Victoria Cross

The Victoria Cross (VC) was instituted by Royal Warrant on 29 January 1856, to recognise valour in the Crimean War (1954-56):

The Queen [Victoria] has been pleased, by an instrument under Her Royal Sign Manual, of which the following is a copy, to institute and create a new Naval and Military Decoration, to be styled and designated “The Victoria Cross”.

The VC is the highest military decoration awarded for valour and, unlike earlier awards, is available to all ranks. It is only presented for acts of supreme gallantry in the face of the enemy and up to two bars may be awarded in recognition of further acts of gallantry.

Since 1940, when the George Cross (GC) was instituted, the VC has been equal in status to the GC. However, the GC is awarded for acts of conspicuous bravery not performed in the enemy’s presence.

A total of 1,358 VCs have been issued since the award’s foundation in 1856. This figure includes extra bars added to the VCs of three soldiers who had already won the award, and the VC awarded to the Unknown Soldier buried at Arlington National Ceremony in the United States. 

Lance Corporal Joshua Leakey, of 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment, is the most recent recipient of the VC. His award was publicly announced in February 2015, following an action against the Taliban in Helmand province, Afghanistan on 22 August 2013.

No UK member of the SAS has ever been awarded a VC.

Posthumous awards

When the VC was first instituted, the original Royal Warrant made no mention of posthumous awards, as it had been decided that the VC would not be awarded for an act in which the potential recipient was killed, or where he died shortly after. Instead, in these circumstances, an announcement was made in The London Gazette that the person would have been recommended for the VC had they survived.

There were six instances of this between 1859 and 1897, including Lieutenants Nevill Coghill and Teignmouth Melvill, who were killed attempting to save their unit’s Queen’s Colour after the defeat at Isandlwana on 22 January 1879.

In 1907 it was announced that these six posthumous cases from 1859 to 1897 would be retrospectively awarded after all.

Specific provision for posthumous awards was made by Royal Warrant in 1920 and 295 VCs have now been awarded posthumously.

Blair Mayne

Robert Blair Mayne, known as “Paddy” Mayne, was born on 11 January 1915 in Newtownards, County Down. He attended Regent House Grammar School, where he was selected for the school’s rugby union team, and later studied Law at Queens University, Belfast.

In 1937 Mayne was selected to play rugby for Ireland against Wales in the final round of that year’s Home Nations Championship. The following year he was selected for the British Lions tour to South Africa.

After graduating from university in 1939, Mayne continued to play rugby for Ireland, alongside working as a solicitor at Maclaine & Co in Belfast.

Mayne volunteered for service at the start of World War Two and joined the Royal Ulster Rifles. Soon after that, he submitted his name to join the Commandos, a new group of amphibious assault troops drawn from across the British armed forces. Mayne was mentioned in dispatches for the Litani River raid, in Syria, in June 1941.

He was subsequently recruited into the SAS in September 1941, just two months after it was formed, and led a mission in November 1941 that was to be its first major success: an attack on Tamet airfield in Libya in which dozens of enemy aircraft were destroyed.

Many more successes followed in the North Africa campaign, with Mayne recording a personal tally of more than 100 aircraft destroyed.

In January 1943 Mayne took command of the SAS and went on to lead his men in Sicily, Italy, France and Germany. His unit took part in the Normandy Landings in 1944 and, in 1945, Mayne led his troops “into the heart of Germany at the head of the Allied advance”.

In Germany, during Operation Howard and under heavy fire, Mayne has been described as “single-handedly” rescuing his wounded comrades who were “trapped in a Nazi ambush”.

For this action Mayne was recommended for the Victoria Cross, but it was downgraded to a Distinguished Service Order (DSO). Mayne is one of the UK’s most highly decorated soldiers and one of only eight people during World War Two to be awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) four times.

After World War Two ended, Mayne returned to civilian life, working as a solicitor and becoming Secretary to the Law Society of Northern Ireland. On 14 December 1955 he died in a car accident.

Mayne’s honours and awards

Blair Mayne was awarded several medals and honours during his military career (PDF). After being awarded his first DSO, the subsequent medals were awarded as bars on the ribbon of his first DSO.

British awards

Distinguished Service Order with three Bars

1939-1945 Star

Africa Star

Italy Star

France and Germany Star

Defence Medal 1939-1945

War Medal 1939-1945

Foreign awards

Officer of the Legion of Honour (France)

Croix de guerre (1939–1945) (France)

The campaign to award Mayne a VC and government responses

Responding to a written parliamentary question (PQ) in January 2006 (UIN 41550, Lieutenant-Colonel Blair Mayne, 16 January 2006) on whether the Secretary of State for Defence would award a posthumous Victoria Cross to Mayne, Defence Minister Don Touhig explained that, “in 1946 the government reviewed all actions and campaigns that took place during World War Two and decided that after this date, no further awards would be made.”

For many years campaigners have continued to call for Blair Mayne to be awarded a posthumous VC, and the case has received increased interest following the airing of the television series SAS Rogue Heroes, a historical drama depicting the origins of the SAS.

While Mayne was originally recommended for the VC in 1945 for his actions in Germany, at some point during the process it was considered more appropriate to award him a third bar to the DSO.

More recently, in response to a PQ on Paddy Mayne in March 2025, the government explained that “there is nothing on the form to explain why this change was made, but it is clear that the change was the result of the rigorous review of contemporaneous accounts by his chain of command, rather than an administrative error.”

Although gallantry awards may be awarded posthumously, it has been a long-standing policy for successive governments that gallantry awards and other state honours cannot be awarded retrospectively more than five years after the service or actions in question.

The PQ above adds:

Revisiting decisions which were made in the past, with the benefit of hindsight, and applying contemporary views and sensitivities, is inappropriate, and we cannot know or understand all the circumstances that may have been taken into consideration at the time.

This policy has been in place since the end of World War Two and was approved by King George VI. It has also been examined and approved by the Cabinet Office Honours and Decorations Committee on numerous occasions since and successive governments have seen fit not to change it. The Ministry of Defence has no reason to recommend that the Government should review this longstanding policy now, neither is there an intention, nor is it possible, to reconsider the award of a VC to Lt Col Mayne.

In January 2025 three former defence secretaries called for Paddy Mayne to be posthumously awarded the VC.

Grant Shapps (Conservative) said Mayne’s “extraordinary bravery” was “beyond dispute” and that “having served as defence secretary, I feel even more strongly that this injustice must be corrected.”

Sir Ben Wallace (Conservative) said: “Governments … should do something that actually corrects a genuine wrong. Paddy Mayne deserves the appropriate recognition.”

Lord Hutton (Labour) said: “I can’t see why on earth this hasn’t been sorted out. I am quite happy to lend my support to the campaign to get this rectified.”

However, although many people have been awarded the VC after death, nobody has been honoured so many years after their acts of gallantry.

Lord Ashcroft, who has the world’s largest collection of Victoria Crosses, has said “it is impractical to review such gallantry awards decades on, especially when the witnesses are dead”. Lord Ashcroft said he shares the view of Peter Forbes, a maths teacher from Newtownards and an expert on Mayne’s life, that “perhaps Blair Mayne is destined to go down in history as the bravest man never to have been awarded the VC.”

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