Percy Valentine Storkey, VC (9 September 1893 – 3 October 1969) was a New Zealand-born Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Born in Napier in New Zealand, Storkey moved to Australia in 1911. He was a law student at the University of Sydney when the First World War began. He volunteered for the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in May 1915 and was posted to the 19th Battalion. He saw action on the Western Front, including during the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. It was during the German spring offensive of 1918 that he performed the actions that led to his award of the VC. He finished the war as a captain. Discharged from the AIF, Storkey returned to his legal studies and became a crown prosecutor for the New South Wales Department of Justice. Shortly before the Second World War, he was appointed a district court judge and served in this capacity until his retirement in 1955. He moved to England where he died in 1969 at the age of 78.
Early life
Percy Storkey was born on 9 September 1893|group=Note in Napier, New Zealand, to Samuel Storkey, an Englishman who worked as a printer and his New Zealand-born wife, Sarah . Samuel Storkey had moved to Napier as a young boy with his father William. Percy Storkey was educated at Napier Boys' High School, where he was dux of the school in his final year, and later Victoria College in Wellington, where he studied fine arts. As a teenager, Storkey served in the Territorial Force as an infantryman with the Wellington Regiment, eventually achieving the rank of colour sergeant after five years of service.
Around 1911 or 1912, Storkey moved to Sydney in Australia and worked as a clerk for a steamship company. Within a year he was on the administrative staff at the University of Sydney. He then enrolled in the university's law school but the First World War curtailed his studies.
Later wounded for a third time, Storkey was promoted to captain the following month and given command of his own company. On 25 July 1918, King George V presented him with his VC at Buckingham Palace. As part of a special furlough, he returned to Australia in November 1918 and was discharged from the AIF in January the following year by which time the war was over due to the armistice. and then worked for Justice Charles Wade. He qualified as a lawyer in 1921 and briefly worked in private practice before becoming a crown prosecutor for the New South Wales Department of Justice; his jurisdiction covering the south-western area of the state. He fulfilled this role for several years until his appointment as a district court judge in May 1939, the first VC recipient to become a member of the bench. He presided over trials in the northern district of New South Wales. Prior to his appointment to the judiciary, he briefly worked for the legal department of the Australian Army. He was also involved in the Returned Soldier's League and became the president of the sub-branch in Vaucluse, the suburb of Sydney where he lived.
In 1955 Storkey retired and moved to England where he lived in Teddington, Middlesex, with Minnie , his English-born wife, whom he had married in 1922 in Sydney. in Canberra, where a street is also named for him.
Medal
Storkey left his VC, along with his Victory Medal, British War Medal, and medals from the 1937 and 1953 coronations, to his old school, Napier Boys' High School. In 1983 there was a controversy when the school Parents' League wanted to sell the VC to finance student scholarships but backed down in the face of public protests. Eventually the medals were transferred to the National Army Museum at Waiouru, where they are displayed on a long-term loan. A replica of his VC is also on display in the foyer of the assembly hall at Napier Boys' High School.