All 10 Royal Marines Victoria Crosses go on show together for first time
All 10 Victoria Crosses ever awarded to the Royal Marines are going on public display together for the first time, at a new £15m Royal Marines Experience at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard opening on 24 October.
All 10 Royal Marines Victoria Crosses go on show together for first time
The complete set of Royal Marines Victoria Cross medals - 10 in all, spanning the Crimean War and both world wars - has never been shown to the public as one group. That changes this month, when the Royal Marines Experience opens its doors and puts every one of them on permanent display.
Medals leave secure storage for permanent display
The new £15m attraction at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard tells 360 years of marines' history, and the 10 VCs are among its centrepieces. Matthew Sheldon, chief executive officer of Royal Navy Museums, said the originals have spent years out of sight.
"The originals have never been seen together before. They've been in secure storage, not visible to the public."
Sheldon described the medals as fantastically special. They will be on permanent display when the Royal Marines Experience opens on 24 October.
The story Matthew Sheldon cannot forget
Of the 10 awards, Sheldon has a favourite: Sergeant Norman Augustus Finch, born in 1890, who won the Victoria Cross during the Zeebrugge Raid on 23 April 1918 while serving aboard HMS Vindictive. Finch was stationed on a high lookout platform when shells hit it, killing or wounding everyone around him. Severely injured, he stayed at his post and kept firing on enemy positions until a further shell finally put him out of action.
There was another twist. Because the whole battalion had fought with such bravery, the marines were allowed to vote for who among them should receive the VC - and Finch was chosen by his peers.
A stretcher bearer's Victoria Cross at Gallipoli
Mark Berry, the assistant curator of artefacts, said he liked the story of Lance Corporal Walter Richard Parker, who served as a stretcher bearer during the Gallipoli campaign. On the morning of 1 May 1915, Parker crossed 365 metres (400 yards) of open ground under intense enemy fire to reach an isolated frontline trench - the only person to make it.
He treated the wounded there, helped them evacuate the next morning, and was himself severely injured in the thigh and chest. Berry said the story shows the multilayered role of the marines:
"It's not just fighting. It's also trying to save lives, trying to help people."
What the medals ask visitors today
Sheldon noted that the marines who earned the Victoria Cross tended to be "youngish" and not from very senior ranks, often in close quarters with the enemy - much like today's marines, who work in small, agile teams.
"They are powerful because they make you think: 'What would I have done in the same incident.'"
He said the medals are about a moment in time and somebody's choice, and that the stories could prompt debate about the role the UK played in global conflicts. "I think the medals ask questions about the world we live in now."
The modern connections are close at hand. Earlier this month the Royal Marines returned to the Faroe Islands for the first time since the second world war, as part of security efforts in the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap, and this autumn commando engineers have been practising digging underground hospitals that offer protection against drone attacks.
The Royal Marines Experience opens at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard on 24 October, where all 10 Victoria Crosses will remain on permanent display.
