Victoria's Cross (28 page)

Desk officers at the MoD in London, almost 6,000 miles away from Vietnam, can have had only the faintest understanding of Wheatley's situation. It probably was suicide, the final defiant act of a man who in his last moments must have experienced a vast array of conflicting emotions – the most powerful, perhaps, that he would not desert his mate. To have denied Wheatley the Cross at the time it was awarded, on the basis that he deliberately chose to die while standing by a dying comrade, would have caused a serious diplomatic row between Canberra and London; even four years later it was impossible for the MoD's report author to state baldly that Wheatley's VC did not, in his opinion, meet VC requirements. But Wheatley's VC certainly fulfilled the critical term of the 1961 VC warrant: ‘for most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy'. Wheatley's VC citation, the sole entry in a supplement to the
London Gazette
on 13 December 1966, stated that ‘the Queen has been graciously pleased on the advice of Her Majesty's Australian Ministers to approve' Wheatley's VC; it omitted that he discarded his rifle and bluntly asserted that he and Swanton died ‘of gunshot wounds', even though the precise cause of death would have been impossible to ascertain, given the two grenades that exploded. The VC was deserved; the citation was massaged to fit required form; and the MoD belatedly and in private undermined Wheatley's claim to receive it. Such is the muddle that results from an over-protective desire to preserve the fictions and myths surrounding the VC, rather than relax and – as is within their right under VC statutes – let the men and officers on the ground actually choose for themselves.

In 1992 the
British Army Review
published a pseudonymous article by ‘Sustainer', who claimed to be a recently retired General Officer Commanding. He advised how to maximize the chances of getting a gallantry decoration: ‘First you have to be in the somewhat
unattractive situation of having your life endangered. Then you have to do something damned irrational and what's more be seen doing it by a cove with a flair with the old pen and who can cobble together a passable citation.'
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Sustainer's irreverence disguised a serious point. A good write-up by an officer is today almost
de rigueur
for the VC, the first stage of an onerous process, comprising not just comparisons with past ‘standards' but an assessment of how any VC awarded might fit a wide political, media and personal arena.
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The write-up issue was considered by the MoD report regarding the VC awarded to AATTV Warrant Officer Ray Simpson.
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Simpson, who had already won a DCM while in Vietnam, gained his VC for actions on two separate occasions: he was in action in Kon Tum province, near the border with Laos, when, on 6 May 1967, he rescued a wounded fellow warrant officer and unsuccessfully attacked an enemy position; on 11 May he fought alone against heavy odds to cover the evacuation of some wounded. The report judged that the recommendation for Simpson represented ‘A good VC badly told. There are too many clichés and a great lack of detail. “Disregarding the danger involved . . . at great personal risk . . . complete disregard for personal safety . . . at the risk of almost certain death.” It is a pity the author of the citation was not able to describe the detail of the dangers involved in short and clear sentences.' Overall, concluded the report: ‘In each of these four citations it seems as though the person writing the report knew that if he had all the “correct” phrases his citation must succeed. This theme of poor expressive capability . . . is the cause of comment on the standards of the current Australian awards.' The fact that ‘poor expressive capability' in the initial write-up of a VC recommendation might swing the balance between getting and not getting the Cross might be thought to cast doubt over the ‘integrity of the system'. According to Lieutenant Colonel ‘X':

A well-written recommendation is more likely to be approved than one that is poorly written. For a VC we would normally expect two eyewitness accounts, but there is a degree of fluidity about this. There's not much experience around as to what constitutes gallantry. For a VC recommendation there has got to be a major punch-up somewhere.

In the case of ‘operational honours', the theatre commander initially judges each recommendation, weighing the degree of courage displayed. If endorsed at this level, the recommendation then passes up to the operational commander for further comment and comparison, until a higher committee of senior officers gives its judgement and the recommendation is passed up to government, with the fig leaf of royal assent, for final approval. A further step is necessary in the case of the VC and the George Cross. A VC or GC recommendation alerts the chiefs of staff, and they then invoke the VC committee, chaired by the Chief of the Defence Staff and comprising the Permanent Under-Secretary at the MoD and the chiefs of staff of the various services, representatives from the Armed Forces Operations Awards Committee, and others. At every step this process has scope for subjectivity, for factors other than the act itself to enter into the discussion. The process may also be blighted by groupthink. Intent on preserving standards, the VC committee will naturally incline towards conservatism: challenging the system in such a setting would require exceptional – perhaps VC standard – courage. That the integrity of the system is questionable inevitably follows from a situation where officers wrestle with an informal policy requiring almost certain death in order to merit a VC, while simultaneously considering a plethora of alternative possible decorations.

That the judgement of Solomon is called for is illustrated by the recent campaign in Afghanistan.
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It is invidious to select an individual example, but the VC is, after all, an individual award. Lance-Corporal
Matthew Croucher, a former regular soldier with the Royal Marines who later joined the Royal Marines Reserve, was awarded the George Cross in July 2008. On 9 February 2008 Croucher was part of a four-man night-time reconnaissance patrol in Helmand province. As the patrol moved through a compound, he felt his leg touch a trip-wire that released a grenade which would, within seconds, blast shrapnel and probably kill or severely injure not only him but other members of the four-man team. The quick-thinking Croucher immediately threw himself onto the grenade, pinning it to the ground under an enormous rucksack on his back and tucking up his legs to make himself as small as possible. ‘Then there was the loudest bang I have ever heard, a flash of light and I was flying through the air.'
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The explosion ripped the rucksack from him and sent metal splinters into his body armour and helmet. Of the other three troops, the rear man managed to take cover behind a building, the patrol commander threw himself to the ground, and the final one remained standing. The rucksack took most of the blast and Croucher – stunned, deafened, disoriented and with blood coming from his nose – was luckily relatively unscathed. He then insisted, against the advice of a medic who was quickly on the scene, on staying to fight off a Taliban ambush, during which he shot one insurgent. Croucher's instinctive reaction saved his life and that of at least one other soldier. He later recalled thinking, ‘I've set the bloody thing off and I'm going to do whatever it takes to save the others.' Croucher received the GC and not the VC because his selfless bravery was ‘not in the presence of the enemy'. There have of course been numerous VC precedents for actions similar to Croucher's. Charles Lucas was a midshipman on HMS
Hecla
when, on 21 June 1854, he gained his VC for picking up an enemy shell that had just landed on
Hecla
with its fuse fizzing; Lucas threw the shell overboard, where it exploded. Without this quick-wittedness, many lives might have been lost.
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The VC–GC distinction hinges on the single word ‘not': the VC is ‘for
gallantry of the highest order during active operations'; the GC is ‘for gallantry of the highest order not in active operations'. Sergeant Olaf Schmid, gazetted with a posthumous GC on 19 March 2010, is another anomalous case arising from the creation of the George Cross. Schmid was with 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, Royal Logistics Corps, and in June 2009 he arrived in Afghanistan. Between then and his death on Saturday, 31 October 2009, he dealt with more seventy improvised explosive devices (IEDs). That day he had already tackled three IEDs before a fourth exploded and killed him. Schmid was due to leave the field that same day and be back in the UK one week later. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Thomson, commander of 2nd Rifles Battle Group, said Schmid was ‘simply the bravest and most courageous man I have ever met . . . Superlatives do not do this man justice. Better than the best of the best.' His
London Gazette
citation read (in part): ‘his selfless gallantry, his devotion to duty, and his indefatigable courage displayed time and time again saved countless military and civilian lives and is worthy of the highest recognition.'
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There is an absurd quality to such hair-splitting: one moment Croucher was ‘not in active operations', the next he was; once the Taliban fire-fight was over, was he once again ‘not in active operations'?
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To award Schmid the GC was a fine and justified recognition, and the GC has enormous esteem; but to deem that a soldier is not in the ‘presence' of the enemy when he was killed in action by an explosive device, laid by an enemy that surrounded him, seems inappropriate.

Preservation of the VC's scarcity means that, when one is bestowed, it can be a match to a tinderbox: the winner's life is altered forever, amid relentless and continual publicity. As Lieutenant Colonel ‘X' put it, the VC committee asks itself: ‘Can someone “carry” the VC? Is it fair to give someone such a burden? I don't want to see the VC becoming something which is unattainable; but ultimately it's the politicians who call the shots – and they are all above the system. The military are
ultra-conservative in not wanting to abuse the system.' Nor is the pressure associated with the VC purely personal. Lieutenant Colonel ‘X' acknowledged that gallantry decorations are occasionally subject to political pressure, interference even: ‘regrettable, but human nature', as he put it. When I asked for an example, he suggested that Margaret Thatcher may have taken a hand in the VC awards for the 1982 Falklands War, and she would have been within her constitutional right to make a direct recommendation to the sovereign on a particular medal issue. According to him, the list of recommendations for Falklands military decorations was sent to 10 Downing Street for approval, and the list was returned with a note from the prime minister, asking: ‘Where are the Victoria Crosses?' Lieutenant Colonel ‘X' offered no evidence to support this, however; he may indeed have sought to distract attention from the fact that the Special Honours Committee, formed by the three armed services to consider the Falklands gallantry decorations, appears to have been in some disarray at the time. For while two posthumous VCs were approved, for Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Jones and Sergeant Ian McKay, both of the Parachute Regiment, a third member of the regiment, Private Stephen Illingsworth, had his posthumous VC recommendation downgraded to a Distinguished Conduct Medal.
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The Jones VC was controversial and remains so; if awarded for recklessly suicidal courage, then perhaps it was thoroughly deserved; but if it was for Jones's leadership, then it is highly questionable.
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By contrast, Illingsworth's recommendation appeared to tick all the right boxes.

Illingsworth had been in the regiment for almost two years when, on 28 May 1982, he was with 5 Platoon, near the Darwin and Goose Green settlements. His platoon was ordered to provide covering fire for an advance section of B Company of 2nd Battalion. As dawn came up, Illingsworth's platoon found itself on an exposed slope that soon came under intense Argentine machine-gun and rifle fire. As the
platoon withdrew back over a crest, a Private Hall was hit in the back. Illingsworth had already reached safety but, together with another private, returned to tend to the wounded Hall. The two rescuers removed Hall's webbing to give him first aid and left Hall's gear, including spare ammunition, as they stumbled back to cover, miraculously avoiding being shot. As the fire-fight intensified, 5 Platoon started to run short of ammunition. Illingsworth again left the safety of cover to retrieve Hall's ammunition, but he was shot and killed. Illingsworth was strongly recommended for a posthumous VC by Lieutenant General Sir Richard Trant, Land Deputy Commander in the Falklands, and Admiral John Fieldhouse, commander of the Falklands Task Force, who in his note on the recommendation form said: ‘Private Illingsworth's heroic acts of total disregard for his own safety were in the highest traditions of his regiment. He was an inspiration to others and is strongly recommended for the posthumous award of the Victoria Cross.' Trant commented: ‘In these two acts of supreme courage Private Illingsworth showed a complete disregard for his own safety, and a total dedication to others . . . a display of coolly calculated courage and heroism of the very highest order.'

At what point does ‘heroism of the highest order' fail to qualify for a VC? Illingsworth was twice a casualty, first of the Argentine army's sniper and second of the British army's rationing of gallantry decorations. Clearly Illingsworth's recommendation never reached Mrs Thatcher's desk, but the greater pity is that individual senior officers were alarmed that too many VCs were being recommended – and especially too many for the Parachute Regiment. The Military Secretary at the time of the Falklands campaign was Lieutenant General Sir Roland Guy. He advised the VC committee:

It is not for the VC Committee to make any judgement on what would be the appropriate number of VCs to award for this campaign
in comparison with the numbers that have been awarded in past campaigns. However there will inevitably be great public interest over whether the award is in any way being cheapened if an excessive number are awarded.
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