The Naval VCs

The Victoria Cross is a distinction that transcends class and rank, age and reputation, and serves to honour the virtues of leadership, selflessness and undaunted valour. It is Britain's highest military honour. Forty-two of the VCs awarded during the First World War resulted from naval operations, widely spread in theatres as far apart as the Atlantic and Mesopotamia, East Africa and the North Sea. These awards were won in all manner of fighting ships, from disguised schooner to light cruiser, motor-launch to submarine, and river steamer to battlecruiser. What unites each of the winners is a rare defiance, an unwavering bravery against the odds.

This book tells their individual stories in gripping accounts of the actions at sea, such as the horror of the landing at V Beach at Gallipoli where hundreds of lives were lost, yet the six VC winners fought on regardless of the great danger they faced.