Take some of those MoH awards with a whole castle made out of salt. For example,during the War of Northern Aggression,a Yankee drummer boy was giving one to encourage him to re-enlist. Oddly enough,he may have actually earned one because there were damn few jobs during that war that required more courage than being a drummer boy. They were unarmed,and ranked right up there with Generals when it came to their importance during a battle. Kill the drummer boy,and the disciplined assault would often fall to pieces.
Also,others like McArthur,who was a VERY senior General and put himself in for the MoH.
Number 46 is especially odd. I knew and was friends with Bob Howard,and that isn't even him in the photo. I don't know who it is,but it isn't him.
BTW,the eyewitness testimony and other evidence required get an awardee a MoH had tightened up by the time the VN war rolled around that it was damn near impossible to get one unless you were some sort of officer celebrity. Roy Benevediz,for example,didn't get his award until he had already been retired from the army for several years. This happened because the requirements for witness testimony was so strict by then that it was really tough for anyone,and many of the guys from MACV-SOG didn't get the one they had been put in before because by the time it reached the board in DC,all the eyewitnesses had either died or had retired from the army due to disability and were not readily available for questioning by the board. The people who witnessed the event and wrote the potential awardee up had either been killed by then or were out of the army and the army couldn't find them. Roy eventually got his when one of the officers who put him in for it found out years later by accident that he didn't get it because there were no living witnesses available to question. Once he found out,he contacted the other guys who wrote Roy up,and they all signed a petition asking for the award to be given to him.
Read the citations written up by the witnesses who were with him that day or who witnessed his actions,and you will be in awe. This man literally went in on a one man rescue attempt in Cambodia,carrying only a Bowie Knife and a medic's aid bag. Didn't even have a handgun. He just jumped on a helicopter going there,and then asked them to drop him off in a clearing nearby. BTW,his last act that day was to leave that Bowie Knife stuck in the chest of a NVA soldier attacking the last helicopter leaving the scene of the battle,and getting bayoneted for his trouble. He was the last US soldier to leave the battle field that day,and he would have never lived to be put in for it if it hadn't been for the courage of one of the helicopter door gunners jumping out and grabbing him and dragging him to the helicopter.
When they landed at the launch site,the doc on site declared Roy to be dead because he was unable to move or speak,so when Roy heard he was being "pronounced" he spit a gob of blood and saliva in the doc's face. It was all he was capable of doing at that time.
I don't mind admitting I am complete awe of the man and the things he did that day.
