ANDREW, Brigadier Leslie Wilton (1897-1969)  b. Manawatu. Won the Victoria Cross at La Basseville, France in 1917.  In World War Two he commanded the 22nd Battalion of the Second NZEF, and led the victory contingent in London in 1946.

BASSETT, Cyril Royston Guyton (1892-1983)  b. Auckland. Bassett was the first New Zealander to win the Victoria Cross in World War One. Bassett was a corporal in the New Zealand Divisional Signals Company, and was one of the signallers in support of the attack by NZ, Gurkha and British soldiers on Chunuk Bair Ridge, Gallipoli.  The New Zealanders achieved the ridge despite horrendous losses and after trying to hold it were dislodged.  The VC was awarded on 7 August 1915, when he kept lines of communication open to the men beleaguered by intense enemy fire on the ridge of Chunuk Bair.

BROWN, Donald Forrester (1890-1916), b. Dunedin. A sergeant in the 2nd Otago Battalion of the New Zealand Division, won the Victoria Cross during the Somme Battle in World War One, on 15 September 1916, and died in action a fortnight later. He was a farmer before he went to the war. COOKE, Thomas (1881-1916) b. Kaikoura. Was a private in the 8th Infantry Battalion of the Australian Army in World War One. He was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously for extreme valour under fire as a machine-gunner at Pozières, in the Battle of the Somme, on 24 July 1916. 

CRICHTON, James (1879-1961) b. Ireland. Served in the South African War with the Cameron Highland Regiment. In World War One, Crichton relinquished his rank of Warrant Officer to join a frontline regiment as private, and at the age of 39 was posted to the Auckland Regiment. He was awarded the Victoria Cross four weeks from the end of World War One, at Crevecoeur, France. He swam a river several times and ran through enemy fire to communicate between company headquarters and a group of isolated comrades, and then under fire dismantled German explosive charges from a bridge to enable reinforcements to move forward.

ELLIOTT, Keith (1916- )  b. Apiti, Manawatu. Won the Victoria Cross at the Battle of Ruweisat Ridge in the Western Desert on 15 July 1942. Sergeant Elliott withdrew his platoon from a situation in which a substantial number of NZ troops had been taken prisoner by a group of retreating German tanks.  In escaping past enemy positions, Elliott and his small band of men captured over 140 prisoners, killed or wounded more than 30 Germans and Italians and destroyed eight machine-gun posts. Elliott was badly wounded in four places. In 1947, after going back to farming for a period, he became a clergyman and was for several years City Missioner in Wellington.

FORSYTH, Samuel (1891-1918) b. Wellington Served in France during World War One with the Second Auckland Battalion, and won the Victoria Cross posthumously. Sergeant Forsyth was shot by a German sniper after directing an operation against machine-guns that enabled the NZ attack to continue during the battle for Bapaume. 

FREYBERG, Bernard Cyril  (1889-1963) b.London. First Baron of Wellington, New Zealand, and Munstead, Surrey. At the start of the 1914-18 war Freyberg went to England, joined the 7th (Hood) Battalion of the Royal Naval Brigade and went to the Belgian front. 

One night in April 1915 he swam ashore in the Gulf of Saros to divert the Turks' attention from the main landing at Gallipoli and escaped unharmed despite heavy fire. This earned him a Distinguished Service Order medal. Freyberg served in France and won his Victoria Cross for action on the Somme in November 1916.

The citation said, 'This single officer enabled the lodgement (in the battle for Beaumont Village) of the corps to be permanently held, and on this point the line was eventually formed' for later attacks. He was carried away..on a stretcher after being wounded four times. By the end of the war Freyberg was a Temporary Brigadier with two bars to his DSO, the Croix Militaire de Guerre (CMG) and had been six times mentioned in despatches. He was wounded nine times. Troops who served with him in World War Two say there was hardly a part of his body unmarked by scars. 

He was recalled in 1939 and was invited by the NZ government to command the New Zealand Division in the Middle East in November. Briefly in 1941 he was Allied Commander-in-Chief in Crete, controlling the evacuation, and he led the New Zealanders until the end of the war, for which he gained a third bar to his DSO. 

FRICKLETON, Samuel (1891-1971)  b. Scotland A coal miner from Blackball, in Westland, who won the Victoria Cross when he captured two German machine-gun nests single-handed and killed all the occupants in July 1917 at Messines, Belgium. Frickleton, a lance-corporal in the Third Battalion, New Zealand Rifle Brigade, was severely wounded in the battle.

GRANT, John Gilroy (1889-1970) b. Hawera Sergeant with the First Battalion, Wellington Regiment, in World War One. He won the Victoria Cross for attacking and capturing a group of German machine-gun nests near Bancourt in September 1918. He later settled in Auckland. 

HARDHAM, William James (1876-1928)  b. Wellington. The only New Zealander to win the Victoria Cross during the South African War and the first to win it overseas.  He won the VC near Naauwpoort in January 1901 when he rode to the rescue of a colleague whose horse had been shot from under him, and who had been injured as he fell to the ground.  With a group of Boer marksmen trying to cut him down, Hardham lifted him into his saddle and ran to safety behind a rock outcrop pulling the horse behind him.

HEAPHY, CHARLES (1820-81)  b. London The first British colonial soldier to win the Victoria Cross.  Heaphy was awarded the VC for his 'total disregard for his own safety' during a surprise attack by Maori near Paterangi Pa, not far from Te Awamutu, in February 1864.  Seven bullets hit him or went through his clothing from point -blank range but he continued to go forward to help two fellow soldiers.  When he was finally forced back, he stayed in a commanding position to direct fire against the Maori, and prevent them from moving in to kill the soldiers and take their equipment.

HINTON, John (Jack) Daniel (1908-97) b. Riverton. A sergeant of the 20th Battalion in World War Two, he won the Victoria Cross at Kalamata, in Greece, in April 1941.  For hand-to-hand fighting against the Germans in the last days of the Greek campaign, before he was wounded and captured by the Germans.  His award was announced to him by the commandant of the camp in which he was held prisoner in Germany. Hinton settled in Auckland after the war and died in 1997.

HULME, Alfred Clive (1911-82)  b. Dunedin Joined the 23rd Battalion as a sergeant and won the Victoria Cross for eight days of sustained fighting on Crete during May 1941.  He stalked and killed 33 German snipers and once disguised himself as a German paratrooper and killed a number of the enemy on the outskirts of Galatos.  After the war he settled in the Bay of Plenty.

JUDSON, Reginald Stanley (1881-1972) b. Auckland. Won the three highest awards for gallantry open to a non-commissioned officer, within one six-week period during July and August 1918. This time is still a record. He went overseas as a sergeant in the First Battalion, Auckland Regiment, in 1915. Serving in France, he won the Distinguished Conduct Medal on 24-25 July, the Military Medal on 16 August and the Victoria Cross on 24 August, when he single-handedly captured a machine-gun nest, 'a prompt and gallant action [which] not only saved lives but also enabled the advance to continue unopposed', according to the citation. He rose to the rank of lieutenant. Judson settled in Auckland, served on the city council for ten years and on other local bodies, and farmed in Mangonui for some years before returning to Auckland where he died aged 91. 

LAURENT, Henry John (1895-1987) b. Hawera. Served in World War One with the Second Battalion of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade on the Western Front, and won the Victoria Cross in September 1918 after Sergeant Laurent's section killed 30 of the enemy and captured 112, for the loss of one man. Laurent settled in Hastings after the war. 

McKENNA, Colour-Sergeant The Alexandra Redoubt (Tuakau) was attacked by the Ngati Maniapoto in 1863, and defended by the 65th Regiment, a member of which, Colour-Sergeant McKenna, earned the Victoria Cross for bravery during the battle.  A monument erected at Tuakau carries the names of the British troops who died in action during the Land Wars in the Waikato.

NGARIMU, Moananui-a-Kiwi (1918-43)  b.Kokai Pa, near Whareponga, Ruatoria.  The only full Maori to have won the Victoria Cross of the Maori Battalion during World War Two. (Tebaga Gap in Tunis in March 1943)  Over 24 hours, Second Lieutenant Ngarimu and his platoon attacked and held a hill which enabled the Germans to fire on other units of the New Zealand Division at Tebaga Gap.  Greatly outnumbered, he and the few members of his platoon still able to fight, actually met a German attack by charging.  He died firing his sub-machine gun from the hip, 'defiantly facing the enemy', said the citation, coming 'to rest almost on top of those of the enemy who had fallen to his gun just before he fell to theirs'.

NICHOLAS, Henry James (1891-1918) b. Lincoln. A private in the First Battalion of the Canterbury Regiment during World War One. He won the Victoria Cross near Polderhoek on the Western Front in December 1917, by single-handedly capturing a German pillbox, killing 12 of the 16 enemy and wounding the other four. He was killed in action a year later, only 19 days before the armistice.

RHODES-MOORHOUSE, William Barnard (1887-1915) b. London, part-Maori The first airman to win the Victoria Cross, he legally adopted the name Rhodes-Moorhouse. After requesting to fly on active duty, Rhodes-Moorhouse was posted to France and in April 1915, in a B-E 26 biplane, attacked a key railway junction at Courtrai. He scored a direct hit with a 100-lb bomb after being hit in the stomach by a bullet during his approach, was hit again in the leg and the hand as he checked the extent of the damage, and flew back to his base through heavy ground fire aimed at his slow and low-flying aircraft, determined not to land behind German lines. 

He was cheered by Indian troops as he flew his battered biplane back behind the British front line. He died of wounds the next day, and was awarded the VC posthumously for what the British Commander, General Sir John French, then called 'the most important bomb dropped in the war so far'. Rhodes-Moorhouse left an infant son who died fighting in the Battle of Britain 23 years later. They are buried side by side on a hill near the family home in Dorset. 

SHOUT, Alfred John (1882-1915) b. NZ Served with the New Zealand Army in South Africa, then settled in Sydney in 1905. He served as a captain in the first infantry battalion, Australian Imperial Forces, in World War One. He won the Military Cross during the Gallipoli landing, and became one of seven defenders of Lone Pine who were awarded the Victoria Cross. Shout died of wounds aboard a hospital ship two days after being withdrawn, and the VC award was posthumous. 

SANDERS, William Edward (1883-1917) b. Auckland A merchant seaman. Within one year, during World War One, he rose from sub-lieutenant to lieutenant-commander and won both the DSO and Victoria Cross. Sanders received his medals for skill and daring as commander of HMS Prize, one of the Q-ships of World War One which acted as decoys to trap and sink German submarines. He was killed when the Prize went down with all hands, after being hit by a torpedo in August 1917.

STORKEY, Percy Valentine (1891-1969) b. Napier. Served as a colour-sergeant with the Wellington Regiment while a law student, before World War One. He was with the 19th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Forces in France when he won the Victoria Cross in April 1918. Lieutenant Storkey led ten men in an attack on German machine-gun installations, killing or wounding about 30 and capturing 53.

TRAVIS, Richard Charles  (aka Dickson Cornelius Savage) (1884-1918) b. Opotiki. One of the most famous NZ soldiers of World War One, winning the Victoria Cross, the Croix de Guerre (Belgian), the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Military Medal. He served with the Second Battalion, Otago Regiment, on Gallipoli, and became famous for his forays into No-Man's-Land during two years on the Western Front. He was described by one commentator as a 'dangerously patient', courageous and cunning scout, sniper and raider. 

He prowled in No-Man's-Land during one period of 40 successive nights, seeking out changes in enemy positions and taking a prisoner back for interrogation. He won his major award in July 1918 for conspicuous gallantry over a period of many hours during action against the Germans near Rossignol Wood. Sergeant Travis was killed the following day and was buried with full military honours at the front among his comrades, the battalion diary recording that his death 'cast a gloom over the whole battalion.... never missed an operation... went over the top 15 times.' His true name was Dickson Cornelius Savage but he enlisted and served as R.C. Travis. 

TRENT, Leonard Henry (1915-86) b. Nelson. Joined the RAF in 1937 and was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery and dedication to duty during a bombing raid on a power-house in Holland in May 1943. Squadron leader Trent was in one of ten Ventura bombers which set out on the raid but, because of a series of problems and bad luck, they were left virtually at the mercy of anti-aircraft fire and enemy fighters during the whole of their route over enemy territory. Trent's was the only one of the raiders to get to the target and, although his bombs overshot, blast damage was done to the power-house. On the way back, his plane was shot down and he spent the rest of the war in captivity. He was one of the men who made a mass but unsuccessful breakout from Stalag Luft III war prison in March 1944. This escape was the subject of Paul Brickhill's book, "The Great Escape". Trent was in the RNZAF from 1944 to 1947, and then with the RAF until his retirement in 1965. 

TRIGG, Lloyd Allan (1914-1943) b. Houhora, Northland. 

• The only British combatant in either of the World Wars to be awarded a Victoria Cross on the basis of evidence given by the enemy he had engaged.  

Trigg was commissioned a flying officer in 1942, after training in Canada. In August that same year, while operating in Liberator bombers from Morocco against German submarines, he went in for the kill against U-468. Although the aircraft was hit early and was on fire from end to end, Trigg kept up the attack and sank the submarine with depth charges, before the aircraft finally crashed into the sea because Trigg, seriously wounded, could no longer control it. Some of the submarine crew escaped using a dinghy from the Liberator and, when they were captured by the Royal Navy, told the story of Trigg's dogged courage. He had completed 46 operational sorties by the time of his death. 

Victoria Cross Distinguished Flying Cross 1939/45 Star Atlantic Star	Defence Medal 1939/45 War medal NZ 1939/45 War Service Medal

UPHAM, Charles Hazlitt (1908- )  b Christchurch. He is the only combat soldier ever to win the VC bar, although two medical officers achieved the honour during World War One.  Upham volunteered for service at the outbreak of war and earned the Victoria Cross and Bar for outstanding gallantry and leadership in Crete in May 1941, and at Ruweisat Ridge, Egypt, in July 1942.  After being severely wounded at Ruweisat Ridge, Upham was captured by the Germans and recuperated in an Italian hospital.  He began a private war with his captors and ended the war in Colditz Castle with other 'dangerous' allied prisoners.

Enlisted in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II, Sergeant Upham left New Zealand with the advance party of the 20th Battalion in the 1st Echelon New Zealand Division. He saw active service in Greece, Crete and North Africa.  Lieutenant Upham was awarded the Victoria Cross for 9 days of sustained and conspicuous heroism, skill and leadership in Crete in May 1941. He was badly wounded in his shoulder and arm on the 4th day.

The bar, or second Victoria Cross, was awarded to Captain Upham for battle actions in North Africa at Minqar Qaim on 28 and 29 June 1942 where he played a fearless and conspicuous role in observation when on defence and led his company when the encircled New Zealand Division successfully broke out in a night action.

Captain Upham’s use of hand grenades in this battle were legendary. Again at Ruweisat Ridge 14 - 15 July 1942 his role on attack and reconnaissance was outstanding. He was severely wounded during this action but kept with his men until captured by a German tank brigade.

Charles Upham was born in Christchurch on 21 September 1908 and educated at Christ’s College and Lincoln College where he earned a Diploma in Agriculture. In 1930 he began his life in the high country and hills of the Hurunui District where he mustered and shepherded. It built Upham into a man of wiry strength and great physical endurance. 

He learnt about the land and nature and improved his natural skills of observation and survival. He accepted difficulties as part of normal life as things one had to surmount, which he did with total disregard for personal comfort. He joined the Government Valuation Department in 1937 and continued to tramp the countryside where his physical toughness was legendary with his fellow workers. He returned to Lincoln College in 1939 but his studies were interrupted when he volunteered for the NZ Army at the outbreak of W.W.II in September 1939. Upham was married to Molly McTamney in 1945. From 1946 to 1993 they lived and farmed on their property ‘Landsdown’ at Conway Flat and raised three daughters. He made a valuable contribution to his local community but perhaps the lasting memory will be of a man who had forthright views but an ability to discuss issues with anybody.

• Charles Upham was a shy, courageous, determined man whose principles are an example to everyone. We will remember him.

WARD, James Allen (1919-41) b. Wanganui, a school-teacher before the war. Won the Victoria Cross, in World War Two, in July 1941. He climbed out along the wing of a Wellington bomber to push a canvas engine cover into a hole near an engine, to block petrol from keeping a fire going, thereby saving the crew from having to abandon the aircraft which was returning from a bombing raid. Sergeant-Pilot Ward was killed in action two months later, after he had been given command of a 75 Squadron bomber. He was returning from a raid on Hamburg when he was shot down by anti-aircraft fire, keeping the plane aloft long enough for his crew to bail out but in the end crashing with it. 

Sergeant James Ward (RNZAF)

"On 7/8 July 1941, while returning from one of the attack's on Münster, Sergeant James Ward of No 75 (NZ) Squadron was a second pilot in a Wellington attacked by an Me 110 over the Zuider Zee. The rear-gunner was wounded, much damage done, the starboard wing set ablaze. The crew were preparing to abandon the aircraft when Ward volunteered to go out on the wing and try to smother the flames with a cockpit cover which had served in the plane as a cushion. Attached to a rope and with the help of the navigator, he climbed through the narrow astro-hatch - far from easy in flying gear, even on the ground - put on his parachute, kicked holes in the Wellington's covering fabric to get foot and hand-holds on the geodetic lattices, and descended three foot to the wing. He then worked his way along to behind the engine, and, despite the fierce slipstream from the propeller, managed while lying down to smother the fire. Isolated from the leaking petrol pipe, this later burnt itself out. Ward, exhausted, regained the astro-hatch with great difficulty: "the hardest of the lot," he wrote, "was getting my right leg in. In the end the navigator reached out and pulled it in." Despite all the damage, the crew got home to a safe landing - perhaps the most remarkable thing, apart from Ward's exploit, being the fact that the pilot had no idea at the time what Ward was doing.

This deed performed by Ward, a young schoolmaster before the war, earned him the Victoria Cross, and which must surely be unsurpassed for calculated bravery. Sadly, Sergeant Ward was killed on a Hamburg raid only ten weeks later - before he received his Victoria Cross."

WEATHERS, Lawrence Carthage (1890-1918) b. Te Kopuru, near Dargaville. He moved to South Australia before joining the 43rd Infantry Battalion of the Australian Imperial Forces with whom he won the Victoria Cross (posthumously) in September 1918 at Peronne on the Western Front.

The New Zealand Cross photo: G Preece who was awarded the NZC  for details On 10th March 1869 a special decoration for valour - The New Zealand Cross - was instituted by the Governor of New Zealand, Sir George Bowen, for Acts of bravery by colonial soldiers. Imperial troops were eligible for the Victoria Cross but it took years for the recommendations to be acted upon.  To overcome these problems Bowen created the New Zealand Cross as a special decoration equivalent to the VC.

VC image by www.cqms.com Some photos from http://timeframes.natlib.govt.nz/