CONCLUSION: THE NEW HERO IN ACTION, 1940–2006 199
In a confidential communique to President Roosevelt, Churchill pointed
out that it was probably to the Allied advantage to have the German ships
concentrated in northern ports as it limited their deployment options. The
public mood of the day was succinctly summed up by the prime minister,
however: ‘it looked very bad at the time to everyone in the Grand Alliance
outside our most secret circles.’^62 In fact, bothScharnhorstandGneisenauhad
suffered damage from air-dropped mines during the dash. Churchill knew
this through an Ultra intercept ofKriegsmarinesignals, but was unable to
release this information for public consumption without revealing that he
was reading German communiques.^63
In the midst of a potential ministerial crisis, the government badly needed
some abstract good news for official report to the Commons. The failure
to destroy any of the ships as they lay in port was embarrassing. Allowing
them to escape by running up the Channel was unacceptable. Lieutenant
Commander Esmonde was gazetted a VC on 3 March 1942, just 19 days after
dying while failing to inflict any damage on the enemy. This is a suspiciously
short lag time, and well off the 90-day median average. Also well off the
median was Flying Officer Kenneth Campbell, who had damagedGneisenau
in April of the previous year. Ten days after Esmonde’s award he received
a posthumous VC on 13 March 1942, 341 days after the act.^64 The only
two individuals who could be singled out as having inflicted any damage
or had at least died trying to do so were gazetted as heroes.^65 Thus, an
incident that was politically embarrassing had been sheathed with a veneer
of glory.
It was an unspoken argument. Churchill did not specifically mention the
two Cross winners in any subsequent address on the subject. The basic
question was whether or not the ministry had failed in its duty in allowing
the ships’ escape. Had the maximum effort been put into effect? The blood
of the courageous lent an aura of glory to failure. Dead heroes meant
that every effort had been made to strike a blow at the enemy. While the
circumstances surrounding the recognition of the acts do not lessen their
heroism, it is obvious that, given the lack of similar recognition for similar
action against similar targets, had there not been a political need these acts
would not have won the Victoria Cross.
The pattern established on the Western Front and confirmed in the Second
World War has remained true to the end of the century. Eleven Victoria
Crosses were granted between the end of the Second World War and the
end of the century, some in connection with United Nations obligations,
some to Dominion forces in a conflict entirely divorced from the mother
country, and some resulting from the last gasps of imperial bravado. In each
lily
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