15. FULL BACK. Gordon Fairclough M.C. - ANOTHER ‘GREAT ESCAPE’

Gordon Harold Fairclough was born in Sunderland on 04 December 1919 and died in Canada in 2018 at the age of 98.He played at full back for the club in the mid to late 1930s and returned to play after the war . His father ran a well-known plumbing and gas fitting business in Frederick Street and had served in the Boer War. The family lived on Ashbrooke Mount overlooking the ground. Gordon was educated at Wellingborough School and was a member of the Officers’ Training Corps. He joined the Royal Artillery in early 1939 – before war was declared – and rose through the ranks to captain. While still a lieutenant in 1942, he was in charge of an anti-aircraft battery in Hong Kong when it was attacked by the Japanese on the same day that they bombed Pearl Harbour. In this attack, he received a bullet in his chest and was left for dead. He survived only to be taken prisoner. The imprisonment did not last for long as he and two others managed to escape. They then undertook a 3,000-mile journey through China and Burma to India. The journey lasted for 73 days. For the bravery shown in escaping, he was awarded a Military Cross which was presented to him by George VI in 1943. He survived the war, married in 1951 and moved to Canada where he died. There are online stories of his remarkable journey and, as one modern journalist noted, his story would have ‘made a great film’.

Google his full name for more details on line. Where there are photographs of the actual players in the archive I will put them on. KG