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 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. In 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. First World War Storkey enlisted for service in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 10 May 1915. Prior to his commissioning on 24 September as a second lieutenant, he served as a platoon sergeant in the 30th Battalion. He embarked for England aboard the Suevic at the end of the year but not before his former colleagues at the