1/5th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment.

Awarded the Military Medal in the London Gazette of 16 July 1918.

Awarded the Belgium Croix de Guerre in the London Gazette of 12 July 1918.

Haffner was a native of Burnley, Lancashire.

The Burnley Express reported: - BURNLEY SERGEANT'S BELGIUM HONOUR. Wounded for second time in German attack. Sergeant George Haffner, son of Mr. Haffner of Yorkshire Street, Burnley has been honoured by the Belgium King with the award of the Croix de Guerre for services rendered whilst the division to which he is attached was employed in Belgium. Following quickly on this good news has come the intimation that he has been wounded in the great German onslaught in the Somme district, and is now in a French convalescent camp. Sergeant Haffner was formerly in the Burnley territorial force, and had retired some time before the war, but this calamitous event saw him patriotically come forward again and become a member of the same regiment. He went out with it as a corporal, and whilst on active service received his sergeants rank. He fought against the Turks in the Dardanelles, where he was wounded. He next went with the regiment to France, and has seen some heavy fighting there, but none has been so severe as that in the engagement in which he as again been wounded, this time in the left hand. In a letter to his father, writing on March 31st, he received on Thursday morning, Sergeant Haffner states, "He should have been coming on leave but the great attack caused all leave to be cancelled, and so it came about that instead of being on his way home he was put in the defensive line. I had just three days of it, when I came away wounded on the Wednesday. The wound is nothing; if it had been worse it might have carried me home." Sergeant Haffner had previously written home to his father regarding the award and had sent him the ribbon he had received.

Mentioned on page 385 of the Regimental History.