Victoria's Cross (36 page)

While men won medals for working on at the bench with broken thumbs, soldiers with legs and arms blown off were forced to recognise that valour is its own reward. To stay at one's post in the Ypres Salient was the least that could be expected of a man; to stay at a switchboard during a Zeppelin raid on London merited a decoration.

65
.
The Medal of the Order of the British Empire was invented at the same time. In 1922 it was split into two: the Medal of the Order of the British Empire for Gallantry, usually known as the Empire Gallantry Medal (EGM); and the Medal of the Order of the British Empire for Meritorious Service, usually called the British Empire Medal. The EGM was awarded for acts of gallantry that failed to reach the standard required for the Albert and Edward Medals. In 1940 it was replaced by the George Cross.

66
.
NA WO 32/3443. The merchant navy's case for being eligible for the VC focused on the merchant ship SS
Otaki
, a ‘Q' ship, a disguised, heavily armed merchant vessel designed to lure submarines to the surface and then attack them. Lieutenant Archibald Bisset Smith of the Royal Naval Reserve was in command of the
Otaki
on 10 March 1917 when he sighted a German raider, the
Moewe
. The
Moewe
called on
Otaki
to stop, which Smith refused to do. There then ensued a duel at 2,000 yards, lasting for about twenty minutes. The
Otaki
scored several hits, but she was no match for the superior firepower of the German vessel and soon was ablaze and sinking. Lieutenant Smith ordered the lifeboats to be lowered but went down with the
Otaki
when she sank. Smith was not eligible for the VC at the time of his death, although, according to Admiral Everett at the 8 August 1918 meeting,

everybody agreed at the Admiralty that it was a case for the V.C. but at that particular time one hesitated about taking any action in view of what the Germans might do by regarding everybody as combatants and shooting them at sight. However, as you will see by these papers next you, Sir, that situation now is quite clear and the Germans do regard everybody as a foe, however they are dressed or whatever they are doing.

 
Everett pointed out to Ponsonby that the king had not yet approved the VC for the merchant navy. Ponsonby replied: ‘the King said he approved of all decorations which could be given by the Navy, that is the V.C, the C.B, the D.S.O, in fact all of them being given to the Mercantile Marine. This debate on the merchant navy narrowly avoided a blunder that would have had future consequences: Ponsonby had proposed that the revised warrant should read ‘it is Our will and pleasure that the officers and men of Our mercantile Marine shall during the present war be eligible' for the VC, but fortunately Everett suggested leaving out ‘“during the present war” because we may have a future one'. Smith's gallant action took place on 10 March 1917; he was finally gazetted VC more than two years later, on 24 April 1919.

67
.
The discussion that follows is based on National Archives file WO 32/3443.

68
.
Everett was subsequently appointed commander-in-chief, China Station, in November 1924, but he suffered a breakdown in April 1925 and was relieved of his command.

69
.
None of the committee possessed a VC; the highest gallantry award between them was a Military Cross. The other committee members were Colonel M. D. Graham, Military Secretary at the War Office, representing the army; Colonel More spoke for the Air Ministry; S. D. Gordon for the India Office; Everett represented the navy; Lieutenant Colonel A. E. Beatie and Mr H. C. M. Lambert represented the Colonial Office. Mr R. U. Morgan of the War Office acted as Secretary; minutes of the meeting were taken by a civilian clerk.

70
.
Melvin Charles Smith,
Awarded for Valour
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 138, 160–1.

71
.
Lord Southborough,
The Living Age
, 14 October 1922. The two-year-long inquiry cost the grand total of £1,113 17s 1d. The committee's full report is available in an edition from the Imperial War Museum, 2004.

72
.
Daily Telegraph
, Monday, 28 June 1920.

73
.
Daily Telegraph
, ibid.

74
.
Probyn's VC was bought at auction in 2005 by an anonymous bidder for £160,000. Myth has it that Probyn's long white beard hid the VC on his left breast, but contemporary cinema footage shows this to be untrue.

75
.
www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/30400/supplements/12329
.

CHAPTER
5 Go Home and Sit Still

  
1
.
Hew Strachan,
The Politics of the British Army
(Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 1.

  
2
.
Anthony Eden,
Another World, 1897–1917
(Allen Lane, 1976), pp. 131–2.

  
3
.
Lucy Noakes,
Women in the British Army
(Routledge, 2006), p. 81. One Englishwoman did officially serve in uniform in a combat role during the 1914–18 war, with a rank equivalent to sergeant major, but in the Serbian, not the British, army. Flora Sandes, who died in 1956, was born in Yorkshire. When the war started she joined a St John Ambulance unit that travelled to Serbia, where she joined up, and was wounded by a
grenade in close combat. She received Serbia's highest military decoration, the Order of the Star of Kara
ƌ
or
ƌ
e.

  
4
.
The Times
, 4 May 1891, p. 5.

  
5
.
The Times
, 15 April 1891, p. 5.

  
6
.
The Times
, 8 June 1891, p. 9.

  
7
.
Queen Victoria had instituted the Royal Red Cross in 1883, the first British military order solely for women. Ethel was also awarded a life pension of £140 by the government, with an additional £1,000 for ‘exceptional services' – this on top of her regular Bengal civil service pension and compensation for the property she had lost in the destruction of the residency. She later remarried unhappily and died, insolvent, in an American sanatorium, from ‘toxic psychosis'.

  
8
.
The Times
, 12 June 1891, p. 10.

  
9
.
The Times
, 29 April 1891, p. 10.

10
.
As late as 1894 Ethel was still fighting to quash these rumours. In
The Graphic
on 10 February 1894 she promised a reward for information enabling her to take proceedings against the originators of ‘certain false and slanderous reports'.

11
.
On 31 March, Grant captured Thobal, about fifteen miles from Manipur, where he dug in. Next day, around 1,000 Manipuri troops attacked Thobal; for the next nine days Grant's tiny force repulsed repeated attacks. On 9 April he received orders to withdraw towards a British force, then advancing towards Manipur. Twice wounded, Lieutenant Grant joined the large British force which entered Manipur on 26 April and put down the rebellion. All seventy-nine survivors of Grant's force received the Indian Order of Merit, then the highest possible decoration for native members of the British Indian Army. There is no question that Grant deserved his VC.

12
.
In Manipur, the anniversary of the execution of Tikendrajit and his general Thangal, 13 August, is celebrated as Patriots' Day.

13
.
Ethel Grimwood (1867–1928) published in November 1891
My Three Years in Manipur
(Richard Bentley & Son, 1891); it became an immediate bestseller. In its review,
The Times
(16 November 1891) called it a ‘melancholy tale [which] notwithstanding the heroism incidentally displayed,
notably by Mrs Grimwood herself, reflects but little credit on those who were responsible for the policy pursued . . . her husband and the other victims of the disaster were sacrificed to a series of blunders'. A day before the mutiny, Ethel had been in despair over the death of a goat she had been fattening up; cattle were sacred and the Grimwoods grew weary of ducks and other game:

There on the ground lay the goat, breathing his last, and with his departing spirit went all my dreams of legs of mutton, chops and cutlets. I sent to the house for bottles of hot beer and quarts of brandy, and I poured gallons of liquid down the creature's throat; but all to no purpose, and after giving one last heartrending groan, he expired at my feet. I could have wept. The pains that had been taken with that goat to make it fat and well-favoured . . . we could not help seeing the funny side of the affair, and ended by laughing very heartily over the sad end to my mutton scheme.

14
.
Noakes, op. cit., p. 62.

15
.
Leah Leneman, ‘Medical Women in the First World War: Ranking Nowhere',
British Medical Journal
, vol. 307, no. 6,919, (18–25 December 1993), pp. 1592–4. Inglis did not sit still but formed the Scottish Women's Suffrage Societies, which sent all-women medical units to various fronts.

16
.
Noakes, op. cit., p. 5.

17
.
Janet S. K. Watson,
Fighting Different Wars
(Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 56.

18
.
Leneman, op. cit. Churchill wrote: ‘the grant of Commissions to medical Women cannot be entertained nor can they be demobilised with commissioned Rank in order to provide a precedent should any future emergency necessitate their employment.'

19
.
www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/29535/supplements/3647
and
www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/29641/pages/6343
.

20
.
The Times
, 28 June 1916.

21
.
The supplementary warrant granting women eligibility for the MM was not signed by Lloyd George, who was a long-standing supporter of women's suffrage and took over as Secretary of State for War on
Kitchener's death, but by Andrew Bonar Law, former Conservative prime minister and then serving as Secretary to the Colonies in the coalition government under Asquith, who, although a Liberal, opposed female suffrage.

22
.
The first five women to receive the MM were Dorothie Feilding, Mabel Mary Tunley, Ethel Hutchinson, Jean Strachan Whyte, Nora Easeby and Beatrice Alice Allsop.

23
.
Irene Ward, DBE, MP,
F.A.N.Y. Invicta
(Hutchinson, 1995), p. 69.

24
.
Since it was created, the George Cross has been awarded 153 times (as of August 2013), often in circumstances that would have merited a VC in the First War. The George Medal has been awarded on more than 2,000 occasions. The GC is replete with its own peculiarities, being awarded to everything from a nation (Malta), female operatives in Special Operations Executive (SOE), a police force (the Royal Ulster Constabulary), and bomb-disposal experts – who, it might justifiably be thought, are ‘in the presence of the enemy' more directly than most. At one point the GC was even considered for Stalingrad, but the king turned that suggestion down flat – thus avoiding future embarrassment.

25
.
Robert Rhodes James, biographer of King George VI, asserted that ‘not only were [the GC and GM] the King's idea, he also designed them himself' (
A Spirit Undaunted
, Little, Brown & Co., 1998, p. 216). George VI was in fact as little artistically inclined as his predecessors; the design for both was by Percy Metcalfe.

26
.
The Times
, 24 September 1940.

27
.
See
Debrett's
,
www.debretts.com/people/honours/crown-honours-.aspx
.

28
.
The Times
, 26 September 1940.

29
.
Clement Attlee, deputy prime minister, was asked in September 1940 who served on this committee. He replied that it was chaired by the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Sir Horace Wilson. The other members were the Permanent Heads of the Admiralty, Air Ministry, Colonial Office, Dominions Office, Foreign Office, India Office and War Office, together with the Private Secretary to the King, the Prime Minister's Private Secretary, the Secretary of the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood, the Naval Secretary to the First Lord of the
Admiralty, the Military Secretary to the Secretary of State for War, the Member of the Air Council for Personnel, and the Secretary, Military Department, India Office. The Secretary to the Committee was an Officer of the Treasury.
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1940/sep/18/war-honours-decorations-and-medals
. A. N. Wilson in his
Hitler
reported a snippet of a 1968 interview of Sir Horace Wilson, then in his 80s, by the journalist Colin Cross. Sir Horace, who had been an appeaser of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, purportedly said he understood Hitler's feelings about the Jews and asked Cross: ‘Have you ever met a Jew you liked?'

30
.
Rhodes James, op. cit., p. 216.

31
.
In 1949 the QAIMNS became a corps in the British army and was renamed Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps.

32
.
Obituary in
The Independent
, 21 October 1993. Her biography,
The Will to Live
(Cassell, 1970) was written by John Smyth.

33
.
Hugh Dalton,
The Fateful Years: Memoirs, 1931–1945
(Frederick Muller, 1957), p. 366.

34
.
M. R. D. Foot, SOE
in France
(HMSO, 1966), p. 47.