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SOME OBSERVATIONS on the MEDAL OF HONOR and the BRITISH VICTORIA CROSS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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*related
to naval operations e.g. General Doolittle of the
"Doolittle Raid"
Different criteria apply to the award of the Medal of Honor and the Victoria Cross in maritime operations. Thus, while the Medal of Honor would be awarded to the US services in the following left-hand column, the British equivalents might receive other awards or the role would be performed by the British Army or RAF: |
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Comment - Britons tend to think the US awarded more gallantry medals than Britain. I wanted to see how true this is, especially with such revered awards as the Congressional Medal of Honor in the United States, and the Victoria (and George) Cross in Britain and Commonwealth countries. Straight-forward comparisons are not easy, but after allowance is made for the different award criteria in the US and Britain, the respective sizes of their armed forces, and the differences that do exist in values and culture, I am struck by two things: 1. The numbers of awards to naval forces in the two countries are not too dissimilar, thus:
2. Many great naval campaigns, battles and actions resulted in few or even no awards of the Victoria Cross or the Medal of Honor. For example one each in the Battles of the Atlantic, Midway and Leyte Gulf and the Kamikaze attacks off Okinawa, none at Normandy:
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