. When one of them, named John Patrick Kenneally, returned to Ireland, Jackson obtained his identity card and, adopting the man's name, used it to enlist in the Irish Guards.

He was remembered in Winston Churchill's famous broadcast speech on 13 May 1945 "Five years of War", as having defended Ireland's honour:"When I think of these days I think also of other episodes and personalities. I do not forget Lieutenant-Commander Esmonde V.C., D.S.O., Lance-Corporal Kenneally, V.C., Captain Fegen V.C., and other Irish heroes that I could easily recite, and all bitterness by Britain for the Irish race dies in my heart. I can only pray that in years which I shall not see, the shame will be forgotten and the glories will endure, and that the peoples of the British Isles and of the British Commonwealth of Nations will walk together in mutual comprehension and forgiveness."

In 1943, Kenneally had married Elsie Francis; they had two sons and a daughter. He 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.

Later life Kenneally went into the motor trade after the army and remained in it for the rest of his working life, eventually operating his own garage. Reflecting on his heroic actions in Tunisia during an interview some years after the war's end, Kenneally said that he charged the Germans only because of "a strange don't-give-a-damn feeling" which had suddenly possessed him. He 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".

The medal His Victoria Cross is displayed at The Guards Regimental Headquarters (Irish Guards RHQ) in Wellington Barracks, London, England.