Born 1889. Died 1973.

Joseph O’Malley lived with his wife at 29 Sugarhouse Lane, Greenock during the war. His grandson  remembered that his Granda Joseph hardly talked about the war and when he did it always brought a tear to his eye.  Sometime after the war Joseph lived on Lomond Road and worked for the Harbour Trust as a Labourer.

Published in the Greenock Telegraph was information that Joseph had sent to his wife in a letter after he was injured at the Battle of the Somme about how the cigarette case she had sent him had saved his life. Joseph writing from his hospital bed in Manchester recalled how they had been given the order to  charge at 6:30 am on Saturday morning. He recounted how all the men charged with “good-heart” but after only a few yards “the boys started to fall all around” him. A sight that he would never forget. Joseph managed to get the length of the hill before he was hit. He and another lad were carrying a box of bombs when they were both struck at the same time. The other lad got a bullet through his leg while Joseph was hit on his right side.

Had it not been for the cigarette case that his wife had sent him in his right hand pocket he would have died. The bullet went right through the case and the edge of his pay book before it finally lodged itself in his right side leaving a hole about the size of an egg. 

Due to the gunshot wound Joseph was shipped back to a military hospital in England to receive  treatment. The surgeon who operated on him offered a lot of money in order to be able to buy the case but Joseph refused to sell it. The case complete with cigarettes, playing cards and hole are still in the O’Malley family to this day.