Pine Bluff native and World War I veteran Leroy Alfred Johnston was a member of the Harlem Hell Fighters military band that introduced jazz to Europe during the war. He also posthumously received the Purple Heart because his military record was deliberately altered.
A HERO lifeboat volunteer, who became Portsmouth’s most decorated RNLI rescuer by risking his life countless times to save others at sea, has been immortalised – leaving his loving family ‘in tears’.