Military Service
He was educated at St Olave's Grammar School and Merchant Taylors' School 1906-1908. Pollard had volunteered for service on August 8, 1914. Up to that date, he had worked as a clerk at an insurance company. He was wounded twice, but showed exceptional courage in returning to his unit after recovering from wounds. His bravery earned him the highest (and largest number of) awards awarded to a soldier in his unit during the war.
He had entered the war as a private, but was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 1st Battalion, Honourable Artillery Company, British Army during the First World War when the deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.
On 29 April 1917 at Gavrelle, France, the troops of various units had become disorganized owing to the heavy casualties from shell fire and a subsequent determined attack with very strong forces caused further confusion and retirement. Second Lieutenant Pollard realized the seriousness of the situation and with only four men he started a counter-attack with bombs, pressing it home until he had broken the enemy attack and regained all that had been lost and much ground in addition. This officer's splendid example inspired courage into every man who saw him.
His Victoria Cross is held by the Honourable Artillery Company in London, and a copy is on display in its Medal Room.
Read more about this topic: Alfred Oliver Pollard
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or service:
“We’re in greater danger today than we were the day after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)