Verity had captained men under fire as readily as he had captained the Yorkshire bowling attack. As a captain in the 1st Battalion Green Howards he led B Company in an attack on a strongly defended German position at Catania on the night of 19 July 1943. Hit in the chest by machine-gun fire and unable to move, he ordered his men to keep going and was eventually carried by Italian stretcher bearers after the position fell.
Moved through field hospitals at Catania, Reggio and Naples, Verity was finally handed by the Germans to the Italians and taken to a hospital at Caserta. After a further operation to remove a rib damaged in the bullet wound, he died on 31 July 1943. He was buried with full military honours by the Italians; his grave was later moved into the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery at Caserta where it stands today.
For a generation of English cricket followers Verity had been the heir to Wilfred Rhodes — quiet, deadly accurate, capable of taking 17 wickets in a day against Essex in 1933 and of bowling Bradman five times in Test cricket. His final first-class match, on 1 September 1939 at Hove, ended with the figures 6-1-9-7 as Sussex were skittled. The next morning the players were sent home; Verity walked off the Hove ground saying, according to Bill Bowes, 'I wonder what'll happen with this lot,' and never bowled a ball in anger again.
The news reached England via Red Cross telegrams in early August 1943. Wisden's 1944 obituary called him 'one of the great slow left-arm bowlers of all time' and noted that his 1,956 first-class wickets at 14.90 were taken in just nine seasons.