Valor Friday

Richard Norden

We’ve highlighted the delayed awarding of high valor awards many times. The American awards system is nothing if not malleable to the whims of later generations that seek to right the wrongs of the past. The British (and by extension Commonwealth) system of awards and decorations is much more rigid.

The British system is complex, as I’ve written about before, and includes medals as well as dynastic and state orders (which sometimes include knighthood) and peerages (receiving noble title such as baron or viscount). With this added complexity comes very definitive awarding rules. With the monarch as sovereign, each new medal or other honor is created by royal warrant. Occasionally these warrants are updated over the years, but that is rare.

For example, the original Victoria Cross (VC) warrant did not address posthumous awards. It was policy for many years not to award one posthumously. Unlike our comparable Medal of Honor, it was only given to men who lived to receive it. While that was rectified during the Second Boer War at the turn of the 20th Century, it wasn’t until the late 1970s that most other medals could be awarded posthumously. For most of the 20th Century, a man’s final, fatal act of valor could only be recognized with the Victoria Cross or a Mention in Dispatches (roughly analogous to an American Bronze Star Medal).

Starting in the 70s, and culminating in the 90s, most Commonwealth countries created their own unique awards and decorations systems. Which the nations would still submit their award recommendations to the King/Queen to make the actual award, they would receive honors specific to their country. Since the VC was the highest honor for all of these countries, and carried with it an appropriate reverence, all of the countries created their own versions of the VC. So while technically distinct from the original British VC, there are now three awards that come with the same cache, post-nominal letters, and other honors; the Victoria Cross (Canada), the Victoria Cross for Australia, and the Victoria Cross for New Zealand. It’s perhaps easiest for an American to think of it like the different versions of the Medal of Honor. While there are three separate awards with different designs (and different historical award criteria) for the Army, Air Force, and Navy (to include the Marine Corps), they are all considered the same honor.

With their own awards systems, there has been some looking back at past actions in these Commonwealth nations for men that were recommended (and received) Imperial awards. Australia leads the way on this. Six VCs for Australia have been awarded since its inception in 1991. Four have gone to men for actions in Afghanistan. One was awarded for a review of a WWII-era recommendation, which I will discuss in another article. Finally, one was just recently awarded for actions in Vietnam

Four men of the Australian Army received the Imperial Victoria Cross (two posthumously) for actions during the Vietnam War. Australia and New Zealand were the only Commonwealth countries to participate in the American-led w-a-r police action in southeast Asia, and only Australia committed large combat forces.

On Remembrance Day (11 November) 2024, the Australian government announced the latest recipient of the Victoria Cross. Richard Norden had previously received the lesser Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) at the time. The DCM was the second-level combat gallantry decoration for Army enlisted men at the time, and so is most analogous to an American Distinguished Service Cross.

Norden was a young private in May 1968. Just 19 years old, he was with 1st Battalion, Royal Australia Regiment (RAR). Operationally, they were part of the brigade-sized 1st Australian Task Force (ATF), which was in command of all ANZAC troops in Vietnam. The 1st ATF had already distinguished itself in battle at Long Tan (1966), Suoi Chau Pha (1967), and during Operation Coburg (early 1968).

Students and veterans of the Vietnam War will remember the spring of 1968 well. It was the time of the communist forces’ surprise Tet Offensive. The massive assault involved both North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regulars as well as Viet Cong insurgents. The enormous operation was designed to hit allied positions throughout the country, even in “safe” areas like Saigon. While it was not a tactical victory for the communists (they didn’t win any of the many sub-battles), but it was a tremendous strategic victory. Tet kicked off in January of 1968, and led President Johnson to look to make peace. That fall Nixon was elected, and he would ultimately end American involvement in the war, but not for several more years.

The Tet Offensive initially lasted from January 1968 to May. This was immediately followed by the “Mini Tet” (the whole of the month of May), and the Phase III Offensive in August. It was during the Mini Tet that Norden would distinguish himself.

After the initial Tet’s failure forced the communist forces to retreat, the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the RAR were forward deployed once more. The would establish two fire support bases named Coral, and as they later pursued the enemy, Balmoral. The battle would thus be known as the Battle of Coral-Balmoral when all was said and done.

The men of 1st and 3rd RAR’s mission at Coral (and later Balmoral) was to obstruct the retreat of communist forces as they left the South Vietnamese capitol of Saigon. Setting up FSB Coral on 12 May, they didn’t even make it a night before heavy enemy bombardment signaled the start of what would become the first of many battalion-sized attacks on the defending Aussies. For days, FSB Coral was repeatedly attacked with ever large enemy formations, but throughout the whole ordeal, the Australian troops held firm.

Two days into this dogged defense, on 14 May, Norden’s platoon (5 Platoon) of B Company, 1RAR was ambushed by an enemy force of unknown size. A scout went down first in the immediate action, and one of the section commanders was wounded. With absolutely no regard for his own safety, the young Private Norden rushed forward. He called to his platoon mates for covering fire, and then ran through a hail of concentrated enemy fire to the position of his two downed comrades.

Norden killed at least one enemy soldier while he was moving up. Once at the isolated position of the two injured men, Norden quickly expended all of his own ammunition. Finding the section commander seriously wounded, Norden carried the injured man back to the relative safety of his company’s line. He covered his own retreat with an automatic weapon he picked up from the dead communist he’d killed moments earlier.

Norden, himself already wounded by this point, then returned through the enemy’s ambushing fire to the location where the scout had fallen. Norden killed an enemy soldier that was using the body of the scout as a shied. Finding the scout dead, Norden returned to friendly lines to collect grenades. Loaded with fresh ammunition the wounded private once more (for the third time if you’re keeping count) ran forward to where the scout had died. He started lobbing grenades into the enemy line, clearing the area so other men from his company could come forward and recover the body of the dead scout.

Distinguished Conduct Medal

Norden’s lone charge into the enemy ambush thrice was credited with saving the life of his section commander, allowing the recovery of the body of the scout, and reversed the enemy’s initial advantage. Due to this, he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

NSW governor Sir Roden Cutler congratulates Richard Norden (second from the left) and two other men decorated for bravery in 1969. (George Lipman/Sydney Morning Herald)

Norden survived his wounds, but was evacuated from Vietnam in mid-August after having again been wounded in action on 5 August 1968. He received his DCM from the governor of New South Wales in early 1969 back in Australia. The governor, Sir Roden Cutler, is said to have remarked after reading Norden’s citation aloud, “What do you have to do to get the VC?” It wasn’t just a rhetorical question for Cutler. He’d received the VC for his repeated acts of bravery over a period of about two weeks in the summer of 1941 while a lieutenant fighting in the Syrian Campaign of WWII. It says a lot when a man who holds a VC himself thinks that your bravery equals or exceeds his own.

Another man who thought Norden deserved better is former Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove (a retired general who was formerly Chief of the Army and Chief of the Defense Forces). Cosgrove, as a young lieutenant, had received the Military Cross (MC) for actions in Vietnam. The MC was the second-level gallantry decoration awarded to company grade officers, so is similar in prestige to the DCM that Norden received. Cosgrove told the Sydney Morning Herald he was “blown away” when he first read the citation describing Norden’s bravery. “I thought, when I read that, this bloke should have got a VC.”

So too did many others, including Norden’s platoon commander. He had been ordered to write up Norden at the time, but being in the field at the time, he only hastily scratched out the broad strokes of Norden’s actions. As he later said, “On that particular day, there wasn’t a one in a thousand chance of surviving the deeds that Dick performed. Each of his three sorties were death defying. In fact… if I hadn’t been cut off and was able to have had an influence, I wouldn’t have let him do what he did. It was suicide and there was every chance that I would have been fighting to extricate another body.”

For years these men, and Norden’s other platoon mates have lobbied for an upgrade of his award. Much like in America, the bureaucratic machine held the award back. Finally now though, Norden’s incredible heroism is being properly recognized, 56 years later.

Victoria Cross

Unfortunately, Norden didn’t live to have the medal pinned to his chest. As you saw in the above photo, by the time he got his DCM from Sir Roden, Norden was a civilian. He’d completed his three year enlistment and left the service in 1969. In 1970, he became a police officer for the Australian Capital Territory Police. While on duty in Canberra on 26 October 1972, Constable Norden was involved in a motorcycle accident. He was thrown from his bike and hit his head. Despite prompt medical attention, he succumbed to his wounds on 30 October. He was just 24 years old.

Category: Aussies, Historical, UK and Commonwealth Awards, Valor, We Remember