9 December 2008
By Jack Hayes
Many readers of the Army News have medals they have earned in their own right, and their NZDF service ensured that they were mounted correctly and cared for.
Regrettably that is not always the case with the World War Two (WW2) medals. There are a few factors that have led to this sad state of affairs.
WW2 veterans had to apply for their medals for service, unlike WW1 servicemen and women who had them mailed out ‘automatically’ in the early 1920s.
The Services decided that a mail out was too large and difficult a task after WW2, so made the rule that all servicemen and servicewomen (or the families in the case of deceased personnel) had to apply.
Many WW2 veterans did not agree with this administrative rule and refused to apply. Their medal entitlement is still recorded on their personal files and the NZDF Medals Office still hold a large number of WW2 medals imported to cope with the rush of applications that turned out to be less than expected.
Many WW2 servicemen and women received their medals and mounted them and wear them with pride. However, there are a surprising number that have not been mounted and they are still sitting in a top drawer.
The increasing interest in Anzac Day and family tree research has led to more interest in these medals by the children and grandchildren of personnel who served, and so there are now many requests to the Medals Office from families trying to locate these medals.
Some questions for you to ask your family:
- Do you know if your paternal and maternal grandfather (and grandmother) ever served during WW2 and therefore may have some medallic entitlement?
- Do you know their service number and an outline of their service?
- Have medals been issued and who holds them now?
- Are they still in good order? – see the notes below.
Orders, decorations and medals are worn on the left breast by the veteran in a line suspended from a single brooch mount (swing mounted) or a rectangular frame (court mounted).
Swing mounting is very common for WW2 medals and allow the stars and medals to ‘tinkle’ as they march. However, the medals are often damaged by that contact and so the more common mounting method used now is court mounting.
Court mounting extends the ribbon to the bottom edge of the medals and holds each medal firmly in place (so reducing the damage).
Typical WW2 medal sets will include the 1939–45 Star; the (British) War Medal 1939-45; and the New Zealand War Service Medal. In addition there will usually be campaign medals and/or stars and/or the Defence Medal depending on where granddad served. Any gallantry awards will be mounted to the left of campaign medals with MID and King’s Commendation emblems mounted onto the appropriate campaign medal ribbon to show in which military theatre they were earned.
Care of medals
If the medals are already mounted, check to see that they are in good physical condition. Any reputable medal mounter can assist you with an assessment of their condition. New ribbon can be provided to replace any damaged ribbons and most medal mounters can re-mount the medals if needed.
If the medals are very dirty, talk to a medal mounter before you start using abrasive cleaners, silver dips etc. This is because there is a wide range of protective products used to protect medals.
A common practice is for Granddad’s medals to be framed. This is fine as long as there is provision for you to remove them for wear on Anzac Day. Our advice is not to frame them unless they are easily able to be removed and worn.
Finally, please keep the ‘medals set’ together. Some families split up the medal set between children or grand children so they all get one each. This destroys the value and mana earned by the medal set, as the set as a whole displays the operational record of that person.
Further information
More information on WW2 medals can be found on the NZDF Medals website: http://medals.nzdf.mil.nz/ . Also on the website are application forms for asking the Medals Office to check if your Granddad’s, or your, medals have been issued.
We will have a related article on this subject in the next issue of The Army News.