Victoria Cross Medal - First World War

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Herbert James's Victoria Cross medal to be sold at auction
The Victoria Cross granted to Lieutenant Herbert James for his bravery during the Gallipoli campaign will be going under the hammer. His acts of bravery at Gallipoli in 1915, which included him leading two successful counterattacks with next to no cover, after the failure of a major assault, led to him being awarded the Victoria Cross. A few days later, during a heavy bombardment, he saved a wounded colleague found lying among a heap of dead soldiers. He also secured the trench with a temporary defence of sand bags and dead bodies, to hold back the attacking Turks. [ expressandstar :: 2008-06-16 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Australian Victoria Cross medal expected to top $749,000
A Victoria Cross awarded to an Australian digger on the bloody World War I battlefields of France will be the heart of $5 million auction at Sotheby's Connoisseur's Autumn Collection. The medal, the Commonwealth's highest military honour, was the last to be presented on an Australian soldier during WWI. Lieutenant George Mawby Ingram was granted the VC for "most conspicuous bravery and initiative" in the battle of Montbrehain on the Western Front, on October 5, 1918. On the day Montbrehain fell, Ingram led his battalion to seize 9 enemy positions, and single-handedly capturing a garrison of 30 men. [ nzherald :: 2008-05-26 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

The last Victoria Cross awarded in WWI to an Australian will be auctioned
The last Victoria Cross granted during the First World War to an Australian will be auctioned off in Melbourne. Lieutenant George Ingram's Victoria Cross medal will be auctioned with an estimated value of $400,000 - $600,000. Considered the highest award for wartime bravery, Ingram got his Victoria Cross for his actions at Montbrehain, France - the last battle the Australian Imperial Force was involved in WW1. "He showed a most inspiring example of courage and leadership and freely exposed himself regardless of danger," the citation said. [ thewest :: 2008-04-21 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Forgotten WWI Victoria Cross heroes remembered - Samuel Pearse, Richard Wain
Two "forgotten" WW1 heroes who both came from the same south Wales town and were both granted the Victoria Cross are at last to be remembered with a special plaque. Sergeant Samuel Pearse and Captain Richard Wain were granted Britain's highest gallantry medal for their actions in the war which took their lives. But both names are missing from the war memorial in Penarth in the Vale of Glamorgan. Military historian Paul Kiley has carried out research into the stories of the 2 Penarth VC holders who are among only 20 from Wales (1355 in total) to get the honour set up in 1856 by Queen Victoria. [ bbc :: 2008-03-07 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

National treasure, stolen Waiouru medals, returned for slice of reward
There was a phone call, a coded message and Chris Comeskey knew that the medals had landed. For 10 weeks police had searched for the missing Waiouru medals, while old soldiers grieved and angered Kiwis called for answers. All the while, Chris Comeskey, the military-styled lawyer using his contacts in criminal underworld, was on the trail. Within a week he was sure he knew who had seized the medals. His mission was to secure their return: before the thieves sneaked them out of the country into the collectables black market, where they would be worth millions. But as media shone a limelight on the case, the two men holding the collection of medals became nervous. [ nzherald :: 2008-02-17 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Victoria Cross winner Albert Shepherd - The 12th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps
Albert Shepherd fought at the Somme and Passchendaele was injured once and gassed twice. He won the Victoria Cross for action at Villers-Plouich, on Nov. 20, 1917, during the Battle of Cambrai. When his company was held up by a machine-gun, he volunteered to rush the gun and went forward and threw a Mills bomb. When the last officer and the last non-commissioned officer had become casualties, Albert took control of the company. He ordered the men to lie down, and then he went back 70 yards under fire to get the help of a tank. He then led the company to it's last objective. His VC medal is on show at the Royal Green Jackets Museum, Winchester, Hampshire. [ thestar :: 2008-02-14 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Gallipoli hero John Simpson may get Australian-issued Victoria Cross
Gallipoli war hero John Simpson, who rescued injured Diggers with his donkey, could be among the first recipients of an Australian-issued Victoria Cross. The Federal Government will set up a war medals tribunal to evaluate cases of Australians who were denied Victoria Crosses by the British. Until 1991, the British granted the Victoria Cross, with Australians being entitled as part of the Commonwealth. 96 Australians have been awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military honour for bravery; 6 in the Boer War, 64 in WWI, 2 in North Russia, 20 in WWII and 4 in Vietnam. Several Australian war heroes were recommended for VCs but rejected by British authorities. [ thewest :: 2008-01-23 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

5 medals of sailor George MacKenzie Samson sold for £247,000
George MacKenzie Samson was granted 5 war decorations, including a Victoria Cross, for his courage during the First World War. In 1915, during the Gallipoli landings, he helped rescue wounded men under heavy fire. The medals were estimated to fetch £180,000 but were bought by Lord Ashcroft for £247,000. The group of medals, consisting the Victoria Cross, the 1914-1915 Star, the War medal, the Victory medal, and French Medaille Militaire, broke the price record for a British sale. Seaman Samson was shot 19 times during the Gallipoli landings, causing the surgeon treating him to question whether he would pull through. [ bbc :: 2007-12-17 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Albert Jacka should have been awarded 4 Victoria Cross medals
War hero Albert Jacka's relative has declared the army captain was "punished for his outspokenness" and should have been awarded 4 Victoria Cross medals. On the 90th anniversary of the battle of Polygon Wood - a wasteland near Ypres captured by the Australian infantry's 5th Division on Sept 26, 1917 - Ken Jacka said the battle should have fixed Albert Jacka's position as Australia's most decorated soldier. Instead senior command conspired to deny Jacka a Victoria Cross for his command of troops in the 4th Division's 14th Battalion. "the battalion commanders obviously found a nice safe dugout somewhere ... that was why there were no awards given." [ theaustralian :: 2007-09-26 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

The full list of 22 New Zealander Victoria Cross medal winners
Leslie Wilton Andrew - 1917; La Bassee Ville, France: Corporal Andrew was in charge of a small party in an attack on the enemy's position. His objective was a machine-gun post, but on leading his men forward he faced another machine-gun post. He attacked it, capturing the gun. He then continued with his attack on the original objective and captured the post. Cyril Royston Guyton Bassett - 1915; Gallipoli: On 7 August 1915 at Chunuk Bair Ridge, Gallipoli, after the New Zealand Brigade had established itself on the ridge, Corporal Bassett, in daylight and under fire, succeeded in laying a telephone line from the old position to the new one on Chunuk Bair. [ nzherald :: 2007-07-02 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Search is on for lost family of Victoria Cross hero Albert Mountain
Albert Mountain was just 22 when he wrote his name into British military folklore on the bloody battlefields of World War I. A blue plaque is being placed outside the pub in Garforth which he ran. Local historians are trying to track down surviving members of his family. Mountain was a sergeant with the West Yorkshire Regiment when he took charge of 10 men at Bullecourt on March 26, 1918. Armed with only a single Lewis machine gun, his unit managed to kill 100 members of an advance enemy patrol. They then kept another 600 enemy soldiers at bay to cover the retreat of the rest of their company. These heroics earned him the Victoria Cross. [ leedstoday :: 2007-03-07 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

The gallantry of Canterbury's WW1 Victoria Cross holder honoured
The gallantry of Canterbury's sole World War I Victoria Cross holder will be honoured during an exhibition at City O-Tautahi. The exhibition honouring Sgt Henry J Nicholas VC MM will open on 7 March, same day as a memorial to him is unveiled at the Park of Remembrance, near the Bridge of Remembrance. It covers his war years, his Victoria Cross and Military Medal exploits, and his death in 1918 when he was killed in a patrol clash near Beaudignies in France. There is also a short film on the making of the Mark Whyte memorial and memorabilia from the trenches of WWI will also be on display. [ scoop :: 2007-03-07 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Unknown Soldier shouldn't get Victoria Cross: veterans
Canada wants to honour the Unknown Soldier with the Victoria Cross medal, but veterans are opposed to the idea. The Victoria Cross is supposed to honour the absolute highest acts of military bravery, veterans say, but there are no records about the Unknown Soldier and the type of service he provided in World War I. "The Victoria Cross is a very special award, it has never been given lightly," Bob Butt, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Legion, told. The medal was created in the 1856 by Queen Victoria, and has been awarded to 1,350 soldiers - including 94 Canadians. [ cbc :: 2007-03-06 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

War memorial accepts 61st Victoria Cross
An anonymous donor has handed the Australian War Memorial its 61st Victoria Cross medal. Lance Corporal Bernard Gordon was awarded the commonwealth's highest honour after capturing six enemy machine guns and 60 POWs during the campaign on the western front in World War 1. One of the machine guns is on display inside the memorial's Gallipoli gallery. The medal has arrived at the war memorial with little fanfare and a request from the donor for anonymity. The medal was auctioned for $485,800, the second highest price ever seen in Australia. [ theage :: 2006-12-13 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

A rare Victoria Cross medal fetches $400,000
A rare Victoria Cross awarded to an Australian has sold at auction for $400,000 -- When the broker's commission was added, the full price came to $486,000. The buyer was a woman who would not reveal her identity or whom she represented. Earlier this year, another Victoria Cross medal sold for a record-breaking $1.2 million. The bravery medal sold was awarded to World War 1 veteran Lance Corporal Bernard Gordon, who enlisted in Townsville in 1915. [ 7News :: 2006-11-28 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Unearthed WWI Victoria Cross medal to be auctioned
Almost 90 years after Lance Corporal Bernard Sidney Gordon was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery on the battlefields, his medal has resurfaced. A Sydney auction house announced it would auction the medal. Mystery surrounds the resurfacing of the medal but his heroics are well known. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, joining the World War 1 bound 41st battalion as a private. He was caught in the midst of enemy fire but, rather than retreat, he single-handedly attacked an enemy machine gun post, killing its crew... He then kept moving through the enemy trenches. In total, Gordon took control of 6 machine guns, 61 enemy soldiers and two enemy officers. [ news :: 2006-11-24 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Victoria Cross recipient's WW1 bagpipes from the battlefield
A set of bagpipes trampled beneath the mud of a World War One battlefield returned home to Canada, telling a story of how their mournful defiant voice spurred soldiers to a historic Canadian victory. James Richardson died on the Somme battlefield in 1916, but his bravery earned him the Victoria Cross, the highest military gallantry medal. He is the only Canadian piper awarded the VC. His unprotected battlefield piping spurred soldiers at Regina Trench to tear their way through a barbed wire enclosure and mount a victory. He died that same day when he was shot trying to retrieve his bagpipes from the bloody battlefield. [ cbc :: 2006-11-09 :: Canada and Native Indians ]

Lost Victoria Cross medal won on the Western Front found
A Victoria Cross won on the Western Front but lost for decades is to be sold - estimated value £70,000. VC was found in a drawer by the present owners when they were emptying the home of a relative who had died. Pte William Mariner won the award in May 1915 during the second battle of Ypres - for crawling through no-man's-land and single-handedly destroying a German machinegun post. He survived another 13 months before being blown to bits on the night preceding the Battle of the Somme when, according to a account, "he lost his remaining senses" during an attack. [ telegraph.co.uk :: 2006-11-03 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Victoria Cross medal fetches record auction price
A medal awarded to a soldier who fought at Gallipoli during World War I has broken the world auction record for a Victoria Cross, fetching nearly 500,000 pounds. The medal was one of a group awarded to Captain Alfred John Shout, who died in 1915. He won the Victoria Cross posthumously for his part in a charge on Ottoman Turkish forces at Lone Pine in 1915. His was one of 9 Victoria Crosses given to Australians at Gallipoli, and was the only one still in private hands. Nearly 11,000 troops from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) died during the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign, which ended in bitter defeat for Allied forces. [ bonhamsandgoodman :: 2006-07-25 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Medal for the bravest of the brave -- Victoria Cross
The warrant for the Victoria Cross in 1856 is explicitly democratic: "neither rank, nor long service, nor wounds, nor any other circumstance or condition whatsoever, save the merit of conspicuous bravery, shall be held to establish a sufficient claim to the honour." It also specific in terms of where and how the honour should be worn: "the Cross shall be suspended from the left breast by a blue riband for the navy, and by a red riband for the army". There are 12 living VCs today. Websites offer fascinating insight into many things VC, like The Sinnott Mystery: the loss and rediscovery of the VC awarded to Lance-Corporal John Sinnott. [ expressandstar :: 2006-06-28 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

Victoria Cross awarded twice to the same man only three times
The Victoria Cross is highest award for valour and only three men have been awarded one twice. The machine-gun bullets hissing above his head, Captain Noel Chavasse staggered through the fallen soldiers and around smoking shell craters to carry the wounded man to safety. With the cries of the injured ringing in his ears, he stumbled towards the front line, promising he would return to rescue them. Incredibly, he managed to keep his word. Noel was perhaps the bravest man to emerge from the First World War - a hero among heroes. But his courage cost him his life in one of the most inspiring stories to emerge from the trenches. [ mirror :: 2006-05-13 :: Victoria Cross Medal ]

First World War in the News is an edited review of hand-picked World War I 1914-1918 articles.