Sidney Cornell, believed to be the first black paratrooper to land in Normandy on D-Day, was remembered at an exhibition in his hometown.

Born in Portsmouth, Sgt Cornell served with the 7th Parachute Battalion and was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) for courage in 1944.

He is credited with inspiring the character Lieutenant Arthur Kingsley in the Call of Duty video game series.

Chris Cornell, whose research helped raise his great-uncle’s profile, said: “He became almost famous, which I never would have thought. He was extremely brave and as a family we are very proud of what he did. “.

The Winchester researcher was encouraged to piece together the history of his mixed family through a chance meeting with Baroness Floella Benjamin.

The actress and TV presenter inspired him to spend 10 years digging through military and civilian archives.

Sidney’s African-American father Charles, a Barnum and Bailey circus acrobat, arrived in the UK from the US in 1889, he discovered.

Charles left the show and met his wife Florence and settled in Portsmouth where Sidney was born in 1913.

As mixed-race immigrants to the North End area, the family would have faced a sometimes difficult reception, the researcher said.

“Sidney and his brother learned boxing from their father for self-defense,” Mr. Cornell added.

“There was a time when the Cornell family was well respected and basically tough as nails and no one bullied them or made fun of them.”

Sidney worked as a truck driver for a building materials company before joining the army and then the Parachute Regiment.

He was the first black paratrooper to land behind German lines in Normandy on the night of June 5-6, 1944, according to the Royal British Legion.

His DCM citation reports: “During the next five weeks he was in almost continuous action of a most trying and difficult nature.

“Cornell was a company leader and repeatedly delivered messages through the heaviest and most accurate enemy mortar and machine gun fire.

“Wounded four times in combat, this soldier has never been evacuated and continues his work with cheerfulness and efficiency.

“Many acts of bravery have been accomplished by members of the battalion, but for sustained courage nothing surpasses Cornell’s efforts. »

Race appears to have played little role in Sgt Cornell’s military career, his great-nephew added.

Respected for his courage, he was also much older than his battalion comrades and was treated as a “grandfather figure,” Chris Cornell said.

On April 7, 1945, German soldiers detonated explosives on a bridge over the Rhine, killing Sgt Cornell and about twenty members of his platoon.

Chris Cornell recalls, “The time the family learned of his death was exactly the time my father joined the military and I don’t think it was a coincidence.

“When the war came, he became that kind of hero – my father’s hero – and my father joined the army because of him.”

Although the paratrooper never received his DCM – which is still missing – his service medal was returned to the family in 2021, after being found in the River Thames by a mudlarker.

The same year, Call of Duty: Vanguard was released. The creators credited Sgt Cornell with inspiring one of the game’s main characters.

Sidney Cornell’s role in D-Day and the battles that followed have been remembered in a pop-up museum at the North End Library, near where he grew up.

As well as his grave in Germany, Sidney is also named on the war memorial in central Portsmouth.

His great-nephew said: “It’s sad I never knew him. My father always talked about Sidney. He was in awe of him.”