A RUNCORN war hero who survived bullets charging across No Man’s Land in 1916 is being honoured in his home town.
A bronze sculpture of Private Thomas Alfred Jones, known as ‘Todger’, will be unveiled in a memorial garden opposite The Cenotaph in Greenway Road on Sunday, August 3.
War veterans will parade from St Michael’s Church at 10.40am for a short service to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.
Neil Thornton, aged 34, from Brookvale, chairman of The Todger Jones Statue Appeal, which has raised £80,000, said: “This statue will be dedicated to all returning soldiers to mark the sacrifices they made.”
Wounded in the shoulder and knee, Todger killed a German sniper and eight other soldiers and hurled grenades until their comrades surrendered.
An honour guard of 1st Battalion, The Mercian Regiment, formerly Todger’s Cheshire Regiment, will join groups, organisations, civic leaders, musicians and schoolchildren for the ceremony.
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