Personal info

  • Name: James JOHNSTON
  • D.O.B: 12th Dec, 1881
  • D.O.A: 7th Jan, 1925
  • D.O.D: 7th Sep, 1974
  • Award: Edward Medal translated to George Cross
  • Occupation at time of action: Overseer, Mohpani Colliery, Narsinghpur District, India
  • Book: The Complete History - Volume 3
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Sources & Acknowledgements

BETWEEN THE WARS

1919-39

The stresses of the First World War led to political revolution in much of Europe and, in extreme cases, social collapse. Even the victors, Britain and France, were not immune to the economic upheaval and labour unrest resulting from the transition from war to peace and the demobilization of hundreds of thousands of men. This made them extremely nervous of the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia and they decided to send aid to the anti-Bolshevik forces. However, an Allied North Russia Expeditionary Force had to be withdrawn once it became clear that internal opposition to the Bolsheviks had been defeated. In Britain a postwar boom failed to prove long-lasting and in May 1926 there was a General Strike, triggered by a crisis in the Mining Industry. The Great Depression followed in 1929 and by 1931 Britain was forced to abandon the Gold Standard. In large parts of the country and especially in the traditional industries there was widespread unemployment throughout the 1930s, symbolized by the Jarrow Crusade of 1936. Conditions were much worse on the Continent and the interwar period witnessed the rise of the Dictators. The coming to power in Germany of Hitler in 1933 was to lead inexorably to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. In the years of increasingly uneasy peace between 1919 and September 1939 only eleven VCs were awarded and of these only one, the award to Captain G P Meynell in 1935, took place outside the period 1919-21. Of the eleven awards, five related to actions against the Bolsheviks, four to actions on the North-West Frontier of India and one to an an engagement in what is now Iraq. The remaining award was that in 1921 to the American Unknown Warrior. Of the Albert, Edward and Empire Gallantry Medals awarded in the same period, 142 recipients lived long enough for their awards to be converted to the GC. The geographical distribution of the actions that occasioned the awards is witness to the Global spread of the British Empire, which reached its widest extent after the First World War. However, some of the awards, for gallantry in India, Egypt and the Sudan, and Palestine, reflected both the stresses in maintaining that dominion and the duties it entailed. After service personnel and policemen, coal miners formed the largest group of recipients, demonstrating the central importance of coal to the British economy and the dangers inherent in securing it. Those who worked in coal and gold mines in India and Africa were also honoured. Both in the mines and in industry as a whole, the threat posed by poisonous gases led to many awards. New industries brought new hazards with them. Other dangers overcome were of a more basic sort. Awards were also made to those who, throughout the Empire, confronted mad elephants, rabid dogs and marauding sharks.

Citation

 On January 7th, 1925, in the course of operations at the Mohpani Colliery of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway a very heavy fall of roof took place killing one miner instantaneously and completely burying another named Nanoo Maora. On a report of the accident reaching Mr. Kipling, the Under-Manager of the mine, he immediately proceeded to the scene accompanied by Mr. Johnston, the senior European Overseer, and Nani Khan, a native timber drawer. They crawled through the fall of stone and earth and eventually after fifteen minutes’ work succeeded in extricating the entombed man. The rescue party ran a very grave risk as falls of stone were continually taking place. Indeed, within ten minutes of their extricating Nanoo twenty tons of rock fell on the very spot where he had been lying. Mr. Kipling took the leading part in the work of rescue but he could not have accomplished it alone and there is no doubt that it is to his efforts combined with those of Mr. Johnston and Nani Khan that Nanoo owes his life. 

(The London Gazette of 19 March 1926, Numb. 33143, pp. 2014-15)

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