Civilian VCs.

Civilians can receive the VC in the rare case where they are directly under the command of the Defence Force. Officially there have only been 5 civilian awards, four in the Indian Mutiny and one in Afghanistan in 1879. The two posthumous WWI Merchant Navy awards are usually counted as naval awards since the Merchant Captains Archibald Bissett Smith, SS Otaki and Frederick Parslow, HM Horse Transport Anglo-Californian were retrospectively commissioned as Lieutenants of the Royal Naval Reserve. Both awards were gazetted on 24 May 1919 in anticipation of the 1920 Warrant that authorised awards of the VC to merchant crew operating under Royal Navy command.

The 1920 warrant has never been used although Dudley Mason the master of SS Ohio who brought his damaged tanker into Malta in 1942 and awarded the GC would seem to have been eligible for the VC. A case can be made that Awang anak Rawang, an Iban tracker, with a patrol of the Worcestershire Regiment ambushed in Malay in 1951 would been eligible for the VC. He was awarded the GC.

Mason and Awang anak Rawang were civilians but since the institution of the GC in 1940 it would seem that the GC was considered the most appropriate award for civilians. It would be interesting to know if the VC was considered in either case. There would not have been much time in the case of Dudley Mason since his George Cross was gazetted less than a month after SS Ohio reached Malta but the award to Awang anak Rawang was gazetted six months after the ambush. However, Sir John Smith VC in his 1968 GC book wrote that there was considerable discussion that the posthumous GC awards to Fasson and Grazier of HMS Petard should have merited the VC. It is now known that Fasson and Grazier gave their lives recovering an enigma machine and that to protect the intelligence coup the GC instead of the VC was awarded.

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