For Valour: Recipients of the Victoria Cross Quiz

Answer: Baltic Sea

Charles Davis Lucas was born in 1834 in Poyntzpass, a town in County Armagh in Ireland. At the age of 13, he joined the Royal Navy, initially serving aboard the Second Rate Ship of the Line HMS Vengeance. By the time he reached the age of 20, he had reached the grade of "passed midshipman", meaning he was ranked as a midshipman, but had passed the lieutenant's examination and was awaiting the opening of a vacancy for promotion. During this period, he was assigned to the paddlewheel steam sloop HMS Hecla, under the command of Captain William Hutcheon Hall, which was undertaking reconnaissance work in the Baltic Sea as part of British operations during the Crimean War.

On 21 June 1854, HMS Hecla, alongside two other ships, was undertaking a bombardment of a fort on the island of Åland called Bomarsund. During this action, in which the fort was returning fire against the British squadron, a live shell landed on Hecla's deck with its fuse still alight. Although the deck crew were ordered to take cover, Lucas instead ran and grabbed the shell, throwing it into the sea where it exploded before hitting the water. Lucas's action ensured that no member of the ship's company was killed or seriously wounded and saw him immediately promoted to lieutenant by his ship's captain. Eighteen months later, a new decoration for valour was instituted - the Victoria Cross. Backdated to the start of the Crimean War, Lucas's actions aboard HMS Hecla saw him become chronologically the first person to be awarded the new decoration when he received his medal on 24 February 1857.

Answer: Iron Cross

William Manley was born in Dublin in 1831, the second son of the Reverend William Nicholas Manley, while his maternal grandfather was a doctor working as part of the Army Medical Staff. Manley himself became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1851, and joined the British Army in 1854, when he was posted as a surgeon attached to the Royal Artillery in Crimea, seeing action at the Siege of Sevastopol, before his regiment was subsequently posted to New Zealand. It was while in New Zealand that he was awarded the Victoria Cross, when, during the assault on Gate Pā in April 1864, he attempted to say the life of a Royal Navy officer wounded in the battle, before returning to try and locate any remaining injured.

In 1870, Manley was appointed to command B Division of the British Ambulance Corps, which was raised to serve alongside Prussian forces in the Franco-Prussian War that broke out the same year. Attached to the Prussian 22nd Division, Manley saw service in a number of actions during the period, which led to Crown Prince Friedrich, the heir to the Prussian throne, recommending the award of the Iron Cross (Second Class), in addition to a number of other Prussian decorations. Manley eventually retired from the army in 1884, having seen further active service in Afghanistan and Egypt.

Answer: Royal Engineers

John Rouse Merriott Chard was born in Plymouth in December 1847, the second son of William Wheaton Chard and his wife Jane. Having been educated at Cheltenham Grammar School and Plymouth New Grammar School, he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, from where he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers. Having received two years of specialist training, in 1870 Chard was posted to Bermuda, where he spent four years helping to construct the Naval Dockyard fortifications, before a two-year posting to Malta to improve the sea defences, after which he returned to England, joining the Corps' 5th Company.

In December 1878, the 5th Company, Royal Engineers, was posted to Natal to assist in the preparations against the planned invasion of the Zulu Kingdom. After a month at sea, the unit arrived on 5th January 1879 and was immediately set to work, with Chard and a small group of his men being despatched to repair and maintain one of the crossings of the Buffalo River along the border of Natal and the Zulu Kingdom. On 22nd January, Chard's men were withdrawn as they were needed for the invasion column at Isandlwana, while Chard was ordered to return to the nearby mission station at Rorke's Drift, garrisoned by B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Foot. Chard had noted a Zulu army approaching and, on informing the garrison commander at Rorke's Drift, was left in command, as he had seniority over Lt Gonville Bromhead, the garrison's second-in-command.

During the 22nd, a force of as many as 4000 Zulu warriors attacked the mission station, defended by a single infantry company of less than 150. Despite this, the British held out under Chard's command, with the Zulus disappearing by dawn of the following day. Chard was one of eleven men at Rorke's Drift to be awarded the Victoria Cross, which included seven to men of the 24th Foot, the most to be awarded for a single action to one regiment.

Answer: HMS Chester

John Travers Cornwell, usually known as Jack, was born in Leyton in Essex (now part of Greater London) in January 1900. In 1914, both his father Eli and his elder brother volunteered for service in the British Army, while Jack began working as a delivery boy having left school. However, in October 1915, without his father's permission, but with references from both his employer and his old headmaster, he enlisted as a boy sailor in the Royal Navy. Having undertaken basic training at Keyham Naval Barracks, which formed part of Plymouth's training establishment commissioned as HMS Vivid, he subsequently received specialist training as a gun layer and sightsetter, responsible for controlling the elevation of a naval gun and keeping it sighted on its target. Having completed his training, Boy 1st Class Cornwell received his posting and left for Rosyth to join his first ship, the light cruiser HMS Chester, on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916.

Five weeks after Cornwell joined the ship, Chester, having been detached from the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron, was accompanying the 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron in the vanguard of the Grand Fleet during a sortie to intercept the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea. at 17.30 on 31 May, the ship was sent to investigate gunfire when she came under attack from four German light cruisers. Chester's forward 5.5in gun, to whose crew Cornwell was assigned, was hit four times and, because it was an open mounting with only a shield in front, was susceptible to flying shell splinters. These ended up killing the entire gun crew with the exception of Cornwell who, despite receiving a number of serious wounds, got up and stood at his post for almost 15 minutes while the ship remained under fire before withdrawing.

Chester, having received significant damage, withdrew from action and returned to England, where Cornwell was removed to hospital in Grimsby, where he died on 2 June. Having received the report from Captain Robert Lawson of HMS Chester, Cornwell was recommended for a posthumous Victoria Cross, which was presented by the King to Cornwell's mother on 16 November 1916.

Answer: Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2c

William Leefe Robinson was born at Coorg in India in July 1895, the youngest son of Horace Robinson, a coffee farmer, and his wife Elizabeth. Initially educated at Bishop Cotton Boys' School in Bangalore, he moved to the famous Dragon School in Oxford, before following his elder brother to St Bees School in Cumberland in 1909, where he joined the Officer Training Corps. In August 1914, on the outbreak of the First World War, he entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from where he was commissioned into the Worcestershire Regiment the following December. Soon after his commissioning, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), initially as an observer in France, before he underwent pilot training. Having qualified as a pilot, he was posted to No 39 Squadron, an RFC night fighter unit flying the B.E.2 aircraft and assigned to home defence in the UK.

On the night of 2 September 1916, the German Army airship SL.11 departed its base at Spich in the west of Germany on a planned bombing mission, involving a total of 16 airships, of southern England. During that night, Leefe Robinson was on a patrol when he spotted the airship over the village of Cuffley. Although he lost sight of it in cloud, he regained contact and, at an altitude of 11,500ft, made a total of three attacks on the airship's underside using the aircraft's Lewis Gun. After the third attack, the airship exploded and crashed in a field. This was the first time that a fighter aeroplane had been able to shoot down an airship and, in recognition, within two days of the action taking place, he had been awarded the Victoria Cross.

Answer: Battle of Passchendaele

Noel Chavasse was born in November 1884 in Oxford, 20 minutes after his identical twin brother Christopher, to the Reverend Francis Chavasse and his wife Edith. Noel and his brother followed identical educational paths to Magdalen College School in Oxford, and then, when their father became Bishop of Liverpool, Liverpool College, before attending Trinity College, Oxford. Both excelled at sports, and represented Great Britain at the 1908 Olympics, while, having completed his undergraduate degree, Noel remained at Oxford to study medicine, where he also joined the Officer Training Corps. After qualifying in 1912, his first medical placement was to the Royal Southern Hospital in Liverpool, where he remained for a year before joining the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Upon the outbreak of the First World War, Chavasse was the surgeon attached to 1/10th (Scottish) Battalion, the King's (Liverpool) Regiment. His actions on 9 August 1916, during the Battle of Guillemot in France, in which he spent two days, often in view of the enemy, searching for and tending to the wounded, saving the lives of at least twenty men, led to his being awarded the Victoria Cross. Between 31 July and 2 August 1917, Chavasse's battalion was in the area of Wieltje in Belgium during the Battle of Passchendaele where, despite being badly wounded, he carried on working at the dressing station for two days, repeatedly going out under fire to search for more of the wounded. Chavasse eventually died of his wounds on 4 August, with his actions leading to his being awarded a second, posthumous Victoria Cross, in addition to both the Military Cross and Mention in Despatches awarded in 1915.

Answer: Möhne Dam

Guy Gibson was born in August 1918 at Simla in India, where his father was an officer of the Indian Forestry Service. However, when he was six, his parents separated, and he moved back to England with his mother. He attended a number of schools, ending his education at St Edward's School, Oxford. Having finished school, and with a burning desire to learn to fly, in November 1936 he joined the Royal Air Force, beginning his initial training at Bristol Flying School, before moving to RAF Uxbridge to undertake basic training. Gibson was awarded his wings in May 1937, after which he was posted to No 83 Squadron, flying the Hawker Hind, a light bomber biplane. By September 1939, the squadron had converted to the Handley Page Hampden, and Gibson was one of the pilots selected to fly a bombing mission on the first day of the Second World War. He remained with 83 Squadron until November 1940 when, owing to a shortage of night fighter pilots, he was transferred to No 29 Squadron where he remained until April 1942, when he joined No 106 Squadron as a bomber pilot, with the rank of Wing Commander.

In March 1943, at the end of his tour with 106 Squadron, Gibson was selected to form a new squadron for a special mission, which eventually was revealed as a plan to bomb the dams of the Rhur valley. Gibson handpicked the crews for the unit that eventually became No 617 Squadron and, in two months, turned them into a cohesive force to undertake the mission. Taking off in the evening of 16 May 1943, 617 Squadron was sent to attack a number of targets, with the first being the Möhne Dam. Gibson was the first to attack, having made a dummy run, but his bomb was released short and caused no damage. Eventually, after the fourth bomb was dropped onto the dam, it breached. The squadron was also able to breach the Eder Dam. As a result of the action, Gibson was awarded the Victoria Cross, with members of the squadron receiving a further 33 gallantry awards.

Answer: New Zealand

Lloyd Trigg was born in May 1914 in Houhora, a town in the Northland region of New Zealand. Educated at Whangarei Boys' High School, where he served in the school's cadet force, he subsequently went to Auckland University College, before taking up farming in the Victoria Valley in North Auckland, close to the southern end of the Aupouri Peninsula at the northern tip of the country. In addition to working as a farmer, Trigg also served as a non-commissioned officer in the North Auckland Rifles, a regiment of New Zealand's Territorial Force. However, Trigg was also enamoured with the idea of learning to fly, and had thought of the idea of joining the Royal New Zealand Air Force, before marriage and family intervened. However, in June 1941, almost two years after the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined up, completing his pilot training in Canada and receiving his wings in January 1942. Having completed specialist training as a Lockheed Hudson pilot, he was posted to the UK to serve with RAF Coastal Command in October 1942.

Initially serving in West Africa with No 200 Squadron, with whom he received the Distingushed Flying Cross in February 1943, he eventually converted to the new Consolidated Liberator aircraft. On his first operational flight in a Liberator, flying from Yundumn in British Gambia, the German U-boat U-468 was spotted and engaged. Although the U-boat returned fire, inflicting catastrophic damage on the aircraft, Trigg held course and dropped depth charges that caused significant damage to the submarine before the Liberator crashed, killing its entire crew. Although the U-boat sank, some of its crew, including its captain, survived and were rescued by the Royal Navy. The German crew, as the only surviving witnesses, reported the incident, including the bravery of the Liberator pilot, suggesting that he should be honoured for his actions. On 2 November, Trigg was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the only occasion when it has been awarded based on evidence provided by a member of the enemy's forces.

Answer: Malaysian-Indonesian Confrontation

Rambahadur Limbu was born in July 1939 in Chyangthapu, a village in the Tehrathum District of eastern Nepal. As with many young Nepalese Gurkha men, at the age of 18 he sought to enlist in one of the regiments of Gurkhas of the British Army, and successfully joined up, being posted to the 2nd Battalion, 10th Princess Mary's Own Gurkha Rifles. At the time, Gurkha regiments of the British Army were generally deployed in the Far East, with the Brigade of Gurkhas heavily involved in various insurgencies in Malaya and the surrounding region. One of these major confrontations began when, in September 1963, the independent nation of Malaya united with the British colonies of North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore to create the modern nation of Malaysia, an action opposed by neighbouring Indonesia, which sought to prevent it using military force. Rambahadur Limbu's battalion was one of those that was posted to the area in an effort to prevent the overthrown of the new Malaysia.

On 21 November 1965, Limbu, then a Lance-Corporal, was part of an advance party of around 16 men from his battalion on a patrol in Sarawak, when they encountered a force of Indonesians estimated to be 30 strong holding a position at the top of a hill. Limbu took two men forward to reconnoitre, but were opened fire upon by a sentry. Limbu used a grenade to deal with the sentry, during which the rest of the Indonesian force opened fire, wounding both of Limbu's companions. Limbu was able to get both of them to safety, before returning to the area with his section's Bren light machine gun, single-handedly charging and killing a number of the enemy. For this he was awarded the Victoria Cross, the first to be awarded since November 1951, and the last awarded to a soldier of the British Army until 1982.

Answer: The Devonshire and Dorset Regiment

Herbert 'H' Jones was born in May 1940 in Putney, the eldest son of the artist Herbert Jones and his wife Olwen. Educated first at St Peter's Preparatory School in Sussex, followed by Eton College, upon leaving school he immediately entered the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, where, at the end of his training in July 1960, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment. During the first decade of his career, he served in a range of locations, including Cyprus, Northern Ireland and Germany, earning promotion to Lieutenant in 1962, Captain in 1966, and Major in 1972. His promotion to Major saw him appointed as Brigade Major of 3 Infantry Brigade during his service in Northern Ireland and was responsible for the efforts to find Captain Robert Nairac, an officer of the Grenadier Guards, who was abducted by the Provisional IRA in May 1977. In June 1979, he had been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and in December transferred to The Parachute Regiment.

In March 1982, Jones, at that time the commanding officer of 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment (2 PARA), was preparing his men for deployment to Belize, when they were instead ordered to join 3 Commando Brigade as part of the initial landing force earmarked to retake the Falkland Islands following their invasion and capture by Argentina. Landed on 21 May, Jones's battalion remained at the beachhead for a week, until, in an effort to get British forces on the move, they were ordered to attack and retake the settlement of Goose Green. Although the attack began at 3.35 am on 28 May, by 7.30am it had badly stalled. As a means of regaining the initiative, Jones himself led a small party in a charge up a gully. Having attacked a trench alone and been hit once, he got up to continue before being mortally wounded just metres from his objective. After the death of their commanding officer, 2 PARA gained an upper hand and eventually succeeded in recapturing the settlement, against an Argentine force of twice their number. For his action, Jones became the first of two members of The Parachute Regiment to be awarded posthumous Victoria Crosses during the Falklands conflict.