The Victoria Cross

The Victoria Cross (V.C.) is the highest honour available to Canadians and is awarded for the most conspicuous bravery, a daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy. The V.C. has been awarded to 96 Canadians since 1854, including:

• Lieutenant Alexander Roberts Dunn, born in present-day Toronto, served in the British Army in the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava (1854) in the Crimean War, and was the first Canadian to be awarded the Victoria Cross.
• Able Seaman William Hall of Horton, Nova Scotia, whose parents were American slaves, was the first black man to be awarded the V.C., for his role in the Siege of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
• Corporal Filip Konowal, born in Ukraine, showed exceptional courage in the Battle of Hill 70 in 1917, and became the first member of the Canadian Corps not born in the British Empire to be awarded the V.C.
• Flying ace Captain Billy Bishop, born in Owen Sound, Ontario, earned the V.C. in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, and was later an honorary Air Marshal of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
• Captain Paul Triquet of Cabano, Quebec, earned the V.C. leading his men and a handful of tanks in the attack on Casa Berardi in Italy in 1943, during the Second World War, and was later a Brigadier.
• Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray, a navy pilot born in Trail, B.C., was killed while bombing and sinking a Japanese warship in August 1945, a few days before the end of the Second World War, and was the last Canadian to receive the V.C. to date.