Victoria's Cross

by Gary Mead

  On becoming MP for Solihull after the war, Lindsay waged a campaign against ‘the scandal of the difficulty we had experienced in obtaining decorations for our “rank and file”. The Secretary of State for War [the Labour MP Jack Lawson] . . . denied that there had ever been any system of “rationing” of decorations. In the aftermath of war there were in the House plenty of ex-officers who knew from their own experience that this was totally untrue.’15

  When individuals did something both outstanding and useful, then they were obvious candidates for the highest prize. On the ground, the European theatre was bookended by examples of classic VC-winning actions from the army. The British army’s first VC went to Second Lieutenant Richard Annand of the 2nd Battalion, Durham Light Infantry,16 who gained his for twice fighting off a German attack on a blown bridge across the Dyle River in Belgium on 15–16 May 1940. German troops tried to launch a bridging party across the river and, under mortar and machine-gun fire, Annand threw hand grenades onto the enemy from the top of the wrecked bridge, driving them back. Although wounded, Annand continued in command of his platoon. A second crossing attempt by German soldiers was again driven back by Annand, single-handedly and effectively wielding grenades. When the platoon was ordered to withdraw, Annand left with his platoon but noticed that his batman was missing; he went back to find him and carried him off in a snatched wheelbarrow, eventually collapsing from loss of blood. He was rescued, evacuated, and spent the rest of the war in Britain training other soldiers; his fighting days were over as a result of permanent damage to his hearing.

  The last European theatre VC was that of Guardsman Edward Charlton of the 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards, who was a driver in a tank troop.17 In the early hours of 21 April 1945 his troop, together with a platoon of infantry, took Wistedt, a small town some sixty kilometres south-west of Hamburg. A German counterattack by a battalion of Panzer Grenadiers, supported by several self-propelled guns, blew up the British tanks and threatened to overrun the British platoon. As the superior German force advanced, Charlton took the Browning machine gun from his disabled tank and fired it from the hip, halting the lead German company; under this covering fire the Guards reorganized and retired. Charlton was hit several times and his left arm rendered useless, but he mounted the Browning on a fence and continued firing until he collapsed from his injuries. He was captured and died shortly afterwards.18

  The possibility that women or civilians might do something meriting a VC was put to rest by their de facto exclusion, the result of the creation of the George Cross and George Medal, which provided the military establishment with another means of slicing and dicing courage. The George Cross warrant, signed into being by Winston Churchill on 8 May 1940 at the behest of George VI, made no mention of whether the brave action was to be performed not in the presence of the enemy, but that was how it often came to be interpreted, as it still is today. That the distinction between being in the presence or not of the enemy was often razor-thin seemed to perturb no one; the military establishment was only prepared to recognize a uniformed male as worthy of a VC, and even then the George Cross might be given. Thus, demarcating the grounds for giving the George as opposed to the Victoria Cross would test the expertise of a medieval philosopher trained in the arcane art of distinguishing between individual angels. Today the George Cross usually goes to a person in the armed forces who has done something unusually courageous, but not in the presence of the enemy. But, rather like common law, it is all very fluid, and precedents can be made, broken, reset, all according to how much personal influence a much more senior officer might bring to bear on a particular case. If we take one case, that of Petty Officer Tommy Gould and First Lieutenant Peter Roberts, both of whom gained a VC while on patrol off Suva Bay, on the northern coast of Crete, it is evident that they should have been a perfect fit for the George rather than the Victoria Cross.

  On 16 February 1942 Gould and Roberts were serving on the submarine Thrasher, which torpedoed and sank a 3,500-ton Axis supply ship. Five enemy anti-submarine escorts dropped some very accurately placed depth charges, but Thrasher miraculously survived.19 The following evening, when the anti-submarine escorts had given up the hunt, Thrasher surfaced and an inspection for damage to its hull was conducted. An unexploded depth charge was found in the casing – the metal structure on top of the sub’s main hull – in front of Thrasher’s four-inch-gun mounting. Roberts and Gould volunteered to go on deck and remove the explosive, which might have blown not just them but the entire crew to smithereens. In darkness, they crawled along the narrow gap between the casing and the hull, located the bomb, and then hauled it twenty feet to the bow, where they gently eased it overboard. They then discovered lying on the hull another depth charge, which had penetrated the casing and was stuck firm. It was impossible to pull the depth charge back up through the hole in the casing, so the two men lowered themselves through a metal grille and wriggled on their stomachs towards it. Lying on his back, Gould gripped the depth charge while Roberts dragged him by his shoulders back towards the metal grille. They pulled the depth charge through the grille, wrapped it in a sack, and pushed this second bomb, weighing about 300 kilos, over the bow. The whole nail-biting exercise lasted around an hour. The two sailors had voluntarily put their lives at risk: from the depth charges, which might have exploded, and from possible drowning – Thrasher’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Hugh Mackenzie, was constantly on watch for enemy surface vessels and aircraft, and would have dived had any been spotted. Gould and Roberts modestly dismissed what they had done, both at the time and subsequently, and Mackenzie’s patrol report limited itself to praising their ‘excellent conduct’.

  That they deserved something was obvious; but what? A George Cross perhaps, as Thrasher was far from ‘the presence of the enemy’ when Roberts and Gould did their brave deed? On the other hand, they were uniformed, and the George Cross was widely (if mistakenly) regarded then as the civilian’s VC. Perhaps an (officers only) Distinguished Service Cross to Roberts, and a Distinguished Service Medal (for naval ratings) to Gould? In the new era, when determined killing and/or inspirational leadership was required to gain the VC, surely not that? Yet on 9 June 1942 they were both gazetted with the VC, the citation helpfully quashing any lingering doubts about the enemy’s proximity by stating that ‘Thrasher’s presence was known to the enemy; she was close to the enemy coast, and in waters where his patrols were known to be active day and night’.20 Thrasher’s presence might have been suspected by the enemy; her precise whereabouts were obviously a mystery. This was playing fast and loose and made a nonsense of the terms of the VC’s statutes.

  Immediately after Roberts’ and Gould’s VC citation in the London Gazette appeared a citation for George Patrick McDowell, acting yeoman of signals, and Leading Seaman Cyril Hambly, both of HMS Kandahar, a destroyer that hit a mine and was scuttled as it was sailing to Tripoli to intercept an Italian convoy. McDowell and Hambly swam across to a destroyer that came to the rescue. Unfortunately the rough seas prevented it closing right up next to Kandahar; Hambly and McDowell could have been rescued but chose to stay in the water to help others who were either drowning or in danger of it. According to their citation, they ‘saved many men, until they lost all their strength and were drowned’. Hambly and McDowell received posthumous Albert Medals, a rarer but less acclaimed decoration than either the VC or the GC.

  McDowell and Hambly lacked something that Gould and Roberts, unbeknown to them, possessed, the extra ingredient necessary for many VCs: a champion – in Gould and Roberts’s case Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. In 1942 Cunningham was fifty-nine, had seen action as part of the Naval Brigade in the Second Anglo-Boer War, and gained the DSO and two bars during the First World War. He had a deserved reputation as an aggressive and successful senior naval officer. The Admiralty Board thought very highly of Cunningham, as did Churchill. Thus when Cunningham read Lieutenant Mackenzie’s report of events on board Thrasher and dig
ested the cool nerve shown by Roberts and Gould – as they moved the second depth charge, it kept making a disconcerting twanging sound – he did not hesitate to recommend both for the VC; he was confident that opposition, if raised, would be overcome. Removing two large enemy bombs from a submarine adjacent to the enemy’s coastline in his view constituted more than enough enemy presence.21 Cunningham got his way. Brave though they were, Gould and Roberts did no more than many bomb-disposal experts daily faced in Britain, for which some – if they were blown up and died – received a GC. In one respect Cunningham simply interpreted the VC and GC warrants more strictly than anyone else; after all, the third clause of the George Cross warrant simply said that it was ‘intended primarily for civilians’.22 Gould and Roberts were not civilians; they displayed considerable courage; ergo they deserved the VC.

  Other submariners could do equally astonishing things, yet go almost unnoticed, or at least grudgingly rewarded. Twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Henty Henty-Creer, an Australian of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), was the commanding officer of a group of six X-class midget submarines that were involved in ‘Operation Source’, in which the German battleships Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Lützow were to be attacked in a Norwegian fjord on 22 September 1943. The midget subs were towed by conventional submarines close to the area; X-9 was lost with all hands when her tow snapped, while X-8 had to be scuttled when leaks in the explosives meant they had to be jettisoned. The remaining four midget subs travelled fifty miles up the fjord, through minefields and past patrol boats, to reach the German vessels; X-10 then abandoned the mission when it found that Scharnhorst was missing. Three – X-5, Henty-Creer’s boat, X-6 and X-7 – were to place explosive charges underneath the Tirpitz, then lying at anchor in the heavily defended fjord. X-6 was commanded by Lieutenant Donald Cameron, RNVR, and X-7 by Lieutenant Godfrey Place, Royal Navy. Both successfully deposited their explosives, but they were spotted, attacked, and Cameron and Place captured. X-5 disappeared and was never seen again, possibly sunk by a shell from one of Tirpitz’s four-inch guns. At slightly after 8 a.m. the midget subs’ charges exploded; Tirpitz was lifted out of the water and smashed back onto it, coming to rest with a slight list to port. Electronic and fire-control systems were seriously damaged, and all auxiliary machinery either thrown off its housings or damaged internally. Tirpitz was out of service for seven months, before being finally destroyed by a Lancaster bomber raid on 12 November 1944.

  For this action Place and Cameron received Victoria Crosses, while three others gained the DSO and another the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal; even the commander of the X-8, which had to abort its mission, was appointed a Member of the British Empire. For Henty-Creer, who was never seen again, there was merely a Mention in Despatches. There is no conclusive evidence that Henty-Creer’s X-5 laid its explosive charge and deliberately attacked Tirpitz; equally, in the confusion it is possible that one of the explosions resulted from the charge carried by X-5. According to the harsh standards usually implemented during the Second World War, VCs were only for demonstrable winners; merely to have shown courage by participating in, even leading, such a difficult mission to attack something of such vital importance as a German battleship was not enough. ‘True’ leadership was successful leadership; disappearing without trace was not leadership.

  This necessity of setting an example was laid out in a memo distributed by a senior commander of the Canadian army. In April 1943 Guy Simonds was promoted to major general and appointed GOC (General Officer Commanding), 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. Although Simonds had never been under fire and would not be so until July 1943, he had enjoyed a meteoric rise from major to major general in three-and-a-half years. In the spring of 1943 Simonds, chief of staff of the First Canadian Army, clashed with Lieutenant General Andrew McNaughton, the army’s GOC, over the army’s organization, and was shunted off on attachment with the 8th Army in Tunisia, under the wing of the already upwardly mobile General Bernard Montgomery. Aggressive, prickly and determined – like his new mentor – at forty, Simonds was precisely the kind of young officer Montgomery prized. In 1944 Montgomery confided to his diary that the ‘only really good general in the Canadian forces is Simmonds [sic]’, a verdict he conveyed in a letter to Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke on 14 July 1944:

  the Canadian senior commanders are not good. They have some good officers; but their top commanders are bad judges of men – and Harry Crerar is no exception, and does not know what a good soldier should be. The great exception is Simmonds [sic]; he is far and away the best general they have; he is the equal of any British Corps Commander.23

  In October 1943 Simonds issued to the 1st Canadian Division, then fighting its way up the Italian peninsula, a directive that defined what was expected of soldiers if they were to be considered for honours and awards. This directive, which would have had Monty’s approval, would ‘provide the basis upon which I will scrutinise all recommendations when passing for consideration by higher authority’. In this document, apparently written without reference to the VC statutes, Simonds said that a ‘proper’ allocation of military decorations should:

  (a) give recognition to exceptional acts, or duties performed with outstanding ability, or recognition of exacting duties performed unfailingly during a difficult or long period;

  (b) encourage aggressiveness and skill and the offensive spirit;

  (c) discourage foolishness or the unnecessary and useless risk of lives and equipment. I look to every Commander and Commanding Officer to strictly discourage any forms of ‘medal hunting’;

  To ram the point home, Simonds stated that

  except in the most extraordinary circumstances, acts of gallantry NOT directly contributing to damage to the enemy (such as rescuing of our own personnel, salvage of equipment, extricating a unit or sub-unit from a difficult position) will NOT be considered for these awards even if performed in the presence of the enemy and under fire . . . In the case of the V.C. the act must be so outstanding as to provide an example to the Army for all time and its effect in damage to the enemy and furtherance of operations must be marked beyond question and of the first importance.24

  This went far beyond anything stipulated in the VC warrant or indeed in regulations regarding lesser decorations. Noticeably, it made no mention of the elective peer principle. There was to be no tolerance of the kind of easy-come, easy-go attitudes of the past. Officers and men were clearly not to be trusted to exercise the ‘right’ kind of judgement; the idea that they might select representatives from their own number for a VC recommendation was ignored. Simonds, and above him, Monty, was the new Cerberus standing at the entrance; only the truly deserving would get past to secure a VC.

  That the army, Royal Navy and RAF operated with different criteria in the recognition of supreme, VC-meriting gallantry during the Second World War is evident. Partly it was a matter of opportunity, partly a matter of assumptions about what the VC was for, and part a matter of perceived usefulness. If the definition of a VC-winning act was to be not only supererogatory courage but doing lasting damage to the enemy – and all that in front of your comrades in arms in order that they might be inspired by your example – then the navy and air force generally lacked the opportunity to perform such deeds, or to offer up candidates for the VC.

  But puzzles remain. It is remarkable to recall that, for all the public fuss made at the time and since about the Battle of Britain, only one RAF fighter pilot gained a VC throughout the whole war. Of the twenty-two VCs that went to aircrew, nineteen went to Bomber Command, with two to members of Coastal Command. The single VC to a fighter pilot went to James Nicholson, a twenty-three-year-old flight lieutenant with 249 Squadron. On 16 August 1940 Nicholson’s Hurricane was bounced by a Messerschmitt 110 over Southampton. Nicholson was injured in a foot and one eye, and his Hurricane’s fuel tank was set alight. He struggled to bail out of his blazing aircraft, but he spotted another Messerschmitt, fired on it and shot it down, and then bailed out of his plane and land
ed safely. For all the many valiant RAF fighter pilots who in summer and autumn of 1940 flew innumerable missions to fend off the planned invasion of Britain, Nicholson remained the sole and, it must be said, rather odd VC. It was not that he did not deserve a VC, but the type of action he gained it for would become relatively commonplace as the war went on. That more fighter pilots were not awarded VCs reflects the balance of power at the highest level of the RAF, and the way the VC came to be massaged to fit the offensive spirit. By early 1942 Bomber Command was in the RAF driving seat, thanks in part to the dominating personality of Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, who took over as commander-in-chief of Bomber Command on 22 February 1942. Of the nineteen Bomber Command VCs, twelve date from after Harris took over. Fighter pilots – even publicly acknowledged and acclaimed aces such as James ‘Johnny’ Johnson, who survived the war and ended with thirty-four confirmed kills – often displayed enormous courage over (in Johnson’s case) years of combat, yet did not apparently merit a VC; Johnson gained a DSO and a DFC. ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,’ intoned Churchill in Parliament on 20 August 1940; and never was the VC so sparsely awarded as in the case of RAF Fighter Command between 1939 and 1945.

  What was required in the RAF to qualify for VC consideration was an offensive coup of which great propaganda could be made – and to which the VC could be pinned – such as the ‘Dambuster’ raid of 16–17 May 1943, for which the undoubtedly brave and highly skilled Wing Commander Guy Gibson, who by that date had completed 170 sorties, received his VC. This raid was, however, enormously costly, and its strategic usefulness debatable; fifty-three of the 133 aircrew were killed, and by the end of June electricity generation in the region of Germany attacked by the RAF was back to full strength. Of the eighty survivors, thirty-four were decorated,25 with five DSOs, ten DFCs and four bars, two CGMs and eleven DFMs and one bar. Ruthlessness, leadership and determination became the stepping stones towards a VC; the opportunity of a demonstrable propaganda success was not always necessary, but it could tip the balance in favour of the highest decoration.