Harold Prentice

Heavy Rescue Party Leader Harold Prentice earned the George Medal during the Southampton Blitz of November-December 1940. When German bombers devastated the city centre — destroying the medieval core almost entirely — Prentice led his team into collapsed buildings to rescue trapped survivors. His most remarkable feat came on the night of 30 November when he tunnelled through 15 feet of rubble to reach a family of four trapped in their Anderson shelter beneath a collapsed house. Working for eight hours in conditions of extreme danger, with the unstable building threatening further collapse, he brought all four out alive. Southampton suffered 630 civilians killed and over 2,000 injured during the Blitz.