Norman Stronge - Early Life and Military Service

Early Life and Military Service

Sir Norman was born in Bryansford, County Down, Ireland, the son of Sir Charles Stronge, 7th Baronet and Marian Bostock, whose family were from Epsom. He was educated at Eton.

In the First World War he served in France and Flanders with the 10th Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, as lieutenant and later as captain. He was decorated with the Military Cross and the Belgian Croix de Guerre. He survived the first day of the Battle of the Somme and was the first soldier after the start of the battle to be mentioned in despatches by Lord Haig. In April 1918, he was appointed adjutant of the 15th Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles. He was wounded, whilst near Kortrijk, on 20 October 1918. He relinquished his commission on 19 August 1919, and was permitted to retain the rank of captain.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, he was again commissioned, this time into the North Irish Horse, Royal Armoured Corps, reverting to second lieutenant. He relinquished the commission on 20 April 1940 due to ill-health. In 1950 he was appointed Honorary Colonel of a Territorial Army unit of the Royal Irish Fusiliers.

Read more about this topic:  Norman Stronge

Famous quotes containing the words early, life, military and/or service:

    Some would find fault with the morning red, if they ever got up early enough.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    But the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself.... Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. This power is identical with what we earlier called the Subject.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

    I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.
    Václav Havel (b. 1936)

    The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self- service populace, and all our specious comforts—the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria—are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.
    Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)