Jorgan Christian Jensen ["Tales of the V.C."]

Jørgen Christian Jensen VC (15 January 1891 31 May 1922) was a Danish-born Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be Jensen was born in Løgstør, Denmark, the third of four children. In 1908, he moved to England before he emigrated to Australia in March 1909 and worked in Australia for the next five years. A month after the war commenced, he was naturalised a British subject at Adelaide, South Australia, on 7 September 1914.[1] Jensen served in the Australian Military Forces between March 1915 and December 1918. When he was 26 years old and a Private in the 50th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force during the First World War, the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC. Citation: On 2 April 1917 at Noreuil, France, Private Jensen, with five comrades, attacked a barricade behind which were about 45 of the enemy and a machine-gun. One of the party shot the gunner and Private Jensen rushed the post and threw in a bomb. Then, with a bomb in each hand, he threatened the rest and made them surrender. He sent one of his prisoners to another group of the enemy, ordering them to surrender, which they did, but our troops began firing on them, where-upon Private Jensen, regardless of danger stood on the barricade waving his helmet, and the firing stopped. He then sent his prisoners back to our lines. His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Australian War Memorial. In Løgstør, Denmark, there is a statue erected in his memory in a park. The attached account of his actions was written by James Price Lloyd of the Welsh Regiment, who served with Military Intelligence. After the war, the government to destroyed all the archives relating to this propaganda (section MI 7b (1)). They were regarded as being too sensitive to risk being made public. Remarkably these documents have survived in the personal records of Captain Lloyd. Many of these papers are officially stamped, and one can trace the development of many individual articles from the notes based on an idea, to the pencil draft which is then followed by the hand-written submission and the typescript. The archive "Tales of the VC" comprises 94 individual accounts of the heroism that earned the highest award for valour, the Victoria Cross. These are recounted deferentially and economically, yet they still manage to move the reader. Date stamp: 5 January 1918.