Irish in the British Armed Forces British Armed Forces. In fact, from the nations which were part of the British Empire, the only country which has more winners is England with 614. Ireland, with 190 awards (not including Irish diaspora born abroad), outranks Scotland who have 158 and Australia who have 97. When awards per number of people in the total population are taken into account, Ireland's awards would be the equivalent of England gaining 2,850 Victoria Crosses. Charles Davis Lucas of the Royal Navy from County Armagh was the man whose actions were the earliest to be rewarded with a Victoria Cross, due to his
Structure of the British Armed Forces in 1989 Structure of the British Armed Forces in 1989 At the end of the Cold War in 1989 the British Armed Forces structure was as follows: In 1989 the British Armed Forces had a peacetime strength of 311,600 men and defense expenditures were 4.09% of GDP. Joint establishments were tri-service units providing services to all three branches of the British Armed Forces/ The Defence Operations Executive, led by the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Commitments) and including the Assistant Chiefs of the Naval, General, and Air Staffs, supervised the Joint Operations Centre which in turn passed orders to the forces