A SOUTH AFRICAN infantryman, Gerard Norton won the Victoria Cross while seconded to the lst/4th Battalion The Royal Hampshire Regiment during the breaching of the Gothic Line in Italy in 1944. The unit formed part of 128 (Hampshire) Brigade of the 46th Infantry Division which had already gained distinction in North Africa and at the Salerno landing.

The German C-in-C in Italy, Field-Marshal Kesselring, had regrouped his forces skilfully after the fall of Rome on June 5. Determined to delay the Allies’s advance in Italy, he confronted any forward move in apparent strength, only to slip away as soon as the American or British formations deployed to attack — always with the plan of holding the Gothic Line across the “thigh” of the peninsula. The Allies had lost seven divisions, which had been transferred to Operation Dragoon — the invasion of southern France — but General Sir Harold Alexander remained determined to break through the Gothic Line before the winter.

The plan was to divert Kesselring’s attention to the Adriatic coast by an 8th Army attack there, then the main assault would be launched towards Bologna and the Lombardy Plain. By August 30, 5th Corps, to which the 46th Division belonged, was across the River Foglia and and had breached the forward edge of the Gothic Line. The task of 1st/4th Royal Hampshires was to take the Monte Gridolfo feature, one of the key positions in the line and defended by a series of concrete strongpoints with interlocking zones of fire.

The leading platoon of Norton’s company was pinned down by flanking fire almost as soon as it had crossed the start line. Entirely on his own initiative and with complete disregard for his personal safety, Norton began to attack the enemy strongpoints in turn. He silenced the first with a grenade. Then, alone and armed with his Thompson sub-machinegun, he took on the crew of a second strongpoint from which the enemy were holding up the advance with their Spandaus. A ten-minute firefight ensued, at the end of which Norton had killed all but a handful of the enemy who surrendered.

Bringing his platoon forward to maintain the forward momentum, Norton cleared the cellar and upper rooms of a fortified house and took several more prisoners. Finally, although weak from loss of blood due to a head wound that had severed a vein, he led his platoon up the valley to capture the remaining enemy positions on his company objective. He was also wounded in the thigh during the course of the action.

His citation for award of the Victoria Cross read: “Throughout the attack Lieutenant Norton displayed matchless courage, outstanding initiative and inspiring leadership. By his supreme gallantry, fearless example and determined aggression he assured the successful breach of the Gothic Line at this point.”

This was the second occasion on which Norton had shown himself capable of outstanding leadership and determination. In the Western Desert, when General Neil Ritchie ordered the precipitate withdrawal of the 8th Army from the Gazala Line in June 1942, part of the rearguard of the 1st South African Division was cut off on the desert coast road east of Tobruk. Norton was then serving as a sergeant with the Kaffrarian Rifles, the unit in which he had enlisted as a private soldier in 1940, which formed part of the rearguard. He was posted missing, believed taken prisoner, but he and his five comrades had avoided capture by taking to the desert in a cross-country truck.

The party drove south-eastwards until, after 100 miles, their petrol ran out. Norton prepared his men for a long march and led them on an astonishing 470-mile trek through the desert, avoiding enemy positions but utilising water and supplies found abandoned. After a 38-day march, he found a route through the German forward area and reached the safety of the newly formed 8th Army defence line on the Egyptian frontier. Norton was awarded the Military Medal for his leadership and determination in bringing his men to safety. Ironically, he shortly afterwards broke an ankle while captaining a South African side in a rugby match in the Nile Delta.

Gerard Ross Norton was born in Herschel, Cape Province, in 1915. By an odd coincidence, his twin sister Olga was serving with No 102 (South African) General Hospital at Bari, to which he was evacuated when wounded in the Gothic Line action. Naturally, she was appointed to nurse him.

Their father, Charles Ross Norton was a magistrate in various towns of the Cape and in Transkei, but he had died before the war began. The family originally came from Hythe, Kent, but moved to South Africa with other emigrants in the 1820s. Curiously, in view of his later gallantry and reputation at games, Norton was extremely delicate as a small boy and nicknamed “Toys”, a sobriquet he continued to accept and use throughout his life.

He was educated at Selborne College, East London, and represented it at rugby, cricket and tennis. He joined Barclays DCO at Umtata in 1935 and played cricket and rugby for Transkei.

After the war, he returned only briefly to South Africa before buying a 4,000-acre tobacco plantation 100 miles north of Salisbury, then Southern Rhodesia. He took Ian Smith’s side on the Unilateral Declaration of Independence issue and declined an invitation to a Victoria Cross reunion at Windsor Castle in 1968 on the grounds that he did not want to be “pushed around at Heathrow airport” as the holder of a Rhodesian passport. He was a tall, dignified man but one of great gentleness.

His wife, Lilla Morris, whom he met in 1942 in South Africa, to where he returned for officer training after his escape through the desert, predeceased him. He, his daughter and son-in-law were turned off their farm in Zimbabwe at the end of 2002, since when he had lived in a small apartment in Harare.

His death leaves 14 surviving holders of the Victoria Cross.

Gerard Norton, VC, MM, was born on September 7, 1915. He died on October 29, 2004, aged 89.