1855: Bosun's Mate Sullivan was awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroism at the siege of Sevastopol, when he braved enemy fire to plant a marker post in front of concealed Russian batteries to provide an aiming point for Allied artillery.

1917: Two Victoria Crosses were awarded for actions on the Western Front. Private Waller was decorated posthumously for continuing to defend alone a captured trench against continual German counter-attacks after his colleagues in a grenade team had fallen casualties. He himself was finally killed. At Vimy Ridge, Private Pattison, of the Alberta Regiment, ran across No Man's Land from crater to crater to attack a German machine-gun which was holding up the advance. He got close enough to hit the position with grenades, then went in with the bayonet to complete the capture of the post.

1918: As the British lines were forced back at Messines, the situation was saved by the initiative of Captain Dougall, Royal Field Artillery. He repositioned his battery to fire over open sights, and rallied the retreating infantry to form a defensive position around his guns. Under his leadership, they held the line for twelve hours before withdrawing, pulling the guns by hand across the scarred and muddy terrain. Dougall was awarded the Victoria Cross, but was killed in action four days later.

Elsewhere on the Front, Private Poulter, a stretcher-bearer, carried in turn ten wounded men on his back under continual fire, then, after the British troops retreated, went back alone across a river to rescue another wounded man left behind. He then tended the wounds of forty men on his own, before attempting a further rescue mission. This time he was hit, and seriously wounded. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

In Egypt, Karanbahadur Rana of the 3rd Gurkha Rifles also won the Victoria Cross for his repeated gallantry attacking Turkish positions, including the elimination of a machine-gun position.

1921: On the North West Frontier, Indian Army troops fought an action against tribesmen at Haidari Kach. Sepoy Ishar Singh was badly wounded early on, and tribesmen captured his Lewis Gun, but recovering his strength he retook the weapon. Ordered to have his wounds attended to, he reported to the medical officer, but refused treatment, instead insisting on acting as the doctor's guard, covering him whilst he tended to other casualties and at one point acting as a human shield whilst a wounded man's injuries were dressed. Finally, after three hours in action, he consented to be evacuated. Singh was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1940: During the Norwegian campaign, Fleet Air Arm Skua dive-bombers of 800 and 803 Naval Air Squadrons attacked the German cruiser Koenigsberg, alongside at Bergen, sinking her at her moorings; the first major warship sunk by air attack. Meanwhile, at Narvik, Captain Warburton-Lee aboard the destroyer HMS Hardy led four of her sisters of the H Class through a snowstorm to surprise a superior German flotilla in a fjord. Two German destroyers were sunk and two crippled during a fierce action in the narrow waters; six German supply ships were also destroyed. Warburton-Lee was killed and awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his gallant leadership. Hardy and Hunter collided due to damage sustained in the fighting; Hunter sank, but Hardy was successfully beached by Pay-Lieutenant Stanning, Warburton-Lee's Captain's Secretary.

1941: The epic siege of Tobruk began, as Axis troops surrounded the port, held by Australian and British troops. Other Commonwealth forces were heavily engaged north across the Mediterranean in Greece, attempting to stem the German advance there.