Talk:List of Australian George Cross recipients

Grammar

'if you read the sentence, you will find the use of "was" is gramatically incorrect' - but you don't say why it is incorrect.

It is quite obvious if you read the sentence. Let us compare: "None of the 8 Australians awarded the Edward Medal were alive in 1971" or "None of the 8 Australians awarded the Edward Medal was alive in 1971". The use of "were" is more applicable and gramatically correct in this instance due to the tense. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 10:23, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

You still haven't said why 'was' is incorrect. It is not good enough to say it is obvious - you have to give a reason. And what does the tense have to do with it?

The tense is partially why it is wrong. Your argument was that "none" is the subject of the sentence—which is correct—however it is not apt to compare the sentence with "one". If one was alive in 1971 we would use "one" and "was", however "none", the same as zero, is applied and "were" is the gramatically correct word. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 22:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

You still haven't said why 'was' is wrong - you only say that it is wrong. Therefore, that does not represent an explanation. In English, a verb must agree with the number of the subject: if a subject is a plural form - that is its number is greater than 1 - then the associated verb would be the plural form. However, in this case, the subject of the sentence 'none' cannot be a plural because it is less than 2. Therefore, the correct form of the verb cannot be the plural form 'were'. Conclusion - 'was' is correct. The tense has nothing to do with it.

I have explained it as clearly as I can, and in the same mannor you have to me. What more is there that I can explain? Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 21:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

With words that indicate portions—some, all, none, part, majority, remainder, and so forth —look at the object of the preposition to determine whether to use a singular or plural verb. If the object of the preposition is singular, use a singular verb. If the object of the preposition is plural, use a plural verb. Examples: "None of the pie was eaten." "None of the children were hungry." Hope that helps! Ikzing (talk) 10:48, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I got undone

The introduction is awful and I did quick rewrite but was reversed. Only highlights and specific Australian comment should be included but the details should be left to the main article. The comment in bold is what I see wrong in the present text.

The George Cross (GC) is the highest civil decoration for heroism in the United Kingdom

There is no such thing as a civil decoration in the UK. The highest award to a civilian is the VC. The last living civilian awarded the VC was 25 years after the establishment of the VC whereas the last living civilian awarded the GC was 38 years after the establishment of the GC.

a status it also holds, or has held, in several countries comprising the Commonwealth of Nations.[1]

Not one Commonwealth country still participating in the Imperial Honours System other than the UK has ever awarded the GC.

The George Cross (Post-nominal letters "GC") is regarded as the civilian counterpart of the Victoria Cross,

Sounds like a MOD Media releases written by media people.

and is awarded to civilians for "acts of the greatest heroism" or to military personnel for actions that are not "in the face of the enemy"

Eligibility for the award is the same for both military and civilians

or for which purely military honours would not normally be granted

False - the military received the many Albert Medals

[2][3] In an official radio broadcast on 23 September 1940, King George VI announced his decision to establish the awards of the George Cross and George Medal to recognise individual acts of bravery by the civilian population.[4] The Royal Warrant that established the awards was published in the London Gazette on 31 January 1941.[2]

Information from GC article that does not need to be repeated in a list of Australian recipients.

Australians received the GC under the Imperial Honours System until the establishment of the Australian Honours System in 1975, although Australians continued to receive Imperial awards until the late 1980s.

Contradictory statement.

The GC was replaced by a new award, the Cross of Valour, which was created by letters patent within the Commonwealth of Australia and its Territories on 14 February 1975.[5][6] One further award of the GC, however, was granted after this date to Constable Michael Kenneth Pratt in 1978.[7]

The CV did not replace the George Cross since Australians were eligible for that award until 1992. Details about the CV should be found in the CV article.

Between the first award of the George Cross to an Australian in 1942 and the final bestowal in 1978, 14 Australians were decorated with the medal. Of these, nine were awarded to military personnel and five to civilians; eight of the medals were awarded posthumously.[8]

Same percentage as overall GC awards with two thirds to the military.

At the time of the institution of the GC, living recipients of the Empire Gallantry Medal automatically became recipients of the new award, and were required to return their previous medal; two Australians became GC holders through this method. In 1971, the British Government announced that living recipients of the Albert Medal and Edward Medal would be invited to exchange their medals for the George Cross, and henceforth formally become recipients of the latter award.

All Albert Medal and Edward Medal recipients were deemed GC recipients. Their choice, unlike the Empire Gallantry Medal recipients was whether to change the insignia.

The decision for such an action was the result of the decline in the status and significance of the two awards, leading recipients to feel they were not receiving the recognition they were due.[8][9]

Information from GC article that does not need to be repeated in a list of Australian recipients.

Of the 27 Australian holders of the Albert Medal, 6 were living at the time and all opted to exchange their insignia for the GC. None of the eight Australians awarded the Edward Medal were alive in 1971,[10] and thus no Australian became a recipient of the GC through this exchange. Including exchange awards, a total of 22 Australians have been decorated with the George Cross.[8] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anthony Staunton (talk • contribs) 15:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Sin Bot. I was so bemused that I got reversed that I forgot to sign off. I fess up that I should have said something in the talk page first. There are no many assumptions and absurdities in the text but what set me off was 'Australians received the GC under the Imperial Honours System until the establishment of the Australian Honours System in 1975, although Australians continued to receive Imperial awards until the late 1980s'. I have seen it there before and have managed to not get irritated but the other night I lost it. I would like to blame it on the grog, buy Johnnie Walker please, but despite owning Diageo shares which owns Johnnie Walker and Guinness, I am almost a non drinker. The other thing that causes me to grit my teeth is the Wikipedia created phrase civil decoration which has no references from the real world. Next time I will not be so discourteous as to attempt a major change without consultation. My apologies. Anthony Staunton (talk) 01:32, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Anthony. No problem and, I too, probably should have posted an explanation for my revert on the talk page (the edit summary character limit was insufficient), so apologise for that. While I do agree that the lead text requires a little tweaking, I also saw a couple of problems with the changes. The primary reason for my revert, however, was on the grounds of policy rather than the content of the changes. As I mentioned in the edit summary, per MOS:LIST list articles are meant to introduce and cover the topic with reasonable comprehensiveness to, of course, explain its content but also justify its purpose; some of the content removed undermined this rationale. Also, as with any article on Wikipedia, list articles require references. Featured Lists such as this need to be extensively referenced, and the changes not only removed most of the references in the lead section but introduced significant amounts of uncited content. To respond to your other concerns:

1) The Imperial War Museum publication, Extraordinary Heroes: The Amazing Stories of the Victoria Cross and George Cross Recipients, actually does use that phraseology and describes the GC as "the highest civil decoration" (as opposed to the VC as the "highest military decoration"). The purpose of using that wording in this article was the same as the aforementioned publication: to juxtapose the GC with the VC as the former is primarily intended to recognise great acts of heroism by the civilian populace. I also would not exactly describe the VC as the highest decoration for civilians since it is intended for acts of gallantry in war. While there is the clause that it can be awarded to civilians, they must be serving alongside/with military forces and only four awards to civilians have ever occurred (the last being over 130 years ago). Further, the changes introducing the GC as the second highest decoration based on the order of wear, to me, seems a little irrelevant. That said, I do agree the lead sentence could to with some rewording.

2) I'm not thrilled with that wording either. That particular phrasing came about as a compromise due to ambiguities over the Commonwealth (since not all award, or have awarded, the GC whereas others still do). The point, however, was to point out it is a decoration of the UK that has also been awarded by multiple Commonwealth nations (hence the awards to Australians, justifying this list), though not all still have the GC in their honours systems (Australia, Canada and New Zealand being the prominent examples).

3) Maybe so, but the fact remains that the GC is widely regarded as the 'civilian' counterpart to the VC. Of course, this concept has been heavily debated, but in the eyes of the British government, the VC & GC Association and a significant proportion of members of the public, this is so. The fact that there seems to be an increasingly fine line between the awards of the VC and GC (take the example of Matthew Croucher) have given credence to this argument.

4) Of course, and now that you point it out the sentence does seem to need clarification. :/ The intent was to, again, clarify the award of the GC in comparison to the VC's criteria (i.e. that the latter must be "in the face of the enemy").

5) I don't see how this bit is false... Yes, Albert Medals were also awarded, but the article does not make the claim that there weren't other awards available to both civilian and military personnel.

6) Funnily enough, that isn't in the GC main article. But, as I mentioned above, the lead in a list article is meant to introduce and cover the subject, so the point here is to present when the award was created and why. For a list article such as this, one shouldn't have to click on the George Cross link to find this sort of information out.

7) That probably needs a little clarification and I'll see if I can think of something. :)

8) Based on my readings, the Australian Honours created in 1975 had the basic intent of replacing the Imperial Honours, and the Cross of Valour formed as our own honour in place of the GC. As above, since the CV is now awarded by the Australian government in place of the GC it is worth introducing.

9) Sorry, I'm not sure what you are trying to say in regards to this article on this point. Could I ask for a little clarification?

10) Based on a couple of readings, I have been presented with the argument that those who opted not to exchange were still regarded as recipients of their respective award (either the Albert or Edward Medal) and simply had a similar status to GC recipients. I may have missed something, though...

11) As above, and this is to explain the reason for the exchange.

All of the above said, I'm hoping that, between the two of us, we will be able to come up with an improved lead section for this article that is factually accurate and satisfies both of our concerns. We just need to work out what needs to be included and clarified first. What do you think? :) Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 02:41, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

The GC has no similar research to Crook’s The Evolution of the Victoria Cross. So we do not know why the EGM was selected to be eliminated and we have been repeating government self justifying statements that fly in the face of reality. After 159 individual original awards in 73 years, two thirds of awards have been to the military. There has been no UK living civilian recipient since the high profile award to Jim Beaton saving Princess Anne in 1974.

1. It is understandable that media including the IWM try to simplify and saying that the GC is the ‘highest civil decoration’ and the VC as the ‘highest military decoration’ is much easier than to say than the GC is the highest award for gallantry ‘not’ in the face of the enemy whereas the VC is the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy. Obviously both Dudley Mason and Awang anak Raweng were eligible for the VC but I think the GC for Mason so was quickly rushed through that it not occur to anyone that the VC was the appropriate award. I have no idea if it was ever considered for Awang anak Raweng. It was last issued to a living UK civilian nearly 50 years ago. The changes introducing the GC as the second highest decoration based on the order of wear is what should be stressed since the first three awards included one civilian and it meant that for first time a civilian was being awarded the second highest decoration which would in time, in the UK, if not in Australia, be equally prestigious with the highest award.

2. The GC is an award of the British honours system. Some Commonwealth countries that do not have their own honours system still use the British honours system. The two have got muddled.

3. see my point 1. I suggest that there has always been a fine line between the two awards. I unhesitantly select the Rev Pugh GC as the bravest of the brave.

4. agreed

5. I would add that the GC was to raise the status of individuals both military and civilian who would be awarded the new award. Does that make sense?

6. An overview or synopsis should not quote speeches and warrants.

7 and 8. There is a flaw in the statement the CV replaced the GC. The ALP had been out of power federally from 1949 until 1972 and most Labor state governments did not issue NY and QB honours. Honours were polarised along political lines. The ALP in 1975 saw what it was doing as creating an Australian Honours System rather than replacing an honours system. The new system was not based upon the ignored and despised Imperial honours system and the first awards of the new system were based on the Canadian system. The Parramatta Star was probably our own invention. Drilling down and saying that Australian Bravery Awards replaced the Imperial bravery awards do not hold up since they were modelled on the Canadian awards. To suggest one Australian award replaced one British award is a stretch and just because there are a lot of references saying that does not make it correct. The other point, in line with long standing ALP policy, was to centralise the new system with the federal government running the show and the states cut out of the process. The ALP probably made the right call although it took 17 years to bury the Imperial system in Australia.

9. We are all agreed on the numbers. Two thirds to the military so lets stop calling it a civil decoration. It is an award for both military and civilians but two out of three will be to the military although since Australia cast off the lest remnants of the imperial system in 1992 no awards have gone to civilians.

10. Warrants officially abolished the AM and EM. Were those who did not exchange insignia supposed to wear their old awards or use the abolished post nominals – no; did they – of course some did. The great majority swapped insignia but all who exchanged insignia and those who did not are listed in the total of 404 individual recipients listed in Hebbleethwaite, Turner, Brazier and other lists.

11. Agree to disagree.

There is a need for an improved lead. Let’s see what we can cobble together. Anthony Staunton (talk) 00:13, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Anthony. How about I sandbox a new introduction that reflects both of our points outlined above (sources permitting, of course), and once I am done post it on the talk page here for us to review and discuss? It may take me a couple of days, though, due to uni and other commitments. What do you think? :) Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:12, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Excellent idea. Anthony Staunton (talk) 12:34, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Anthony. Just to let you know, I haven't forgotten about this. I have been swamped by university assignments the last few weeks, but should hopefully have something done by the end of the week. Sorry for the delay. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 04:55, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

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