Читать книгу VC Heroes - The True Stories Behind Every VC Winner Since World War Two - Nigel Cawthorne - Страница 4
ОглавлениеThe idea of giving a badge to be worn in recognition of bravery on the battlefield goes back to the ancient Greeks. The Roman legions then adopted it and established a standardised system of medals that they could wear on their uniforms. These were made of bronze or other metals and the images on them sometimes appeared on Roman gravestones.
The custom was continued by the Byzantine emperors and then picked up by Renaissance Italy and sixteenth-century Germany and seventeenth-century France. The first medals struck in England date back to the Civil War, when Charles I conferred gold medals on John Smith and Robert Welch for saving the King’s Colours at the Battle of Edgehill in 1642. The following year, at Oxford, the king decreed that medals ‘be delivered to wear on the breast of every man who shall be certified under the hands of their commanders-in-chief to have done faithful service in the forlorn hope’. Not to be outdone, the Parliamentarians picked up on the idea. The Commonwealth and, then, Charles II issued medals for gallantry in the Dutch Wars, but always on an ad hoc basis.
A standardised system of awards was introduced to the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Although some were given for bravery under fire, these were usually awarded for outstanding leadership or ‘distinguished service’ and restricted to officers. Meanwhile, the East India company introduced a fixed system of campaign medals for its Indian soldiers and, in 1837, instituted its own Order of Merit. This had three grades and, theoretically, a soldier had to have had a lower grade to be promoted to a higher one.
The British government was forced into introducing its own standardised system of awards for servicemen in the Crimean War. This was the first war to be reported in detail in the British press. War correspondents such as William Howard Russell of The Times brought home to the British public the terrible privations suffered by British soldiers and sailors, who were often poorly equipped and badly led – but could still be roused to extraordinary feats of bravery. Tales of the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Thin Red Line at Balaklava and life in the trenches in the Russian Winter during the siege of Sebastopol led to growing calls for the recognition of the bravery of British servicemen. In 1854, the Distinguished Conduct Medal was established by Royal Warrant to be conferred on ‘other ranks’ in the British Army, but not officers. The following year, the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal was instituted by Order in Council for the non-officer ranks of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. Officers’ gallantry could always be recognised by admission to the Order of Bath or a mention in dispatches.
But even this did not slake the public’s thirst for awards. The democratic sentiment of the time demanded an award that could be given in recognition of conspicuous bravery regardless of rank. In December 1854, Captain G T Scobell, MP for Bath, called in the House of Commons for the creation of ‘an “Order of Merit” to be bestowed on persons serving in the Army or Navy for distinguished and prominent personal gallantry’. The Duke of Newcastle, then secretary for war, took the idea to Prince Albert, the Prince Consort. They looked abroad for inspiration. Britain and France were allies during the Crimean War and they decided that the new British award for gallantry should be modelled on the Legion of Honour, which had been created by Napoleon in 1802 and was conferred without regard to rank or religion. Queen Victoria herself favoured a single decoration without classes, open to all. But unlike the Legion of Honour, which could also be awarded for civic merit, the British award was open only to the military.
Names suggested for the new award included the Order of Valour and the Military Order of Victoria. Prince Albert came up with Victoria Cross. Then there was the motto to consider. ‘The Reward for Valour’ – the motto of the Indian Order of Merit – was one suggestion. Others included ‘Reward for Bravery’, ‘For Bravery’, ‘To the Brave’ and ‘Mors aut Victoria’ – ‘Death or Victory’. Queen Victoria proposed ‘For Valour’. It was to be awarded, the Royal Warrant said, ‘only to those Officers or Men who have served Us in the presence of the Enemy and shall then have performed some signal act of valour or devotion to their Country’.
The Queen was also responsible for the simplicity of its design. She favoured the use of bronze over other, more opulent, options. They were made from the cascabels – the large knob at the back of a cannon used for securing ropes – of two Russian guns captured at Sebastopol. The two guns still stand outside the Rotunda of the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, while the remainder of the metal is held in the Small Arms building of the Royal Logistic Corps’ Defence Store at Donnington, Worcestershire. There is enough left to make 85 more medals.
Designed by the London jewellers Hancocks, the medal is in the form of the Army Gold Cross awarded in the final years of the Napoleonic Wars and since discontinued. The gunmetal was artificially darkened to give a greater contrast to the raised design when polished. On the front, there is the motto, the crown and a lion. On the back, they engraved the name, rank, service number and regiment or ship, along with date of the action it had been awarded for. The Times was not impressed. It said in the issue of 27 June 1857,
Than the Cross of Valour nothing could be more plain and homely, not to say coarse looking. It is a very small Maltese cross, formed from the gun-metal of ordnance captured at Sebastopol. In the centre is a small crown and lion, with which the latter’s natural proportions of mane and tail the cutting of the cross much interferes. Below these is a small scroll (which shortens three arms of the cross and is utterly out of keeping with the upper portions) bearing the words ‘For Valour’… the whole cross is, after all, poor looking and mean in the extreme… The merit of the design, we believe, is due to the same illustrious individual who once invented the hat.
However, the day before, when the first 62 medals were awarded for bravery in the Crimea, the Baltic and the Sea of Azov at the ceremony in Hyde Park, the public mobbed the recipients for a glimpse of the medal. Its award had been backdated to the beginning of the war. Nevertheless, The Times dismissed it as merely ‘tuppence worth of bronze’. But that was the point. It was not supposed to be one of those precious, bejewelled baubles conferred by one aristocrat on another. In fact, the originals cost the government £1 to cast, with an additional three shillings (15p) for the engraving on the back.
The award brought with it a pension of £10 a year, with an additional £5 if a second Victoria Cross, or Bar, was awarded. The pension has now been increased to £1,495 a year. Additionally, all officers – however exalted their rank – were to salute the holder, if in uniform, no matter how lowly the recipient.
Soon after the first Victoria Crosses were awarded, the Queen became concerned about what the recipient should be called. Correct modes of address were all-important. She expressed her concern in a memo to the secretary for war, written in the regal third person.
‘The Queen thinks that persons decorated with the Victoria Cross might very properly be allowed to bear some distinctive mark after their name,’ she wrote. But the Victoria Cross was merely ‘a naval and military decoration’, not the membership of some distinguished order, as she was used to handing out. Consequently,
VC would not do. KG means a Knight of the Garter; CB a Companion of Bath; MP is a Member of Parliament; MD a Doctor of Medicine, etc., etc. – in all cases denoting a person. No one could be called a Victoria Cross. VC, moreover, means Vice-Chancellor at present. DVC, Decorated with the Victoria Cross, or BVC, Bearer of the Victoria Cross, might do. The Queen thinks the last is best.
However, VC caught on among both the military and civilians and remains the designation to this day.
Just a year after the VC was first awarded, it was extended to those members of the armed forces who showed
conspicuous courage and bravery… under circumstances of extreme danger, such as the occurrence of fire on board ship, or of the foundering of the vessel at sea, or under any other circumstance in which through the courage and devotion displayed, life or public property may be saved.
Then, in the face of the ‘Indian Mutiny’, its award was broadened to include civilians who fought alongside troops in the field or ‘performed deeds of gallantry’ against ‘insurgent mutineers’. But, by 1881, it could again be awarded only for conspicuous courage in the face of the enemy. In 1902, Queen Victoria’s son, King Edward, decreed that it could be awarded posthumously – as it was in many of the cases in this book. It remained open to anyone in any of the branches of the armed forces, including women, though no woman has yet received one.
The first VC was awarded to Lieutenant Charles Lucas of the Royal Navy for an action in the Baltic in 1854 when he ran forward to grab a live shell and throw it overboard, saving the crew of his ship HMS Hecla.
In all, 111 VCs were awarded during the Crimean War of 1854–6, which included naval engagements between Britain and Russia in the Baltic. A hundred and eighty-two were awarded during the Indian Mutiny of 1857–8, with another two awarded during the Bhutan Campaign to put down truculent Himalayan tribes in 1864–5. Sixteen were awarded during the various Afghan wars that rumbled on from 1838 to 1880, with seven more awarded during the Tirah Campaign of 1897–8 to secure the Khyber Pass. Then 23 were awarded during the Zulu War – eleven alone at Rorke’s Drift, the largest for any single military action. The Transvaal War of 1880–1 produced six, the Matabeleland Rebellion of 1896 two and the Boer War of 1899–1900 78.
The Maori Wars of 1860–1 and 1863–6 produced fifteen. Three resulted from the Shimonoseki Expedition to Japan in 1864. Four were awarded during the Ashanti War of 1873–4. Three were given during the occupation of Egypt in 1882; another three in First Sudan Campaign of 1881–5. One resulted from the Crete Rebellion of 1898. Six came from the Second Sudan Campaign of 1896–1900. Two resulted from the Boxer Uprising in 1900, three more from the Third Somaliland Expedition of 1903–4.
World War One produced 626. Ten more were awarded during various ‘mopping-up’ operations in India between World War One and World War Two. And 182 resulted from World War Two. In all, 1,341 had been awarded by the end of 1945. Since then there have been only fourteen recipients, due to the increasingly strict criteria applied. This book tells the stories of those fourteen gallant men.
