Lieutenant-Colonel G.C.P. Lance
6th Battalion, Green Howards
7th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry

He was always to be found where the battle was hottest, encouraging his men and often leading the final assault on enemy MG posts. I have heard from several sources of the magnificent example and leadership displayed by Lt Col Lance.

(Somerset County Herald and Taunton Courier, 15 Jul 1944, 4)

Born on 9 May 1913 in Strood, Kent, Geoffrey Charles Philip Lance was commissioned into the Somerset Light Infantry in 1933. During the El Alamein campaign, on 13 October 1942, Lance succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel E.W. Eden in command of the 6th Battalion, Green Howards. For “superb leadership and “conspicuous devotion to duty,” he earned the Distinguished Service Order.

He relinquished command on 14 June 1943, just before the 6th Green Howard deployed to Sicily. Lance received another battalion command in Normandy after Lieutenant-Colonel R.G.P. Besley was wounded in early July. Within days of arriving, Lance was killed when an enemy shell struck his jeep on 10 July. One private described the carnage of the German barrage: “Noise was ear-splitting and those that didn’t seek a slit trench were either dead or wounded … Our lot was fraught with fear, danger and death every time we moved from our slit trench” (Quoted from Patrick Delaforce, The Fighting Wessex Wyverns).

Lance was succeeded by Major E.J. Bruford, who would be killed just three days later.