victoria cross - biographies

Episode 1: The Modern Age - Read more about the men featured in "The Modern Age". You can also see extended video interviews with them on the interview page.

Episode 1: The Modern Age

Johnson Gideon Beharry VC, of the 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment who, on 18 March 2005, was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration for valour in the British and Commonwealth armed forces, for twice saving members of his unit from ambushes on 1 May and 11 June 2004 at Al-Amarah, Iraq. He sustained serious head injuries on the 11th May. Beharry was formally invested with the Victoria Cross by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 27 April 2005.

Keith Payne VC, is an Australian, who has received the Victoria Cross for acts performed while serving with the Australian Army during the Vietnam War. Payne's citation stated that on 24 May 1969 at Ben Het in Kon Tum Province, Vietnam, he showed outstanding courage and leadership in saving the lives of many of the soldiers under his command, leading his men to safety under most difficult circumstances after an attack by the enemy in superior strength.

Ram Bahadur Limbu VC, from Nepal, received the Victoria Cross for acts performed while serving with the 10 Princess Mary's OGR during the Borneo Camapaign.

William Speakman VC is an English recipient of the Victoria Cross. He was 24 years old, and a private in The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), British Army, attached to the 1st Battalion, King's Own Scottish Borderers during the Korean War when the following deed took place at United Hill, for which he was awarded the VC. On 4 November 1951 in Korea, Private Speakman, on his own initiative, collected six men and a pile of grenades and led a series of charges. He broke up several enemy attacks. He kept the enemy at bay long enough to enable his company to withdraw safely.

Havildar Lachhiman Gurung VC (b. 30 December 1917) is a Nepalese recipient of the Victoria Cross. He was 27 years old, and a Rifleman in the 4th Battalion of The 8th Gurkha Rifles, Indian Army during the Second World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC. On 12 May-13 May 1945 at Taungdaw, Burma (now Myanmar), Rifleman Lachhiman Gurung was manning the most forward post of his platoon which bore the brunt of an attack by at least 200 of the enemy. His two comrades were badly wounded, but the rifleman, now alone and disregarding his wounds, loaded and fired his rifle with his left hand for four hours.

Episode 2: The Great War - Read more about the brave men who won VC's in The First World War

Episode 2: The Great War

This second programme tells the stories of some of these First World War heroes. The first two medals were awarded with the British Army’s first taste of action, three weeks into the war.

Members of the 4th Batallion, Royal Fusiliers were setting up defences on a bridge at Mons, Belgium, when the German artillery opened fire, followed by a general advance. Lieutenant Maurice Dease and his men were outnumbered, yet held their position to the last. Dease, although seriously injured, stayed on the bridge to encourage his men until he was eventually killed.

One by one the defenders were killed or wounded until just one man was left. Private Sidney Godley, a 25-year-old former ironmonger from south London, manned his Vickers machine gun and single-handedly held off the German advance for two hours, allowing many of his colleagues to retreat to safety. Eventually he was captured, and spent the rest of the war as a PoW, but as a last act of defiance smashed the machine gun and threw it into the canal to prevent it being used against his comrades. Godley’s VC was announced in November, 1914 along with that of Maurice Dease.

As with all medal recipients, the stories of their courage were told in the London Gazette. Another of the Great War VC recipients, Lt John ‘Jackie’ Smyth of the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs, was known personally by Prince Charles, who says: “Asked what sort of person won the VC, [Smyth] replied: ‘Any sort, because courage is an unpredictable thing. No-one knows quite how much they have or quite how much it will enable them to do’.”

In France, in May 1915, a mix of Smyth’s Sikhs and some Highlanders had captured a section of German trench, but were hard pressed by counterattacking Germans and were running low on ammunition. Asked to take supplies to the men, across 300 yards of bullet-riddled no-man’s land, Smyth admitted to being “in an absolute blue funk”, but when he called for volunteers, all his Sikhs stepped forward. He recalls inching across the open field: “The corpses gave us our only cover, along with the smoke from the shells landing around us.” His ten men were all killed or wounded, the last just as they reached the forward trench with the meagre supplies they had dragged with them. All were awarded the Indian Order of Merit, and Smyth got the VC. To his dying day he complained that his should have been the lesser award and theirs the greater.

Among the other tales of tragic heroism featured tonight is that of John ‘Jack’ Cornwell, who signed up with the Navy as soon as he turned 15 and was critically wounded in the opening salvos of the Battle of Jutland. The rest of his team on the cruiser HMS Chester were killed, but he stayed at his post awaiting further orders. He survived the journey back to Britain, but died of his wounds and was buried near his Essex home with no gravestone.

The programme also touches on a VC won not in the heat of action but in a cruel accident. On 1 July, 1916, Britain prepared its major offensive at the Somme. On the first day of the battle alone 60,000 British troops were killed as they advanced across the tangled ruin of no-man’s land. One man didn’t even get that far. In the 14th Batallion, Royal Irish Rifles, 20-year-old Private Billy McFadzean accidentally dropped a grenade. In the crowded trench there was nowhere to hide from the inevitable blast. McFadzean threw himself onto the grenade, sacrificing himself to avoid greater carnage among his fellows. In the horrors of that first day of the battle, no fewer than nine VCs would be awarded. Billy McFadzean’s was the first.

Episode 3: The Empire - Read more about the brave men who inspired the VC's creation

Episode 3: The Empire

In the final instalment, Prince Charles introduces the story of how the VC was born in battle as British and French troops besieged the Russian port of Sebastopol during the Crimean War.

“Previous gallantry awards had only been available to officers,” he says. “The Victoria Cross was something new and different – it was democratic.” The Crimean was the first war to be fully covered by the press, and the British public thrilled to tales of gallantry.

Both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert took a keen interest in the idea of the new medal, and it was the Queen herself who decided on the motto: For Valour.

Tonight’s programme is threaded through with the tale of two Royal Navy midshipmen: Henry Wood and Edward Daniel. At Sebastopol in October 1854 they were boys serving the onshore naval guns bombarding the town. When their captain, William Peel (son of Robert Peel), was injured, Daniel rescued him from the field. Peel and Daniel were both awarded VCs, but Wood, who fought on, missed out.

Later, during the Indian Mutiny in 1857, Peel and Daniel were again in action, besieging Lucknow. But there tragedy struck when Peel was wounded and died of smallpox. Daniel was distraught, his career fell apart, and on his way to a court martial for an unspecified offence (rumours range from sodomy to murder) he disappeared. He was stripped of his VC in his absence.

Wood, meanwhile, had joined the cavalry. He missed most of the action during the mutiny but during the ‘mopping-up’ afterwards he saved the life of an army informant, killing and routing several rebels who were about to hang the man. Wood finally received his VC for what he declared was one of his “lesser acts of bravery”.

Other stories tonight include those of William Rayner and John Buckley, who with a handful of others defended the Red Fort in Delhi against the Indian insurgents. When the position became hopeless, they decided to blow up the arsenal, destroying the castle and killing hundreds of rebels. Miraculously the two men survived the blast. At 61, Rayner was the oldest ever recipient of the VC.

At Lucknow, where Peel’s gunners had been picked off by the city defenders, able seaman William Hall volunteered to operate a cannon by himself – usually the task of six men. He braved enemy snipers for over an hour until he forced a breach in the city wall, allowing it to be captured. The son of escaped slaves, Hall was the first black recipient of the VC.

With the growth of the British Empire, her armies were always needed. In Africa, where Wood served as a major, rising to lieutenant colonel, one of the most famous incidents in the medal’s history took place in January 1879. After the battle of Isandlwana, where a British force of 1,500 men was wiped out by 4,000 Zulus, the tribesmen moved on to attack the mission hospital and supply station at Rorke’s Drift. Aside from the patients, the station was manned by only around 120 men of B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment – a detachment with little or no combat experience under the command of Lieutenant John Chard, who had been given this ‘safe’ job because he was considered a mediocre officer. Over the next few hours, Chard and ten others would win the VC for repulsing repeated charges by the Zulus throughout the day and night. By dawn, the tribesmen had disappeared, leaving 400 dead around the compound. Just 15 British soldiers died that day, with two more succumbing to their wounds.