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
Demobilisation of the British Armed Forces after the Second World War many years apart. One indicator of the social problems this caused was the postwar divorce rate; over 60,000 applications were processed in 1947 alone, a figure that would not be reached again until the 1960s. Demobilisation of the British Armed Forces after the Second World War At the end of the Second World War, there were approximately five million servicemen and servicewomen in the British Armed Forces. The demobilisation and reassimilation of this vast force back into civilian life was one of the first and greatest challenges facing the postwar British government. The wartime Minister of Labour and National Service,