224312 Sgt. Thomas Hill MM MID.British Army 13th Battalion Manchester Regiment from:Wigan, Lancashire Thomas Hill was my grandfather, my mum's dad. I never met him as he died before I was born. He enlisted in the Manchester Regiment in September 1914 shortly followed by his three younger brothers, who all joined The Kings Own Lancasters.
The four brothers were all hard working, hard drinking miners from Wigan who were fiercely competitive in everything they did. He was fighting in Salonika when he heard that his youngest brother Abraham, aged 20, had won the Distinguished Conduct Medal and been promoted to Lance-Corporal. According to family history this did not impress Thomas who then got Mentioned in Dispatches and promoted to Sargeant.
By June 1918, when his Regiment were posted back to France, two of his brothers had been wounded and discharged back to England and his brother John had been killed in action. Thomas then went on to be awarded the Military Medal in October 1918 for bravery under fire and was de-mobbed in 1919. None of the three returning brothers ever spoke about their war experiences except amongst themselves. It was only after her father's death in 1950 when his younger brother Abraham DCM came to the house and pinned all Thomas's medals onto his body that my mother realised the full extent of his bravery. The family just assumed that anyone who had served had a drawer full of the same old medals as none of the brothers ever mentioned the the true extent of their war exploits.
The only link that Thomas had with the war was that he always called my mother Sally, her name was Esther, but she had been conceived when he was on home leave from Salonika and this was his private joke between himself and my grandmother. I have found that since researching the history of the four Hill brothers and keeping my family informed we all stand a little bit straighter at the Cenotaph services these days.
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