196 AWARDED FOR VALOUR
the heroism displayed by the winners. Each of the ‘quick’ RAF winners
displayed extreme valour and courage. In some instances, such as with the
sixth of the quick winners, it was nothing less than phenomenal:
The sergeant [James Allen Ward, Royal New Zealand AF] crawled out
through a narrow astro-hatch, scrambled onto the back of the starboard
engine which was alight, and smothered the flames with an engine cover.
His crawl back over the wing in which he had previously torn hand
and foot-holes, was more dangerous than the outward journey, but he
managed it with the help of the aircraft’s navigator. The bomber was
eventually landed safely.^36
Unfortunately, Ward did not live to receive the Cross he won the night of
7 July 1941. He died in a raid on Hamburg ten weeks later, before the
official award ceremony.^37
The RAF was not the only service that generated VCs for political or
doctrinal purposes. A case can also be made for operations centered on
German heavy warships. In August 1940 Churchill categorizedScharnhorst,
Gneisenau,Bismarck, andTirpitzas ‘targets of supreme consequence’ in a memo
to the RAF.^38 The emphasis on the cruisers intensified after the costly
destruction ofBismarckon 27 May 1941 through a combination of surface
and air action.^39
German success on the Continent had given theKriegsmarineaccess to a
variety of Atlantic ports. During the last seven months of 1940 U-boats,
aircraft, and surface raiders sank an average of 450,000 tons per month,
losses the British Merchant Marine could not afford. It only got worse in
1941, with totals topping a half million tons sunk in both March and April.^40
Such losses prompted Churchill to declare that the ‘Battle of the Atlantic’
had begun in a directive issued on 6 March 1941.^41 Although most of the
losses came from U-boat action, the very visible German cruisers stationed
in French ports loomed large in the public mind. In the spring and summer
of 1941 the Admiralty rated the surface raiders as a greater threat to British
survival than the U-boat menace.^42
A protracted naval stalemate developed in 1941, with the German heavies
lurking in Brest and other Atlantic ports and both the Royal Navy and Royal
Air Force unable to inflict any serious damage on them. Churchill’s directive
had in part refocused RAF efforts on pounding these ships.^43 By 7 July
over 1400 sorties had flown against them. Flying Officer Kenneth Campbell
managed to hitGneisenauwith a torpedo on the night of 4/5 April 1941, at
the cost of his life, aircraft, and crew.^44 A subsequent raid on 10/11 April
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