LONDON — The Queen on Wednesday unveiled a national memorial to holders of Britain's highest bravery honours, the Victoria Cross and the George Cross, including Canada's only surviving Victoria Cross winner, Ernest Smith.

Some 1,600 people, including more than 30 recipients of the awards, watched the Queen - wearing a dress the crimson of a Victoria Cross ribbon - unveil the plaque in Westminster Abbey.

Placed close by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, it bears the legend Remember Their Valour and Gallantry and carries the names of the recipients.

There are 11 living holders of the Victoria Cross - Britain's highest military award for gallantry. Since it was created by Queen Victoria in 1856, only 94 Canadians have won the honour.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said the awards reflected true courage, "exercised in one way or another for the sake of others, to make something possible for others, not for personal gain or glory."

Smith, nicknamed Smokey, joined the Canadian army in 1939 as a private with the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada.

On Oct. 21, 1944, the Seaforths were ordered across the Savoi River in northern Italy to establish a bridgehead so engineers could bridge the river to bring up tanks and reinforcements.

Smith and the Seaforths had to face the Germans, who attacked with a pair of Panther tanks- one of the best tanks in the war - with the only anti-tank weapon Canadians had - a heavy spring-loaded contraption called PIAT, which could wreck the tank only if it struck a vulnerable spot.

Smith waited in a ditch with his PIAT and when the German tank was only 10 metres away, he stood up and fired, setting the tank on fire.

Then, surrounded by German infantrymen, he fired with a Thompson submachine-gun, killing four Germans and driving the others off.

His heroic stand was credited with saving the bridgehead. Weeks later he was in London, receiving the Victoria Cross from King George VI. Smith was the only Canadian private to win the medal in the Second World War.

John Cruickshank, 83, of Scotland was also among the Victoria Cross recipients who attended Wednesday's ceremony.

"It is magnificent, but it could have been done before now," said Cruickshank, who won the Victoria Cross while serving as a pilot during the Second World War. His citation says Cruickshank sank a German U-boat despite suffering 12 wounds when a flak shell burst inside his plane, then helped land the damaged plane after a five-hour flight back to base.

A total of 1,354 Victoria Crosses have been awarded since 1856, 294 of them posthumously. The most recent went to two servicemen during the 1982 Falklands War. The George Cross, introduced in 1940, has been awarded to 155 people, 82 posthumously.

Smith, a member of the Order of Canada since 1995, never made a great deal of his Victoria Cross.

"I was only doing my job. My heroes are still in Italy, buried there," is his typical comment.