Captain Gregory Dillon WOOD (105266)
C Company, 5th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment

Date of birth: 6th August 1912
Date of death: 6th April 1943

Killed in action aged 30
Buried at Sfax War cemetery Tunisia Plot III Row E Grave 22
He was born at Whitstable on the 6th of August 1912, the son of William George Sydney Wood, stockbroker, and Alice (nee Dillon) of 9 Cromwell Road, Whitstable. He was known to his family as Rory.

He was educated at the Junior King's School from January 1923 and at the King's School Canterbury from January 1926 to April 1930, where he was a dayboy. On leaving school he joined the London Stock Exchange.

He enlisted as a Private in the Honourable Artillery Company in 1937 and served with No. 1 Company. Following the outbreak of war he attended the 162nd Officer Cadet Training Unit, before being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 5th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment on the 12th of November 1939.

He landed at Le Havre with his Battalion on the 24th of April 1940 and on the 10th of May, the battalion was engaged in constructing an aerodrome at Grevillers near Bapaume when the Germans launched their Blitzkrieg. Despite the rapid German advance they continued in their work until the 16th of May when they packed and mounted transport at 11.30am. They were split into companies and set the task of defending Bapaume. Over the next two weeks they were forced to fall back with the rest of the British Expeditionary Force, spending many hours marching, being harassed by enemy aircraft and occasionally becoming engaged in short, sharp fights with the advancing Germans.

In the early morning of the 30th of May 1940 the battalion was ordered into a defensive position to defend a bridge near the village of Furnes. This they did, receiving the attentions of German sniper and mortar fire throughout the afternoon.
At 2am on the 1st of June the battalion received orders to fall back to Dunkirk for evacuation. That afternoon the entire battalion was embarked on to the destroyer HMS Harvester and returned as a unit to England.

The battalion returned to its depot to be refitted and was then moved to the south of England to defend the coast against the expected German invasion. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the 27th of May 1941.

In the spring of 1941 the war cabinet decided to reinforce the Middle East and so it was that the 5th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment landed at Port Tewfik near Suez on the 21st of July 1941 on board the SS "Mauretania".

In August 1941 they were moved to Cyprus to defend it against an expected airborne attack. They left Cyprus in November and proceeded via Palestine and Jordan to Kirkuk in Iraq to protect against a threatened move by the Germans against the oil fields there.

In January 1942 they moved to Palestine and on the 12th of February they set out for the Western Desert, where they occupied the defensive position known as the "Gazala Line". In June 1942 they saw action at the Battle of Mersa Matruh but were soon forced to join the general withdrawal to a line near to El Alamein where they took part in that epic battle in October 1942. They then took part in the general pursuit of the Afrika Corps, seeing action at breaching of the Mareth Line in March, until the enemy decided to stand and fight at Wadi Akarit.

Here they had constructed a defensive line with heavily fortified concrete positions protected by a large, deep anti tank ditch in front of them. It was decided that the only option was a frontal assault and so at 3.30am on the morning of the 6th of April 1943 the 5th Battalion found themselves at the start line for the attack. At 4 am the British artillery opened fire and fifteen minutes later the battalion began to move forward.

As they advanced there was some confusion when they did not arrive at where they expected the anti tank ditch to be at the appointed time. There was also a strange absence of enemy counter fire. As they crossed a small ridge they were suddenly confronted by the ditch and a few seconds later their ranks were swept with fire as the enemy poured machine gun and rifle fire into their ranks. The men withdrew to the reverse of the slope where it was decided to attack again led by C and D Companies. As soon as C Company came in to view all enemy weapons seemed to come to bear on them and casualties mounted very quickly. Lieutenant James Herbert Beaty and Gregory Wood were killed by an explosion on the approach to the ditch and Lieutenant Richard Barry Smurthwaite was killed at the ditch. The fire was so intense and the casualties so heavy that the surviving members of the company were pulled back to where they had started.

The enemy position fell later in the day.

He is commemorated on the war memorial at All Saints Church, Whitstable.
Day Boy

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