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This cache is at the junction of five streets, called Victoria Cross, in Australia's second largest business district, North Sydney, the heart of the nation's advertising and IT. The satellite coverage was abysmal, and the muggle rating is mostly 5/5 on weekdays but the area is deserted at weekends. The cache is very small. BYO pen.
Apropos Victoria Cross, the VC (Victoria Cross) is also the highest recognition for valour "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces of any rank in any service, and civilians under military command. It is the highest award in the British Honours system.
The VC was created by Queen Victoria on 29 January 1856, and backdated to 1854 to recognise acts of valour during the Crimean War (1854-1855) against the Russians. The first award ceremony was on 26 June 1857.
A total of 1,355 Victoria Crosses have been awarded since 1856. This figure is made up of 1,351 people who have earned the VC, plus three bars (a bar is awarded for winning the same decoration again), and one award in 1921 to the American Unknown Soldier of the First World War. (The British Unknown Warrior was reciprocally awarded the US Medal of Honor - the United States equivalent to the VC)
The largest number of VCs awarded in a single day was 24 on 16 November 1857, at the relief of Lucknow during the "Indian Mutiny". The largest number awarded in a single action was 11 for the defence of Rorke's Drift on 22/23 January 1879 in the Zulu Wars in South Africa. Who can forget Colour Sergeant Bourne's order in the movie "Zulu" - "Look to yer front! Mark your target when it comes!" as 4,000 Zulus charge 80 men of the 24th regiment, defending the stores depot & 35 patients in the hospital. The Zulu impi had come straight from their triumph at Isandhlwana. Six times the Zulu warriors penetrated the defences, and six times they were driven back at bayonet point. At dawn the Zulu withdrew, leaving 350 dead. The British loss was 17 killed and 10 wounded.
Cynical commentators at the time believed the VC was "over awarded" to the 24th regiment's garrison at Rorke's Drift to compensate - in the public's eyes - for Isandhlwana. This was the worst defeat ever inflicted on a British Imperial force by a primitive enemy. On the 22nd of January the centre of the three columns invading Zululand - around 1,600 Europeans and 2,500 natives - was camped near a rocky hill known as Isandhlwana. Lord Chelmsford, commanding the invasion, went off with a small escort to reconnoitre. After he had left, the camp was surprised and overwhelmed by one of King Cetywayo's Zulu armies nearly 10,000 strong. The British lost 806 Europeans (more than half belonging to the 24th regiment) and 471 natives. Lord Chelmsford and the reconnoitring party returned to find the camp deserted; there were no wounded survivors. All the column's transport waggons and their oxen were also lost. This disaster is excellently recreated in the movie "Zulu Dawn", the prequel to "Zulu".
The odds at Rorke's Drift were very similar to those at the Battle of Long Tan on August 18-19, 1966 - arguably the most famous battle fought by Australian forces during the Vietnam War. This chance encounter in a rubber plantation in Phuoc Tuy province is regarded as a classic military case study in the use of combined arms to defeat a numerically superior enemy. The fight pitted 106 men of D Company, 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, patrolling through mist and monsoonal rain against three battalions of the North Vietnamese Army's 275th Regiment (approximately 2,400 regulars plus around 100 local guerrillas) who were resting up in a jungle area to the east of the australian base. It cost the lives of 18 Australians and left 26 wounded. VC there, of course, meant the Viet Cong - the enemy - who lost at least 245 dead (buried on the battlefield by the Australians), and altogether suffered around 750 casualties, according to later intercepts of VC communications.
The largest number of Victoria Crosses awarded in a war was 634 during the First World War. Since the end of the Second World War the VC has been awarded only 12 times. Four were awarded during the Korean War, one in the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation in 1965, four to Australians in the Vietnam War, two during the Falklands War in 1982, and one in the Second Gulf War in 2004.
As the VC is awarded for acts of valour "in the face of the enemy", it has been suggested that the changing nature of warfare will result in fewer VCs being awarded. Following the death of Capt. Umrao Singh, the last surviving Indian holder of the VC, in November 2005, there are currently only twelve surviving holders of the VC – six British, two Australians, and four Gurkhas – eight of them for exploits during the Second World War.
On 24 July 2006, an auction in Sydney of the VC awarded to Captain Alfred Shout fetched a world record hammer price of $A1 million (US $760,000). Captain Alfred Shout was awarded the VC posthumously in 1915 for hand-to-hand combat at the Lone Pine trenches in Gallipoli, Turkey, in World War One. The Victoria Cross Gallery in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, contains most of the VCs awarded to Australians, and 60 VCs in all, the largest such publicly held collection in the world. Following the 2006 purchase and donation by Kerry Stokes of Capt Shout's medal, the Victoria Cross Gallery now has all nine VCs awarded to Australians at Gallipoli.
Australia was the first Commonwealth nation to create its own VC, which is technically a separate award but is identical in appearance to its British counterpart. Holders of the Victoria Cross [or the George Cross - the civilian equivalent] are entitled to an annuity, the amount of which is determined by the awarding government.
The Australian Government provides the two surviving Australian recipients a Victoria Cross Allowance under Subsection 103.4 of the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986. In January 2006 the amount was $A3,230 per year ( approx: US $2,500) which is indexed annually in line with Australian Consumer Price Index increases.
The key issue in determining awards for bravery at the Victoria Cross level is always "Who saw it happen?" For a long time, if the act of valour was not witnessed by a commissioned officer then a citation could not be approved - even as recently as World War Two. In actions where such deeds of valour were done, there was often no witness left alive after the action - officers or other ranks. It is estimated that only one in ten VC recipients in the 20th century survived the action for which they received the Victoria Cross. The US Medal of Honor has similarly sad statistics.
Additional Hints
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Jung'f fgrry naq tynff naq terra nyy bire?