Military

Read about three military men with links to Chester

The silhouette of a B29 bomber, a Hawker Hurricane, the Grosvenor Bridge, and the Brown Bess musket.

Chester was founded as a Roman fort during the reign of Vespasian and was one of the main bases for the Roman army in Britain. Fast forward nearly 2000 years and we are going to meet three military men with strong links to Chester: Leonard Cheshire, the bomber pilot who later helped disabled people participate fully in society; General Charles Lee who was George Washington’s second-in-command but was later court-martialled; and Jas Storrar, a hero of the Battle of Britain, and who (legend has it) flew his Hawker Hurricane under the Grosvenor Bridge.

Leonard Cheshire

Wearing dark glasses, Leonard Cheshire turned to face a fireball rising thousands of feet, its stem of smoke, ash and dust the colour of sulphur. Sent personally by Winston Churchill, his 101st and last bombing mission was to observe the bombing of Nagasaki. After 100 missions he had been awarded the Victoria Cross for his sustained courage between 1940 and 1944.

Leonard Cheshire was born in Hoole in 1917 at the home of his paternal grandparents although he soon moved to Oxford. As a young man he enjoyed pranks and daredevil pursuits and had a knack for getting himself in the newspapers.

After WWII, Cheshire struggled to find a new role for himself. He tried to set up a community for ex-service men and women but that failed. Everything changed in 1948 when a local hospital called and asked Cheshire to look after one of the former members of the community (Arthur Dykes) who was dying of cancer and had nowhere to go. This was the start of what would become the worldwide disability charity Leonard Cheshire.

Cheshire married Sue Ryder in 1959, who had already established the Sue Ryder Foundation. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1981 and died in 1992 from the effects of motor neurone disease. His incredible contribution to the lives of millions of disabled people lives on.

You can find out more about his life here:

https://rewind.leonardcheshire.org/spotlight/leonard-cheshire-profile/

General Charles Lee

Born in 1732 in Darnhall (near Winsford), Charles Lee was educated in Bury St Edmunds then Switzerland and spoke six languages. In 1754 his regiment was sent to America to fight in the Seven Years War.

While in America, he married the daughter of the Mohawk chief White Thunder and was adopted by the tribe who gave him a nickname that translates to ‘Boiling Water’. He was known to be moody, quick to anger, and often swore.

Over the next twenty years he advanced his military career with many adventures and several near-death experiences from freezing, fever, and earthquake. He rose to become second-in-command to George Washington during the American Revolutionary War against the British Empire.

Lee ended up being court-martialled for failing to attack the enemy and retreating at the pivotal battle of Monmouth Court House. His court-martial was one of the great legal trials in early American history.

In his book George Washington’s Nemesis, Christian McBurney provides compelling evidence that Lee committed treason by trying to negotiate an end to war with the British. Lee had come to believe that America should renounce its independence. Lee remains one of the most controversial figures in the Revolutionary War.

You can find out about General Charles Lee here:

https://www.revolutionary-war.net/general-charles-lee/

Jas Storrar

Christopher Nolan’s harrowing 2017 movie Dunkirk tells the story of the 400,000 British soldiers trapped in the harbour and beaches of Dunkirk in 1940 with the German forces closing in on them. One of the RAF aces protecting the British troops during the evacuation was Wing Commander James Eric (Jas) Storrar.

Jas was a well-known and much-loved character in Christleton and the wider Chester. After surviving Dunkirk, he flew in missions across Africa, France, Italy, and in the Battle of Britain. As WWII ended Jas decided to study veterinary science at Edinburgh University and later joined the family veterinary practice on Tarvin Road. 

But Jas didn’t stop flying. From 1954 to 1957 he commanded the No 610 County of Chester Auxiliary Squadron based at Hooton Park on the Wirral. Legend has it that Jas flew his Hurricane under the Grosvenor Bridge.

You can find out more about Jas Storrar here:

https://www.christleton.org.uk/christleton3/2020/history2020/historyapr2020/