THE families of two winners of the highest military honour for valour, the Victoria Cross have spoken of their pride that the men have been recognised in a £7.5m building project at HMS Collingwood.

The children of Rear-Admiral Robert St Vincent Sherbrooke VC and Lieutenant Commander Gerard Roope VC paid a special visit to the Fareham naval base to see new accommodation named after their fathers.

Rear-Admiral Sherbrooke was honoured when he was serving as Captain of HMS Onslow. He was in command of destroyer escorts a vital supply convoys to Russia after the German invasion.

On one occasion a superior enemy force tried to attack the convoy four times but was forced back. Despite being seriously wounded in the face and temporarily blinded, Sherbrooke continued to direct the ships under his command and when taken to hospital insisted on hearing reports of the action.

Lieutenant Commander Roope received his Victoria Cross posthumously. He dies in action between HMS Glowworm and a German cruiser in the Norwegian Sea in 1940.

The Glowworm was battered and burning when Lt-Cdr Roope decided to ram the cruiser in a final act of defiance. She hit her enemy before she capsized and sank. Lieut Com Roope drowned.

Rear-Admiral Sherbrooke's daughter Juliet Mortenson, who lived in Lee-on-the-Solent as a child when her father worked there, said: "My father was quite a disciplinarian, but he wasn't fierce.

"He was very proud to receive the Victoria Cross, but he believed it was for the whole ship's crew not just him.

"He was a modest man and I think he would have been rather embarrassed by all this. But we are very pleased to be here."

The former commander of HMS Collingwood Rear-Admiral Philip Wilcocks, whose father served on the same ship as Rear-Admiral Sherbrooke, performed the honours at the opening ceremony.

It was attended by Rear Admiral Sherbrooke's other daughter Lady Dione Digby, along with Lt-Cdr Roope's son Lt-Cdr Michael Roope, a former boss at HMS Dryad in Swanwick. The buildings will house 26 senior officers and 125 junior officers for the Maritime Warfare School.

Just over 1,000 servicemen and women have received the Victoria Cross since it was first introduced in the late 1800s.