FREDERICK Luke, the popular janitor at Glasgow High School, made the news in July 1941 when it was announced that he had been accepted for volunteer service with the RAF.
It was reported that he hoped to start training within a few days for the defence of British aerodromes. His son, Fred, was an air-gunner with the RAF.
Luke was no ordinary soldier; he had, after all, been awarded a Victoria Cross (pictured) for his heroics in the Great War.
“Sergeant Luke,” recollected the Glasgow Herald said in 1941, “was decorated when he galloped through an inferno of shell and fire to save two guns of his battery of the Royal Field Artillery. Another team making the attempt was wiped out. Luke got through and brought the guns to safety.”
Frederick Luke, who was born in Lockerley, Hampshire, in 1895, enlisted in Winchester in January 1913, disembarking in France on August 19, 1914. 
He and two colleagues, Captain Douglas Reynolds and Driver Job Drain, were awarded the VCs for their actions on August 26.
Michael Ashcroft, in Victoria Cross Heroes, his book on the stories behind the many VC medals he owns, notes that Luke “was just 18 when he won his VC on the seventh day of armed conflict between Britain and Germany”.
Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien’s force came under attack at Le Cateau; the German forces advanced along a 12-mile front, supported by relentless fire from some 600 guns, Ashcroft continues. The British batteries suffered enormous losses. 
Later in the day, the British decided to retreat after the Germans, scenting victory, began to envelop them on both flanks. Douglas wanted to rescue two of his guns from the advancing enemy wit the aid of two teams of mounted volunteers. At length, he, Luke and Drain managed to drag a gun to safety, under fire from the enemy just 100 yards away.
Luke died in Glasgow, aged 87, in March 1983. In 2014 a memorial stone was dedicated to him in Lockerley.

Read more: Herald Diary