The Veterans Covenant Healthcare Alliance meets today for a conference on progress made since the Chavasse Report ten years ago to develop a strategic partnership between health providers and the MOD to assist veterans. Last night (10th September 2024) a wreath was laid at the Chavasse Memorial followed by a reception at St. George’s Hall and “Beat the Retreat” by the Royal Marines.
Standing to my right in uniform is WO2 Beharry VC COG, the only living recipient of a VC. Saving members of his unit, the 1st Battalion Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, from ambushes on 1st May and again on 11th June 2004 at Al-Amarah, Iraq, he sustained serious head injuries in the latter engagement. Queen Elizabeth II formally invested him with the Victoria Cross on 27th April 2005. I was honoured to meet him.
Captain Noel Chavasse VC and Bar, was one of only three people to be awarded the Victoria Cross twice. He was a medical doctor and British Army Officer, the most highly decorated British Officer of the First World War. He died of his wounds sustained at Passchendaele in 1917.
The Chavasse sword will be handed over to Liverpool Cathedral for permanent keeping on Thursday 12thSeptember at a service during Evensong.
