VCs awarded when France was the enemy

[kootenayguy]

Capt. Frederic Thornton Peters, VC, DSO, DSC and bar, DSC (U.S.), RN received his VC for leading the attack on the harbour of Oran in French North Africa in the Allied invasion of Nov. 8, 1942. Is this the only VC ever to be awarded when the enemy was France?

The fact that it was France mattered a great deal in the delay of the announcement of this VC for six months, and very little publicity of the achievement going out, as the British authorities played it down as much as they could to avoid antagonizing the French who had resumed as allies against the Nazis. Peters died in a plane crash in Plymouth Sound on Nov. 13, 1942. His mother expected to receive his VC as next-of-kin in an official presentation, but the medal came to her in regular mail without even a cover letter. In contrast, the Americans went all out in sending a delegation and brass band to present their Distinguished Service Cross medal to her as next-of-kin.

[anthony]

Captain Peters VC DSO DSC was not the only recipient of a VC for an action against the Vichy French. There were two awards in 1941 to Jim Gordon and Roden Cutler for the Syrian campaign.

I was interested in the comment ‘the fact that it was France mattered a great deal in the delay of the announcement of this VC for six months’. Is there any published or archival evidence to support this view? The award took six months but there were another eight between six months and a year and 18 over one year and less than six years. It took a bit longer than normal but it was the third award for fighting the Vichy French.

I understand that the next of kin of Peters received the medal in the post. I am most sceptical at the description that ‘the medal came to her in regular mail without even a cover letter’. I am unaware as to where the next of kin was resident and if it was his mother then she probably would have been in her seventies. If she was in the UK I am sure she would have been invited to receive the award by King George VI. It would not have been a public presentation but in private and would have rated only a couple of lines in the newspaper some days after the presentation. It is likely she declined the invitation to receive the medal in person and opted to receive it by registered post.

The fact that ‘the Americans went all out in sending a delegation and brass band to present their Distinguished Service Cross medal to her as next-of-kin’ gives the game away. It suggests that she was unable or unwilling to travel. The presentation would have been by a senior US officer or diplomat but not the President of the United States. As a one off tribute to an ally it was feasible and to their credit that the US organised such an event. The King made great effort throughout the war and after the war to present thousands of honours and awards to British and Commonwealth service personnel. If the next of kin were unable to attend then it was sent by registered post.

BTW the first presentation to next of kin did not occur until 1916 but after that date most next of kin accepted the invitation to receive the award from the monarch or the monarch’s representative.

[kootenayguy]

Thanks for your interest in my ancestor. I think the difference between Oran and Syria was that there was some involvement of German and Italian planes in Syria, but no involvement by anyone other than the French at Oran. I got that from Wikipedia, which also said there were 3 VCs, so correct me if I am wrong about the other Axis countries being involved. The point that there was no cover letter that arrived with the VC medal is a story passed down to me from my grandmother and mother. What I do know for sure is that there is no such letter in the family files which have dozens of telegrams, news clippings and letters associated with the VC.

The next-of-kin was Fritz's mother Bertha Gray Peters, who was 80 years old and living with her daughter Helen Dewdney's family in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada at the time of the Oran action and Fritz's death in a plane crash in November 1942. She was crippled after a fall about 10 years earlier, but still fully alert mentally, to the point that she regularly won cash prizes in crossword puzzle contests sponsored by newspapers. She was a granddaughter of Col. Robert Gray, who was a Loyalist in Virginia who fought against the rebels in the American Revolution. With this heritage, Bertha was a strong Anglophile and had a pronounced dislike for Americans. This caused her to be perplexed when the United States went all out in presenting her with the U.S. DSC in February 1944, while the British just sent the VC in the mail.

There was an order from Admiral Andrew Cunningham on Dec. 13, 1942 saying that "silence is the best policy" regarding the Oran VC. He said he had recently encountered a French naval officer in Oran who was keen on joining the Allies in the fight against the Nazis, even though his wife was killed by bombardment that came with the Allied invasion of French North Africa in November. From this, he felt that the sore spots in the relationship between the French and Allies -- particular associated with the Oran harbour conflict -- should be avoided as much as possible. He was apparently not aware that the Oran mission was included in the weekly BBC radio report of Lieut. Commander (ret.) Tommy Woodroofe, so it was really too late to hush up the VC.

By coincidence, there was another WW2 naval VC in the city of Nelson (population 7,000), even though located about 400 miles inland from the Pacific Coast. Lieut. Robert Hampton (Hammy) Gray was posthumously awarded the VC for sinking a Japanese destroyer in Onagawa Bay in August 1945 (a couple of days after the Hiroshima bombin). The medal was announced in November 1945, and the following April his mother went to Ottawa to receive the medal in a presentation by Canada's Governor General of the day. This was fitting, as he was the King's representative in Canada. It is possible that it was decided to not have a similar presentation to Bertha because she was physically unable to travel. At the urging of the Nelson Board of Trade, local mountains were named after Capt. Peters and Lieut. Gray.

The Brits went all out in publicizing Hammy Gray's VC, but publicity about Peters' VC was barebone. Newspaper articles at the time said more information would be forthcoming, but it never did. Most of the news clippings we have in family files are from publicity generated by Peters' friends in England and his relations in Canada.

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[anthony]

Thanks for the additional information. While there were German and Italian planes in Syria before the invasion they were actually transiting through Syria out of Iraq after the British and Indian forces had defeated Rashid Ali and his followers. You are correct that Wikipedia implied that there were three VCs for Syria but if you recheck you will note that the name of Geoffrey Keyes has been moved and now states that was he posthumously awarded the VC for North Africa in mid November 1941.

Since writing I was informed that your grandmother was named Susan Bertha Hamilton Peters who died on 28 July 1946 at Nelson, British Columbia at the age of 75. This is slightly different to your information and my source would be more than pleased to be corrected.

Since your grandmother was in Canada the Victoria Cross would have been sent to either the Governor General of Canada or the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. The offices of either one or the other would have tried to arrange for a presentation. It no letter was sent then it was an oversight on the part of Canadian authorities. A search at national or provincial archives might locate a file relating to the presentation and answer the question whether a letter accompanied the medal. In the case of the posthumous VC to Charles Ferguson Hoey of the Lincolnshire Regiment, the next of kin were able to receive the medal from British Columbia Lieutenant Governor W C Woodward at Vancouver on 16 January 1945.

I was most interested in the reference to the order from Admiral Andrew Cunningham on Dec. 13, 1942 saying that "silence is the best policy" regarding the Oran VC. Is there a published reference to this order and to the weekly BBC radio report of Lieut. Commander (ret.) Tommy Woodroofe.

I had a look at the reports in The Times for both Peters and Gray that announced each award. The word length for Peters was 250 words compared to 150 words for Gray. While both citations were about the same length the Peters report included some additional background information.

[kootenayguy]

The problem with Peters' VC presentation may well have been with Canadian authorities. I think what bothered Bertha more than anything else was the contrast between the arrival of the VC and the U.S. DSC. Nelson is a long distance from either the provincial capital of Victoria or the nationa capital of Ottawa, so it would have been a lot to ask for either the Lieutenant Governor or Governor General to travel there for the presentation. My records show that Bertha was born June 26, 1862 in Charlottetown, so she would have been 80 at the time of the Oran action and 84 when she died in 1946. The year of birth has been confirmed by three Canadian censuses and her death registration.

I have attached an image of Cunningham's memo of Dec. 18, 1942 (I was off a few days in my previous mention of it), which was one of the files at Kew that were photographed for me a couple of years ago by a researcher I hired. The order was mentioned in an extensive article about the Oran harbour attack titled "Death at the Hands of Friends" that was in the Winter 2011 issue of Army History magazine which is freely available online.

I also have a copy of the text of Woodroofe's report on the Oran action, which is also mentioned in the Army History article. He was close by on a ship at Arzeu east of Oran when the attack was going on, and he witnessed the damage in the harbour personally a couple of days later after Oran surrendered. By the way, there is a very funny video clip of Woodroofe commentating for the BBC on the review of the fleet in 1937. His navy buddies got him drunk before the broadcast, and his commentary was all over the map, including moments of panic when he blacked out temporarily and lost sight of the ships as his ship turned, leading him to think the fleet had disappeared into thin air.

I was told that many of Capt. Peters' files were intentionally destroyed because of his involvement with the British Secret Intelligence Service. The only source I have found for his work with SIS is Kim Philby's book My Secret War. Peters was in command of a school for spies and saboteurs at Brickendonbury Hall, where instructors under him included Philby and Burgess. Philby admired Peters despite their political differences.

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[anthony]

Thank you for the date and place of birth of Bertha which I will pass along to my source who will be delighted at the confirmation.

The US DSC bothers me for other reasons. Did the US ever seek British approval for the award which I doubt would have received permission if the US had respected British procedures? The British had long established procedures for the acceptance of foreign awards and one of the requirements was that a foreign award could not be accepted for an action in which an imperial award was awarded. So if the US award to Peters was for Oran then on the face of it should not have been accepted. Although I have yet to find it in the London Gazette I presume it was eventually accepted on the pragmatic grounds that it would have been embarrassing to reject the award. I am familiar with a number of US awards to Australians for the Second World War which were accepted on pragmatic grounds by the Australian Government despite the fact that they should have been rejected.

I was delighted to read the image of Cunningham's memo of 18 December 1942 and thank you for the link to "Death at the Hands of Friends" in the Winter 2011 issue of Army History magazine which I have now read. I like the article’s comment ‘The British, who had fought a quasi-war against the Vichy French for two years beginning in July 1940, were a little less concerned about French opinion’. The survivors of the raid were interviewed by the press when they arrived back in the UK. The BBC interview with Australian Lieutenant Ronald Major RANVR who served on HMS Walney and who was awarded the DSC for the action featured in the Western Mail in Western Australia two weeks after the awards for Oran were gazetted. Major was awarded a bar to the DSC in the Philippines aboard HMAS Shropshire in 1945. He died aged 67 in 1978.

[kootenayguy]

See attached letter.

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[kootenayguy]

Also, here is a scan of an Eisenhower letter to Admiralty about the U.S. DSC for Capt. Peters which was passed on to my great-grandmother Bertha. It is interesting that he says Oran, Morocco, when of course it is in Algeria. This error may reflect the fact that Americans were not familiar with the geography of Africa and Europe early in the war. Or that Ike did not distinguish between Morocco and Algeria, as they were both fully-controlled colonies of France at the time.

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[anthony]

Both letters are revealing. I was assuming that the Admiralty would handle matters in a similar manner to the War Office. Eight days after Peters’ death his mother writes to the Admiralty about the bar to the DSC awarded to Peters in 1940. So three weeks after the Victoria Cross is gazetted the Admiralty replies to the letter of November 1942 and says the medals will be in the mail. This compares unfavourably with the War Office actions a few months later in the case of the Victoria Cross for British Army Major Hoey that is sent to Canada so that it can be presented to his next of kin by the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. It has taken a while to convince me but the culprit is the Admiralty.

The other letter confirms my suspicion that the US in their generosity ignored the procedure for conferring foreign awards on British servicemen. If the Admiralty was so cavalier in sending the Victoria Cross to his mother by registered mail one wonders if they ever had it officially approved. I am still hoping to find the approval in the London Gazette. However, the US DSC had been with the Admiralty for six months and was presumably sent to his mother as noted in the Admiralty letter. So was a second US DSC presented to his mother by the US officers that visited Nelson?

[anthony]

I have now found the gazette entry for the US DSC.

London Gazette, 19 January 1943, page 397

The KING has been graciously pleased to grant unrestricted permission for the wearing of the following decorations bestowed by the President of the United States upon Officers of the Royal Navy for their services in the North African Campaign:
...
The Distinguished Service Cross.
Captain Frederick Thornton Peters, D.S.O., D.S.C., Royal Navy

[kootenayguy]

FYI, here is scan of letter of apology from Canadian official that Bertha Peters met at the U.S. DSC presentation.

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[kootenayguy]

Here is the first page of a local newspaper report of the Feb. 4, 1944 presentation of the U.S. DSC to Mrs. Peters. Rest of the article will follow in next post.

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[kootenayguy]

And here is the rest of the Nelson Daily News article on the U.S.DSC presentation. This is about all that I have in the way of documents related to the presentation of the awards.

FYI, below is a link to a write-up about my great-uncle that I wrote for a Victoria, B.C. naval museum recently. It has a couple of minor errors that I am going to have corrected. He had a spectacular military career and a mysterious life.

www.navalandmilitarymuseum.org/resource_pages/heroes/peters.html

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