Three men who faced bullets, bombs and terrorists — and lived to tell the tale — gathered in Chelsea as the National Army Museum celebrated becoming the new home of a world-famous collection of Victoria and George Crosses. Reporter John Cookson joined an audience captivated by extraordinary stories of courage, fear and survival.
You could have heard a pin drop. A room of a hundred or so guests sat transfixed as three of Britain’s most decorated living heroes recounted moments that changed their lives forever.
The event marked the National Army Museum becoming the permanent home of businessman and philanthropist Lord Michael Ashcroft’s collection of Victoria and George Crosses — the largest private collection of gallantry medals ever assembled.
Private. Johnson Beharry VC, told of how he earned the Victoria Cross for two separate acts of extraordinary bravery during ambushes in southern Iraq in May and June 2004. On both occasions he was driving a Warrior armoured vehicle under intense enemy fire.
Private Johnson Beharry
During the second attack, a rocket-propelled grenade exploded just inches from his head, leaving him with devastating injuries. Despite this, he continued driving his badly damaged vehicle to safety before finally collapsing. More than two decades later, Beharry remains in the Army and continues to undergo rehabilitation treatment.
Chris Finney GC. received the George Cross following a notorious friendly-fire incident near the Shatt al-Arab waterway, north of Basra, Iraq on 28 March 2003 when American A-10 aircraft mistakenly attacked British armoured vehicles.
Chris Finney
Although wounded himself, Finney, who was only 18, repeatedly ran into burning vehicles to rescue trapped comrades. Because the danger came from allied aircraft rather than enemy forces, he didn’t qualify for a Victoria Cross. Instead he received the George Cross — the civilian equivalent of the VC and Britain’s highest award for gallantry when the enemy is not directly involved.
The third panellist was Dominic Troulan GC, QGM, who earned the George Cross after Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists stormed Nairobi’s Westgate shopping centre in September 2013, killing 67 people. A resident of Kenya at the time, Troulan repeatedly entered the besieged shopping complex to rescue civilians trapped by the attackers.
For hours he coordinated evacuations, guided frightened families to safety and exposed himself to extreme danger while gunfire echoed through the building. Already a holder of the Queen’s Gallantry Medal, Troulan became the first civilian recipient of the George Cross for 25 years.
But behind the medals and public admiration lies a less visible battle. In a question and answer session it quickly became apparent that the mens’ memories of those traumatic experiences have never entirely faded.
Beharry, Britain’s most decorated serving soldier, spoke movingly about the mental scars left by war and revealed that at one point he tried to take his own life after being tormented for years by nightmares and depression linked to his experiences in Iraq.
Chris Finney was characteristically modest when asked by The Citizen how he viewed the actions that earned him the George Cross.
“Honestly, it does feel like a different lifetime. What I did was instinctive,” he said. “As for the medal, there are recipients from World War Two and the Korean War who went much further than I ever did.
“I think about the men and women who’ve gone before me and try to live up to what the medal represents.”
What did he think of the American pilots whose attack triggered the incident?
“I was resentful at the time,” Chris said. “But as time goes on, the less I feel that way — war is hell and all that!”
Dom Troulan admitted to The Citizen that memories of the Westgate attack still return unexpectedly. “You never forget it. Images get triggered during the day and come back to haunt me during the night.
“But I just sort of tolerate it, go and have a cup of tea, and then go back to bed! My wife thinks I’m bonkers and my kids say: ‘really dad!’ I manage it in my own way and, you know – it is what it is.”
For more than 40 years Lord Ashcroft has assembled what is widely regarded as the world’s greatest collection of gallantry medals. It contains almost 250 Victoria Crosses — roughly one in every six ever awarded — together with a significant collection of George Crosses. In total their estimated worth: £70 million. The entire collection is currently being prepared to transfer for its permanent display at the National Army Museum on Royal Hospital Road. A date for opening will be announced in the future
If Chelsea has acquired a crown jewel, it is not made of gold. It consists of a few hundred pieces of bronze and silver suspended from crimson ribbons — each one commemorating the moment an ordinary man or woman performed an extraordinary act of courage.
Photos by John Cookson and the National Army Museum
For more details about Lord Ashcroft’s medal collection visit HERE
