MONUMENTS TO COURAGE: Victoria Cross Headstones & Memorials

This is a monumental work in every sense, It is the product of some 35 years of research that took the author to more than fifty countries and thousands of cemeteries and churchyards. His aim was to list every known location world-wide of the final resting places and major memorials to each of the recipients of the VC, with particular emphasis on recording the exact location of almost three hundred holders who currently have no headstone, memorial or other marker. He also wished to correct the very large number of previously published errors relating to places and dates. Some of the recipients stipulated they wanted nothing to mark their grave; Piper Laidlaw (Loos, September 1915) was one of these. A total of 1,353 individuals received the award and this book records the final resting places of 1,322 of them, many of them in long forgotten graves round the world. Three of them received the award twice, 299 were posthumous. The American Unknown Warrior of the Great War was awarded one in return for the US Congressional Medal of Honour bestowed on the British Unknown Warrior (who was not awarded the VC), and this makes a total of 1,357 awards. Each entry is listed in chronological order of deed and numbered accordingly at the beginning of the first line of the entry, which also gives the name, last known rank and unit followed by the location of the deed, under which is another number. This is the position of the name where the recipients are listed alphabetically, as in The Register of the Victoria Cross. Other information given includes date of birth and death, place of burial, brief description of the deed with the recipients rank at the time, followed by nature and location of any memorial. The appendices contain a mine of information including: gazetteer with location of every grave and known memorial, awards by regiment, awards by wars/campaigns, awards by rank in each of the services, family awards, forfeitures, posthumous awards, awards as the result of ballots, museums where the medals can be seen, and more besides.