1858: In India, mutineers surprised a group of men from the 2nd Dragoon Guards, and overpowered the commanding officer. Trumpeter Monaghan and Private Anderson came to his rescue and successfully drove off the attackers. Both received the Victoria Cross.

Near Sundeela Oudh on October 8th 1858 Trumpeter Thomas Monaghan and Private Charles Anderson saved the life of their Colonel, Lt. Colonel W H Seymour C. B., when he was attacked and felled by thirty to forty mutineers in a dense jungle They rushed to his aid and held off the Sepoys with their swords and pistols until the officer was able to regain his feet, when the rebels were put to flight

1914: Following an earlier unsuccessful attack on 22 September, Squadron Commander Spenser-Grey and Flight Lieutenant Marix of the Eastchurch Squadron, Royal Naval Air Service, took off in primitive Sopwith Tabloid biplanes with improvised bombing gear to attack Zeppelin airship hangars at Dusseldorf and Cologne.

Sqn Cdr Spenser-Grey was unable to locate his target in Cologne, and bombed the railway station instead. Marix, however, scored a direct hit on a Dusseldorf shed, destroying Zeppelin LZ25 inside. Returning to Antwerp, Marix was shot down, but safely made it back on foot to the Allied lines.

1915: When a German attack broke into and took a section of the British front line at Loos, Lance-Sergeant Brooks, Coldstream Guards, organised a grenade team to mount an immediate and effective counter-attack. Thanks to his leadership, the bombing party retook the position. Brooks received the Victoria Cross.

1916: On the Somme, Canadian infantry attacking a German position were played into action by Piper Richardson of the Manitoba Regiment. Ignoring enemy fire, he stood in the open in No Man's Land by the enemy barbed wire. The position having been taken, he then carried a wounded man back to the Allied lines. However, he then insisted on going back to find his bagpipes, which he had had to leave in the open whilst carrying the casualty. He never returned. Richardson was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

1918: Captain Mitchell, Canadian Engineers, led a night mission to take and make safe a pair of bridges across a canal. He managed to cut the fuses to the demolition charges on one, then made his way to the second. With the assistance of an NCO, he was defusing the demolition charges there when the Germans realised what was happening and attacked. Mitchell killed three opponents and took a dozen prisoner, then returned to his task of making the bridge safe, despite heavy enemy fire.

A South African pilot from 84 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Captain Beauchamp-Proctor, was awarded the Victoria Cross for outstanding success in air combat. His 54 victories included 16 enemy observation balloons destroyed - the most dangerous of targets given the heavy defences that invariably surrounded them - making Beauchamp-Proctor the most successful RFC and RAF balloon-buster.

1940: The Luftwaffe launched four fighter sweeps and attacked shipping near Dover. London was again the main target during the night.

1944: During heavy fighting in Italy, Private Burton of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment single-handedly attacked three different German machine-gun posts, enabling his unit to take the position, then played a sterling role in the defence against repeated counter-attacks. He received the Victoria Cross.