laterwork branch death_date birth_place awards battles birth_date rank image article_title name
marine and local authority engineer air raid precautions 28 october 1965 -lrb- aged 62 -rrb- sunderland , england 30px george cross world war ii 15 september 1903 detachment leader thomas alderson gc.jpg thomas alderson
 thomas alderson
thomas alderson

thomas hopper alderson gc -lrb- 15 september 1903 -- 28 october 1965 -rrb- was the first person to be directly awarded the george cross shortly after its creation in 1940 .
he was an air raid precautions -lrb- arp -rrb- warden in bridlington .
he was fifth of six children .
he went first to his local village school and then continued his schooling at elwick road senior boys ' school , west hartlepool , becoming head boy .
during world war i he witnessed the bombardment of west hartlepool by the german high seas fleet on 16 december 1914 .
after leaving school at 15 he first worked as an office boy and a draughtsman , and then undertook an engineering apprenticeship .
he joined the merchant navy , becoming a first engineer .
following the birth of his daughter in 1935 he became an engineer for west hartlepool council .
he moved to bridlington in 1938 as works supervisor for the corporation .
local authorities were responsible for air raid precautions and trained their own workforces in rescue work .
alderson attended an anti-gas school at easingwold , near york , and became an instructor in the subject .
he worked as part-time air raid warden , leading a detachment of rescue and demolition parties in bridlington .
the coastal town was soon attacked by luftwaffe bombers , and residential areas were hit .
on three occasions in august 1940 he led rescue teams and entered dangerous buildings to rescue trapped civilians .
he was the first person to receive the newly instituted george cross from the king , and in a radio broadcast of the time insisted that his award was for all the rescue parties in bridlington .
this interview can be heard in full on `` the blitz '' , an audiobook cd of wartime recordings .
in 1946 he joined the east riding of yorkshire county council workforce as an assistant highways surveyor .
he then joined the new civil defence corps , this time to protect the civilian population from nuclear warfare , rather than conventional bombs .
on 28 october 1965 he died of lung cancer in northfield hospital at driffield , yorkshire .
his george cross is on display at the imperial war museum where it can be seen with a medal from the rspca , awarded later in the war for rescuing two horses from a burning stable .
