David Vivian Currie

On 18 August 1944, Major David Vivian Currie walked alone into a German-held French village to study its defences and rescue the crews of disabled Canadian tanks. For the next three days, surrounded by a vastly larger enemy force and operating with little rest, he directed one of the most extraordinary small-unit actions of the Normandy Campaign. His stand at Saint-Lambert-sur-Dives helped close the Falaise Gap and earned him the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry available to Canadian soldiers of his generation.

David Vivian Currie was born at Sutherland, Saskatchewan, on 8 July 1912 and grew up in Moose Jaw. He attended King George Public School, Central Collegiate and Moose Jaw Technical School, where he trained as an automobile mechanic and welder. From 1926 to 1928 he served in the Moose Jaw Cadet Corps, and during the 1930s he worked as a mechanic and welder for Patterson Motors. Currie joined the militia in 1939 and entered the Canadian Army in 1940 with the rank of lieutenant. He was promoted to captain in 1941 and to major in 1944. By the summer of 1944 he commanded C Squadron of the 29th Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment, The South Alberta Regiment, part of the 4th Canadian Armoured Division. The regiment landed in Normandy on 24 July 1944.

Less than a month later, Currie faced the action that would define his life. By mid-August 1944, German forces in Normandy were being compressed into the Falaise pocket. The roads through Saint-Lambert-sur-Dives formed part of the shrinking escape corridor toward Chambois, and Currie's force was ordered to help close it. His battle group centred on Sherman tanks of C Squadron, supported by infantry from The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada and other supporting elements. The initial attacking force was small, with B Company of the Argylls accompanying Currie's squadron, while additional infantry reached the position as the battle developed.

The attack began on 18 August. German 88 mm guns knocked out Canadian tanks near the village, but Currie went forward alone on foot through the enemy outposts at dusk. Under mortar fire, he reconnoitred the German positions and helped extricate the crews of the disabled vehicles. At first light the following morning he personally led another attack into Saint-Lambert-sur-Dives. By noon his men had established themselves inside the village, directly across one of the principal German escape routes.

What followed was thirty-six hours of almost continuous combat. German tanks, guns and infantry repeatedly attacked Currie's position in an effort to break through. Currie moved constantly among his men, directing the defence from both the ground and his command tank. The official Victoria Cross citation records that he personally directed tank fire against an enemy Tiger, used a rifle from his turret against infiltrating snipers, rallied reinforcements who had begun to withdraw, and continued employing artillery even when rounds were falling dangerously close to his own position. All the officers under his immediate command were eventually killed or wounded, leaving Currie with virtually no respite. He obtained only about one hour of sleep during the critical period.

The result was devastating for the German forces attempting to escape. Currie's battle group was officially credited with destroying seven enemy tanks, twelve 88 mm guns and forty vehicles, while approximately 300 Germans were killed, 500 wounded and 2,100 taken prisoner. By completing the capture of Saint-Lambert-sur-Dives, the Canadians denied the Chambois-Trun route to remnants of two German armies trapped in the Falaise pocket. Veterans Affairs Canada summarizes the action as inflicting 800 casualties and taking 2,100 prisoners.

The award of Currie's Victoria Cross was formally announced in the London Gazette, Supplement No. 36812, on 27 November 1944. The citation praised his courage, leadership, coolness under fire and skilful use of the limited weapons available to him, concluding that his conduct had a major influence on the successful outcome of the battle. Currie received the Victoria Cross from King George VI at Buckingham Palace on 30 November 1944, only three days after the award was gazetted. His VC remains particularly significant in Canadian military history as the only Victoria Cross awarded to a Canadian soldier for the Normandy Campaign and the only VC associated with the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps.

Currie was subsequently promoted to lieutenant-colonel before returning to civilian life. After the war he spent eight years at Baie-Comeau, Quebec, working as an equipment superintendent in the paper industry. In 1953 he moved to Montreal and continued in industrial management. His public service career began a few years later when he became the seventh Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons. The official parliamentary record gives his Order-in-Council appointment as 7 January 1960. He remained Sergeant-at-Arms until 1978, becoming one of only two Victoria Cross recipients, alongside Milton Fowler Gregg, to hold that office in Canada's House of Commons.

Currie's surviving mounted medal group provides an unusually strong physical record of his honours. It consists of nine awards: the Victoria Cross, 1939-1945 Star, France and Germany Star, Defence Medal, Canadian Volunteer Service Medal with Overseas Service Bar, War Medal 1939-1945, Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal 1953, Canadian Centennial Medal 1967, and Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal 1977. The Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board officially recorded all nine when considering the proposed export of the group. The Canadian Volunteer Service Medal's Overseas Service Bar is represented on an undress ribbon by a silver maple leaf.

The Victoria Cross itself is also correctly represented on an undress ribbon by a miniature cross. Currie received a single VC and no Bar. Veterans Affairs Canada confirms that the British Victoria Cross ribbon worn by Canadian recipients carries the miniature cross in undress, while an additional act resulting in a second award would have been represented separately.

Currie's complete medal group was sold by his widow in 1989 and appeared at auction on 27 September 2017. The auction catalogue described the nine medals as the full group as worn by Currie and recorded a hammer price of $550,000 CAD. When an export permit was sought, Canadian authorities imposed a delay because of the group's national historical significance. The Canadian War Museum subsequently acquired the medals with assistance from the Department of Canadian Heritage's Movable Cultural Property Program and other supporters, ensuring that the group remained in Canada. The federal government recorded a $220,000 Movable Cultural Property grant toward the acquisition.

Lieutenant-Colonel David Vivian Currie died in Ottawa on 24 June 1986, aged 73, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery at Owen Sound, Ontario. His name remains inseparable from Saint-Lambert-sur-Dives and the closing of the Falaise Gap. Currie's achievement was not simply an act of personal bravery. It was an extended demonstration of battlefield leadership under exhaustion, isolation and overwhelming pressure, carried out by a Saskatchewan mechanic turned armoured officer whose refusal to surrender his position helped close one of the final escape routes from the German disaster in Normandy.