1911: The Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service was established, to provide logistic support to the Royal Navy at sea.

1918: A further five Victoria Crosses were won as the German Michael offensive continued to push relentlessly into the British positions south of Arras.

Lieutenant Colonel Collings-Wells began a dogged rearguard action that was to continue until 27 March, when he finally fell in action. He was twice wounded during the period but refused to leave his men.

Lieutenant Colonel Roberts similarly distinguished himself during the retreat over the following twelve days, showing remarkable stamina and determination in numerous actions in difficult circumstances, inflicting serious reverses on the pursuing enemy.

Sergeant Jackson made a lone reconnaissance sortie into No Man's Land, through the German barrage, to gain intelligence on their preparations for the assault. When later a section of trenches was captured by the Germans, Jackson counter-attacked on his own and drove them out by skillful use of grenades, then worked his way close enough to a machine-gun post to knock it out of action with another grenade. He subsequently took command of his entire company, all the officers having been killed or wounded, and led them in a successful counter-attack. In between all these acts of gallantry, he was notably active in rescuing wounded men.

Private Columbine headed a small machine-gun team that alone managed to hold up a German attack for four hours. Eventually the German troops called up air support and managed to outflank the machine-gun post. Columbine thereupon told his two surviving colleagues to retreat while they could, and remained at his post, giving them covering fire. He was finally killed by a grenade.

Second Lieutenant Knox, a Royal Engineer, was given the task of destroying a dozen bridges to hold up the German advance. Eleven were destroyed satisfactorily, but at the twelfth the time-fuse on the charges failed. By now the area of the bridge was under very heavy fire, but Knox ran forward and made his way underneath the bridge, where he managed to light a short back-up fuse. He just managed to get clear before it detonated and successfully brought the bridge down.

1942: A convoy bound from Alexandria to Malta was attacked by the Italian fleet in the Second Battle of Sirte. However, the escorting light cruisers and destroyers, under Rear-Admiral Vian, put up a masterly defence, despite being massively outgunned - the Italian force included a battleship - and the attackers broke off the action.

1944: Bomber Command followed up its raid of four nights' earlier with another devastating attack on Frankfurt. 816 aircraft attacked, with the loss of 33. Severe damage was inflicted on a number of industrial areas in particular.

1945: An attack by Australian infantry on the island of Bougainville was held up by a network of three Japanese bunkers. Corporal Rattey charged forward alone and with a Bren Gun and grenades succeeded in knocking out each of the bunkers in turn. Later that day, he succeeded in capturing another machine-gun post. His heroism was rewarded with the Victoria Cross.