The Victoria Cross and the George Cross: the Complete History in three volumes

Discussion in 'Books, Films, TV, Radio' started by CL1, Dec 1, 2013.

  1. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    The Victoria Cross and the George Cross: the Complete History in three volumes, ed by Christopher J Wright and Glenda M Anderson (2832pp, Methuen) is available from the Telegraph Bookshop at a reduced price of £202.50 (£67.50 per volume, plus £1.35 p&p). The recommended retail price is £225 (£75 per volume)

    Britain’s two premier medals for bravery, the Victoria Cross and the George Cross, have been awarded to fewer than 1,800 servicemen and civilians in their century and a half of existence. Given their rarity it is little wonder that individual medals can fetch up to £400,000 at auction.

    Yet accurate details about the history of the awards, their recipients and where and how they were won, have been woefully inadequate until the publication of this three-volume authorised history. The fruit of more than a decade of research, and averaging just under 1,000 pages a volume, it is a monumental work of scholarship that will be the standard reference work on these gallantry awards for decades to come.


    The Victoria Cross was founded in 1856 to emulate the French introduction of a national award that recognised outstanding bravery in battle. It was the first gallantry medal for servicemen of all ranks and remains “the highest and most prestigious recognition of exceptional valour in the face of the enemy”. Its civilian equivalent, the George Cross, was introduced during the Battle of the Blitz in 1940. “The need for a decoration to recognise heroism exhibited not immediately in the face of the enemy,” explain the editors, “but on a level with those actions awarded the Victoria Cross was highlighted by the extreme courage shown by civilians and Service personnel involved with bomb and mine disposal at the beginning of the Second World War.”


    The editors dispel the rumour that current VCs are no longer made from the bronze cascabels (balancing weights) of Russian cannon captured at Sebastopol in 1855. “There is still enough metal from this source,” they explain, “to make 60 more crosses and the truncated cannon themselves can be seen at the Royal Artillery Museum at Woolwich.” So prone to shattering is this poor-quality bronze that the casting “has to be done in sand and takes much finishing, resulting in minor variations in the design”. No two medals, in consequence, are exactly alike.


    The first batch of 62 VCs were awarded to Crimean War veterans by Queen Victoria at a special military review in Hyde Park on June 26, 1857. She was riding her horse Sunset and “wearing, for the first time, a field marshal’s uniform especially adapted in design”. What the editors omit to mention is that Victoria unwittingly pushed the pin of the medal into the chest of the first recipient, a legless veteran of the Battle of the Redan, who bore the eye-watering pain in silence. The queen was none the wiser.





    The three volumes are chronological. The first covers 1854 to 1914, the second the First World War (when an astonishing 628 VCs were given) and the third the years since then. The last volume is a mine of fascinating information in the form of appendices that list, among other things, that eight VCs have been forfeited for later “crimes”, the last in 1908; that 323 VCs and 90 GCs were awarded posthumously; that the unit with the most VCs is the Rifle Brigade (27), whereas the SAS has just one; that five VCs and eight GCs have been awarded to children, the youngest an English boy called DC Western who was 10 when he rescued a friend from icy water in 1948; that 13 women have received the GC, including the SOE agent Mme Szabo in 1945; and that medics have won 55 VCs and eight GCs.
    But it is the simple yet stirring prose of the official citations that best encapsulates the selfless heroism of people like John Bamford, James Beaton and James Ashworth (see extracts). Bamford was a young mineworker from Newthorpe in Nottinghamshire who suffered terrible burns rescuing his two younger brothers from a fire in 1952; Beaton the Royal Protection Officer who was shot as he shielded Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips from a would-be kidnapper in 1974; and Ashworth, a 23-year-old L/Cpl in the Grenadier Guards who died assaulting an enemy position in Afghanistan in 2012, the last recipient of the VC.
    None is more moving than the GC citation for Cpl Mark Wright of the 3rd Paras who was mortally wounded in Afghanistan in 2006 as he tried to save a wounded comrade. Part of it reads: “Corporal Wright spent three-and-a-half hours in the minefield and… for a significant amount of that time he himself was very seriously wounded and in great pain… His complete disregard for his own safety while doing everything possible to retain control of the situation and to save lives constitutes an act of the greatest gallantry.”
    It is hard – almost impossible – to read these citations and not shed a tear. The heroic actions of these extraordinary 1,800 or so men, women and children deserve the lasting recognition this fine publication will give them.



    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10483959/The-Victoria-Cross-and-the-George-Cross-The-Complete-History-review.html
     
  2. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

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