1900: Lieutenant Nickerson of the Royal Army Medical Corps won the Victoria Cross during an action against Boer forces when he braved enemy artillery and rifle fire to dress the wounds of a wounded man lying in the open, then stayed with him until a stretcher party was able to reach them.

1915: Three Victoria Crosses were won on the Western Front during German assaults on British positions at Hill 60.

* Lieutenant Roupell, East Surrey Regiment, commanded a company which came under very heavy artillery fire. He suffered multiple wounds but remained at his post to lead the defence against the following German infantry attack. Having then received first aid, he returned to the trenches to endure a further artillery attack. During the night, he led forward, through the shell-fire, reinforcements which allowed the position to be held against further attacks.

* Second Lieutenant Woolley, London Regiment, was the only officer in his section of the line, but he led a successful defence with very few men against repeated German attacks.

* Private Dwyer of the East Surrey Regiment left the safety of his trench to tend several wounded men. Later, he again climbed out of the trench, and, standing in the open, engaged in a hand-grenade duel with a German bombing party. Despite the odds, he drove them off.

1941: Despite being physically exhausted and sick with influenza, Squadron Leader Pattle led the remnants of 33 and 80 Squadrons against a large enemy formation over Eleusis Bay near Athens. During the subsequent dogfight, heavily outnumbered, it is believed he was killed going to the aid of a colleague in difficulties, his Hurricane coming down in the sea. Squadron Leader Pattle was almost certainly the highest scoring fighter pilot of the Western Allies during the Second World War, with possibly as many as fifty or sixty victories.