From this article in the Washington Post:
Obviously, the man was no coward.
From this article in the Washington Post:
Obviously, the man was no coward.
Interestingly, two out of the only three men to have been awarded a Bar to the Victoria Cross received it for rescuing wounded men under fire.
Good for him, and may all the trumpets be blowing on the other side.
He was just buried with full military honors:
Some people make you wish you could change species to something higher than their (like, say, roaches). Guys like Mr. Doss make me happy to be in ours.
salute
What does “having a Bar to the Victoria Cross mean?” I know the VC is a high(highest?) military award, but not what the Bar would mean.
I’m gonna take a guess and say it’s probably similar to an oak leaf cluster on U.S. decorations - it means you earned the decoration more than once.
Highest, and yes, a Bar is a repeat award. The only combatant VC* was a New Zealander, Captain Charles Hazlitt Upham, who won his first one on Crete and his second in North Africa. His senior officers considered his conduct in two separate battles in North Africa (Minqar Qaim and Ruweisat Ridge) each worth a VC citation, but eventually compromised on a combined citation for the two battles, as three VCs would have been verging on the excessive.
After being released from PoW camp, Upham subsequently had the happy experience of being hauled up by some officious colonel type for failing to salute him, just after receiving the medals. He apologetically explained to the colonel that he hadn’t seen him (he was taking a recreational stroll with some family and friends at the time) but he would have been sure to have saluted him if he had. But the colonel might like to know that Upham had just come from the Palace where he’d been chatting to the King, and he didn’t seem to be fussy about saluting. At which the pompous one clocked the two miniature crosses on the uniform, his chin nearly hit the floor, and he himself gave Upham a salute of textbook precision.
(Mark of the Lion, Upham’s war biography, was a favourite of mine 35 years ago.)