THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF MODERN HEROISM 173
Sergeant John Carmichael’s squad mates would have disagreed with him:
We were on Hill 60, digging a communication trench, and I was detailed
off with a party of men to get it done quick. I was supervising the job. We
had men working in the trench and men working outside of it as well.
One of the chaps was deepening the trench when his spade struck an unex-
ploded grenade, just lodged there in the side of this trench, and it started
to fizz. I was an instructor in bombing, so, knowing a bit about explos-
ives, I knew that there would be seven seconds before it went off unless I
did something. I couldn’t throw it out, because there were men working
outside the trench as well as the blokes in it. So I shouted at them to get
clear and I had some idea of smothering it, to get the thing covered, keep it
down until they were out of range. All I had was my steel helmet. So I took
it off my head, put it over the grenade as it was fizzing away, and stood
on it. It was the only way to do it. There was no thought of bravery or
anything like that. I was there with the men to do the job, and that’s what
mattered.
Well, it did go off. They tell me it blew me right out of the trench,
but I don’t remember that. The next thing I remember was being carried
away. That’s how I got this thing[The Victoria Cross]^28
Carmichael suffered two shattered legs and injuries to his right arm. His
mates escaped unscathed.^29
The chair once again ignored the Army representative and more forcefully
brought the meeting back on track by insisting they stick to the outline of
the commission that convened them. Neither the issue of including women
nor the new guidelines for the official recognition of heroism were settled,
and would be revisited.
The committee managed to resolve the issue of provisional Crosses
bestowed in the field quickly enough. Given the speed of modern commu-
nications, it was no longer necessary to allow that power to the commanding
officer in the field. Colonel Graham maintained that there had never been
an instance in which a VC had been given in such a manner, but there are
actually at least three such incidents: Henry Havelock’s Cross granted by
his own father in the Mutiny, as well as some of the Crosses given for the
storming of the Taku Forts and the disaster at Korn Spruit. Even without
these caveats the danger of abuse of this clause was obvious and it was
dropped from the warrant draft entirely.^30
The question of tightening the regulations appeared again on the next point.
In considering the standardization of the mechanism of recommendation,
lily
(lily)
#1