Medal Office Records: answers to Freedom of Information Request

The following is put together from Service Personnel and Veterans Agency responses to my freedom of information request about the records held by the Medal Office. The responses to the request have been very informative and as you will see my petition ‘Open up WW2 medal rolls so that family war service can be traced’ Open up WW2 medal rolls so that family war service can be traced - e-petitions should have been named ‘Open up WW2 medal cards…’. Please sign the petition and at 10,000 signatures the MoD will be required to give a response as to whether they are prepared to open up the Medal records for the purpose cited in the petition. The information the Medal Office has disclosed should also help organisations and individuals who would like to have these records for service personnel from WW2 more publicly available talk to the Government about making this possible.

Medal Office Records

‘The Medal Office holds the following information about the issue to individual servicemen of service medals from WW2 that have been claimed since the end of that conflict, however this information varies according to the Service the individual was in:

Royal Navy/Royal Marines – medal cards are held which detail the medals issued. These were completed after the war for each Service person and are kept in Service number order. The information was not generally recorded on the Service records.

Army – physical records of the medal issues are kept on both the individuals’ record and a central card index (CS20) which is held and sorted in alphabetical surname order.’

‘The entries on the cards can include all or some of the information you listed but will vary from card to card. For example on a World War Two card the fields are: Service Number, Christian or First Names, Surname, Class of Release or Discharge and Date, Age and Service Group No, Rank, Last Regiment or Corps, Medal Delivery Address, Medal Issue Date and list of medals issued. Information is recorded in the form of hand written annotations and stamps.

The cards held by the Ministry of Defence Medal Office cover, in the main, the period 1948 to 1995. A small number were raised after 1995.’

‘Royal Air Force (RAF) – medal cards are held for Officer’s in Service number order. There are no medal cards for RAF other ranks. Entitlement is recorded on their Service record and is cross referenced to a file held by the medals office which contains the entry.’

‘…the only records that are held in a ‘central register’ are from 1995 in respect of the Army, from 2000 in respect of the RAF and from 2005 in respect of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. The information is held electronically on a database which contains the following information: name rank, Service number, Service, regiment, date of birth, post nominals, requestor name, requestor relationship, address, telephone number, awards issued and date issued.’

'This [the database] has undergone several versions and improvements.'

‘…no separate register is kept for each medal issued for service in WW2’.

From Service Personnel & Veterans Agency responses to my freedom of information request. SPVA references 07-12-2012-120156-005 & 21-01-2013-170536-002


Justin

 

Hi Justin

e-petition just signed and I wish you the best of luck with this.

Nick

 

The e-petition was discussed on this thread.

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/barracks/49791-open-up-ww2-medal-rolls-so-family-war-service-can.html

The information disclosed by the Freedom of Information request completely changes the terms of the debate. It confirms that the Medal Office has records which if put into the public domain would allow the identification of many WW2 servicemen, fulfilling a similar function to WW1 medal records (although with the focus on cards rather than cards and rolls). The debate on the forum took place before the information revealed by the Freedom of Information request was in the public domain.

Justin

 

Dear All

I have been given the following information from the National Archives:

'The Ministry of Defence is in the process of cataloguing and preparing the Royal Navy medal rolls for transfer to The National Archives, but as yet there is no indication of when they will be received.'

Therefore it makes it even more important that everyone signs up to the petition listed below so that the other medal rolls/cards are considered for release. The link to the petition and details of the contents of the records are listed below.

The following is put together from Service Personnel and Veterans Agency responses to my freedom of information request about the records held by the Medal Office. The responses to the request have been very informative and as you will see my petition ‘Open up WW2 medal rolls so that family war service can be traced’ Open up WW2 medal rolls so that family war service can be traced - e-petitions should have been named ‘Open up WW2 medal cards…’. Please sign the petition and at 10,000 signatures the MoD will be required to give a response as to whether they are prepared to open up the Medal records for the purpose cited in the petition. The information the Medal Office has disclosed should also help organisations and individuals who would like to have these records for service personnel from WW2 more publicly available talk to the Government about making this possible.

Medal Office Records

‘The Medal Office holds the following information about the issue to individual servicemen of service medals from WW2 that have been claimed since the end of that conflict, however this information varies according to the Service the individual was in:

Royal Navy/Royal Marines – medal cards are held which detail the medals issued. These were completed after the war for each Service person and are kept in Service number order. The information was not generally recorded on the Service records.

Army – physical records of the medal issues are kept on both the individuals’ record and a central card index (CS20) which is held and sorted in alphabetical surname order.’

‘The entries on the cards can include all or some of the information you listed but will vary from card to card. For example on a World War Two card the fields are: Service Number, Christian or First Names, Surname, Class of Release or Discharge and Date, Age and Service Group No, Rank, Last Regiment or Corps, Medal Delivery Address, Medal Issue Date and list of medals issued. Information is recorded in the form of hand written annotations and stamps.

The cards held by the Ministry of Defence Medal Office cover, in the main, the period 1948 to 1995. A small number were raised after 1995.’

‘Royal Air Force (RAF) – medal cards are held for Officer’s in Service number order. There are no medal cards for RAF other ranks. Entitlement is recorded on their Service record and is cross referenced to a file held by the medals office which contains the entry.’

‘…the only records that are held in a ‘central register’ are from 1995 in respect of the Army, from 2000 in respect of the RAF and from 2005 in respect of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. The information is held electronically on a database which contains the following information: name rank, Service number, Service, regiment, date of birth, post nominals, requestor name, requestor relationship, address, telephone number, awards issued and date issued.’

'This [the database] has undergone several versions and improvements.'

‘…no separate register is kept for each medal issued for service in WW2’.

From Service Personnel & Veterans Agency responses to my freedom of information request. SPVA references 07-12-2012-120156-005 & 21-01-2013-170536-002


Justin

 

Previously known as the petition to release WWII Medal Rolls, we now know better following a series of freedom of information requests. The cards contain, to quote from the Your Family Tree magazine (who are supporting our campaign; no 137 for January 2014, page 8) 'Typically WWII Medal Index Cards include service number, names, class and date of release or discharge, age, rank, regiment or corps, dates and details of medals awarded and a postal address for the individual'. Our aim is to see the cards digitized and made available in a similar way to the WW1 medal cards. If you wish to support our cause please follow us at Twitter @WW2MedalCards or follow us on Facebook at http://t.co/uXUQTZr2g5. If you want to actively help us to campaign please contact us either a message through this site, or via Facebook or Twitter.

Best wishes

Justin

 

Justin

I am confused ??!!!

1) what happened to the petition last year to digitise the WW2 Medal Rolls?

2) Maybe I am stupid but I wasn't aware there were WW2 Medal Index Cards; otherwise why do we always bang on about getting the full WW2 Service Records from the MOD as a start to researching our relatives war?

Who would digitise these "index cards" and who would pay for them? Sorry to be a bit cynical but why would the MOD/Government do this for free when they can get our 30 quid for the records they are currently issuing?

Lesley

 

I have to agree with Lesley on the part of what happened to this last year, I signed the petition as if I can I would like to get the medal cards for all my Granddads unit, where are these held?

 

Potentially, there could be problems where the WW2 service man or woman is still living. By contrast, all WW1 medal card indexes will now be purely 'historic'.

 

Lesley

I think you might find that groups (such as the Mormons) will offer their services and people to digitise these types of records. Having been a member of Ancestry for a while most of the records when displayed show something like :

Source Information:
Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.

Original data: General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes. London, England: General Register Office. © Crown copyright. Published by permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Office for National Statistics. You must not copy on, transfer or reproduce records without the prior permission of ONS. Indexes created by the General Register Office, in London, England.

I think they then, as they have digitised for 'free' have a contract for the information they have uploaded, sell that information to others such as Ancestry, Find My Past and the like.

 

I would have a jolly good go at digitising them myself but sure the likes of Brightsolid would be first in the queue to do it.

Not sure that there would be any data protection problems with WWII medal cards.
The Merchant Seaman pouches are already available but TNA blank out finger prints and NI numbers, that wouldn't be an issue with medal cards.

 

So it appears there are ww2 medal index cards then? Never heard of them.

Has anyone seen one and if so can they put up a sample?

 

I can understand what you are saying. Other groups, and especially the Mormons have actually done a great job digitising baptisms and marriages-a great start for anyone starting genealogy.

What I am trying to say is that these medal cards cannot possibly contain as much information as service records, and as far as I am concerned they only give the basic information ie a "little taster" which people will be eventually be paying for through one of the sites like Ancestry etc.


edited; typo

 

This sounds positive but at the end of the day if ancestry, find my past etc. get involved it is still not going to be free access to this information - there will presumably still be a cost attached.

We do not only require more information such as this to be made available but also to have free access so everyone can use it.

Brian

 

Hi everyone, they are indeed Medal Cards. The idea is to make available information that should be available for all soldiers from WW2, but is currently available for some, for example the cards contain roughly the same information that is already in the public domain at Kew for Allied POWs in WW2. A compilation of information on the Medal Cards (which I mistakenly called Rolls when I started the campaign can be found here http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/45790-medal-office-records-answers-to-freedom-of-information-request/

In terms of the online government petition that has now closed (as such petitions were only allowed to be open for a year, the rules are set by the Government). The petition was useful in attracting attention and getting more individuals willing to campaign openly for the Medal Cards release. However the campaign carries on but this time with the aim of getting politicians and other interested groups behind it, the Your Family Tree article is a big part of this. So please if you want to be part of this campaign either sign up to the Facebook page or Twitter feed, or if you want to be more actively involved please get in touch directly.

Best

Justin

 

My take on this is - this country stole my dads youth and dad had to live with the horrors of war in his head all his life (as did everyone else involved in ww2) so this country owes these people eternal gratitude and out of respect for their great sacrifice members of their family should have free easy access to all their records as at the moment it's like a maze trying to follow in their footsteps Elsie

 

A very valid point, Brian.

If a commercial organisation carries out any digitisation they will obviously expect to recover any outlay plus a profit margin.

 

The discussion about these cards has got me very interested.

I see the Medal office is situated in Gloucester, but still the MOD, so if a petition to digitise the cards was granted then the MOD would sell the information to someone like Ancestry for instance, who would in turn charge the public for it. There should be free access to everyone who wants to use it. A win-win situation for the MOD then.

The 30 quid I paid for my fathers records should have included a copy of the Medal Index card-in fact I feel short-changed now I know there is something missing :wink:


How many members of this forum knew there were WW2 Medal Index cards out there waiting to be digitised?

 

If I knew there were medal cards I would have gotten them for my grandfathers unit

 

This is what I think , this country stole my dads youth and he had to live with the horrors of war in his head all his life (as did everyone else involved in ww2) so this country owes these people eternal gratitude and out of respect for their great sacrifice family should have free easy access to all their records because at this time it's like a costly maze trying to follow in their footsteps Elsie