FIVE

Fifty Years On: A Half-Century of

Heroism

T

he last pre-First World War Victoria Cross was granted in 1904. Thus
it is a convenient point, 50 years after the first decoration was won, to
examine the statistical trends that evolved in that half-century. Since
its creation 521 Crosses had been confirmed by the Crown, enough for a
viable statistical universe. For our purposes what is critical are the trends in
the types of acts that were winning the VC, the ‘cost of courage’ in terms of
casualties amongst those identified as heroes, and the pattern of distribution
of the award throughout the ranks of the military.
The acts winning awards can be divided into four broad categories, two of
which bear further subdivision. For the most part, aggressive ‘war-winning’
acts garnered the lion’s share of Victoria Crosses, slightly over 52 percent
of the Victorian total. This aspect of courage needs to be differentiated,
however, into subcategories. Obviously offensive actions figure into this
category, acts that were intended to gain ground, capture a strong point, or
break an enemy formation. War-winning can also include acts defending
territory, holding a fortification, or in general resisting an enemy attack.
In a less concrete sense, certain acts that contributed to victory carried a
high symbolic value for the rank and file. Examples of this include rallying
troops under fire, saving one’s own artillery from capture, or in turn,
capturing the enemy’s guns. The fourth subcategory deals with acts that
‘pave the way’ to victory in a secondary sense, through combat engineering,
reconnaissance, or resupply. Thus, there are four categories for combat
service: War-Winning, Offensive; War-Winning, Defensive; War-Winning,
Symbolic; and War-Winning, Secondary.
War-winning was followed closely and sometimes surpassed by ‘Human-
itarian’ valour. Life-saving also bears breaking down, in this case into acts
saving enlisted personnel and acts saving the lives of officers. This category
also includes disposing live ordnance – shells and grenades – the explosion
of which would have caused casualties.
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