World’s most useful website

While it does not claim to be totally comprehensive, some pack of absolute brains has put together a list of Victoria Crosses, classified by both school and conflict.

Victoria Cross and bar

As the Victoria Cross is, obviously, a Victorian creation, it does not overly benefit the more ancient schools but nevertheless, Eton comes out as the bravest school in England (apparently becuase people from cleverer but less brave schools could easily convince Etonians of the glamour of going over the top), with Melbourne Grammar School taking the honours in Australia, Upper Cananda College in Canada and Christ’s College in New Zealand.

As the site mentions, Three schools educated the only boys who went on to win the Victoria Cross and Bar (i.e. double Victoria Cross winners), Christ’s College, Canterbury, New Zealand (Charles Upham), Magdalen College School (Noel Godfrey Chavasse) and Westminster School (Arthur Martin-Leake).

This is an absolutely vital resource for settling arguments, proving school quality & qualifications.

Not sure how one operated before without it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Victoria_Crosses_by_school

Cobber Kain & Grid Caldwell

Flashmen today came across a tired, slim paperback volume, entitled ‘New Zealanders in the Air War’ by a Mr Mitchell. It gave an all too brief account of the exploits of various New Zealand airmen in the Battle of Britain and throughout World War II.  While perhaps an obscure book for some, it covered a significant contribution to the RAF and the Allied cause.

One of the first chapters covered the short life of  ‘Cobber’ Kain, who while arguably not the Allies’ first ace of the war, was one of their earliest, fighting in France prior to the evacuation from Dunkirk. He had somewhere between 15 and 20+ kills, bailing out several times and crash landing his own aircraft (normally because they were on fire) on several others. His first victory came on his 21st birthday and was followed, by all accounts, by a suitably rowdy celebration that night.

Cobber Kain (from Wikipedia)

At one point, crashing into No Man’s Land, he was arrested by a French officer, then the two of them were arrested by an even more suspicious French soldier before finally making it safely back behind Allied lines where he was given a drink and borrowed a plane to fly back to his squadron.

He seems to have suffered wounds regularly, and at one stage had 18 pieces of shrapnel in his leg, which didn’t seem to worry him greatly as he commented to the book’s author that they were gradually working their way out. He always wore a New Zealand pounamu tiki as a good luck charm (though actually the tiki is traditionally a fertility symbol), and though it may have helped get him through a number of scrapes, it was not able to save him in the end.

The extravangance of Cobber’s exploits made him something of a celebrity and Mr Mitchell recounts how at a Paris restaurant quite a crowd gathered to collect his autograph. His fame was useful to the Allies, and he also made broadcasts to America.

In March 1940, Kain was awarded the DFC and in May was posted back to England but was immediately ordered to return to the Front. By this time he was the Allies’ most famous Ace and had become engaged to an English actress. His mother, excited by this news, set sail from New Zealand to see him while he, in France, was fighting a retreat with his squadron.

On 7 June 1940, Cobber was to return to England to take up instruction duties when in farewell to his colleagues he started doing barrell rolls at 200 feet over the airfield at Bois. He must have misjudged the height as he crashed and was killed instantly, 20 days short of his 22nd birthday.

Cobber Kain was from Wellington, and was very well educated at (Christ’s) College, Canterbury. It was no doubt this background that gave him the confidence to wear his white rollneck jerseys with such insouciance.

On the topic of air heroes, another kiwi DFC (and, in his case, bar) was Keith ‘Grid’ Caldwell; the nickname being the term he apparently used to refer to a plane, which in turn was derived from the then New Zealand slang for a push-bike.

Caldwell took up flying after failing to join the NZEF destined for Gallipoli in the First Wold War. He was commissioned into the Royal Flying Corps in 1916 and ultimately had at least 13 enemy kills during his time with the twenty minuters. also receiving the Military Cross “for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty”.

Outside Blenheim, New Zealand, is Omaka – an excellent, Peter Jackson supported museum of WW1 aircraft. There is a display of Grid Caldwell in one of his most famous maneouveres: while he was never shot down he did have a mid-air collision. while pilots in WW1 were not equipped with parachutes (to avoid encouraging cowardice, it was claimed), Grid was climbing out of the cockpit and getting ready to jump when he realised that with one foot on a wing, he could control the plane better. He carried on flying, with a hand on the control stick, until he was close enough to land to jump, rolling into a field and being collected by members of another squadron.

The display’s caption reads that as a guest back at the Mess, Grid ‘took control of the drinking’ before returning to his squadron the next day.

Grid Caldwell survived WW1 and went on to serve with the RNZAF in WW2, before dying in 1980.

Black Trouser Day

Charlie Wilson in his office with an Enfield rifle (photo reproduced in The Times, Marcy Nighswander/AP)

All Flashmen are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Charlie Wilson. Immortalised in print by George Crile, and in a subsequent moving picture, Mr Wilson played a crucial role in ramping up American funding to the Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion during the ’80s.

Mr Wilson’s association with the CIA, US Navy, recreational binge drinking and generally cavalier attitude to conforming to the moralistic norms of an American political career, seem to have jaundiced some commentators against him. Others see his funding for the mujahadeen as the catalyst for today’s more acutely global threats.

For Flashmen though, anyone who gets their shirts tailored with epaulettes, enjoys champagne and travels regularly to the aid of those in Central and Southern Asia’s more idiosyncratically dangerous regions, deserves a salute.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Mr Wilson will be buried with full military honours at Arlington on 23 February.