WW2 Medal Index Card

As promised to a couple of people. This is what, apparently, a WW2 MIC looks like. They were given to soldiers on discharge who had to then use them to make a claim. No claim, then one does not exist for that soldier - so they won't be complete like the WW1 MICs. As you see, they also contain only basic info. They are hole-punched for drawer filing.

Front:

 

Back:

 

Paul
Super.
Interesting to see the RA address - Foots Cray ... why was it dealt with this way?

Did the applicant have to delete N/A medals himself - or was that box for official use ?

Thanks,
D

 

My father said they had to state which medals they thought they had been awarded. He was in North Africa before going into Italy, but unbeknown to him was outside the qualification period for the Star. However, he applied for the Africa Star and was refused... without explanation and something that made him back off from ever wearing his medals as he felt/feels 'cheated' by the WO.

 

Paul
With ref to:
My father said they had to state which medals they thought they had been awarded. He was in North Africa before going into Italy, but unbeknown to him was outside the qualification period for the Star. However, he applied for the Africa Star and was refused... without explanation and something that made him back off from ever wearing his medals as he felt/feels 'cheated' by the WO.



Please tell your Dad, from me, that I quite understand his feelings on the subject.

I've posted something on this subject before and hope I will be forgiven for repeating it again on this thread.

Back in the early days of the BBC WW2 website there was a thread running to do with the entitlement of a clasp to the Africa Star, either of the 1st or the 8th Army type.

I had already posted a photo of my medals to accompany an article and someone spotted (see BBC - WW2 People's War - Stick it in your Army.....Album!)
that my medals lacked the 1st Army Clasp despite the fact that I had written about arriving in Algeria on the 23rd of April 1943 well before the campaign finished on the 12th of May of the same year.

I was being pestered by other site members with would-be helpful hints of the "you should have received a clasp" variety and so to settle the matter I wrote to the relevant MOD department and received the following reply:

Dear Sir
Thank you for your letter received 7 September enquiry as to the progress in your application for the supplementary award of the clasp ' 1st Army" to the Africa Star.
To qualify for the clasp 'Ist Army" personnel are required to have served between 8 November I942 and 12 May 1943 on the posted strength of. or attached for duty to. a formation or unit which appeared on the Order of Battle of the First Army. I can confirm that 49 Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment (49 LAA Regt) appears on the relevant Order of Battle and so earns the clasp. However, available official documents show that on disembarkation in North Africa you were placed into the unposted reinforcement pool and remained so until being posted to 49 LAA Regt on 22 May 1943.
You will appreciate that as you only performed service on the strength of an operational unit after the final qualifying date, you are not entitled to the clasp ' 1st Army.
I am sorry to forward such a disappointing reply
Yours faithfully
***********
Officer in charge Division 3
Although I had realised from day one that I was not entitled to the 1st Army clasp I was still amused to think that although we were subjected to air raids during our stay in Algiers (awaiting posting to our various Regiments) had we been killed our heirs would have been entitled to our medals but sans the appropriate clasp :smile:

I'm sure your Dad must have had similar feelings to mine !

Cheers

Ron

 

Ron - thanks for that. I will pass that on to him. It is very much along the lines of how he feels!

 

My father said they had to state which medals they thought they had been awarded. He was in North Africa before going into Italy, but unbeknown to him was outside the qualification period for the Star. However, he applied for the Africa Star and was refused... without explanation and something that made him back off from ever wearing his medals as he felt/feels 'cheated' by the WO.

Thanks for the explanation Paul. I find it strange that it was done in this manner, like having to put a hand out for something which should have been automatically awarded in gratitude.

D

 

Yes, quite. He always wondered if he hadn't ever applied for the Italy Star, would they have sent it? It made him very cynical about the whole thing.

 

Goverments and civil servants are very cold creatures - all very distant from the men who were at the sharp end.

It is little wonder that those who served with Bomber Command felt they had been shortchanged - the govermnent who sent them out night after night shunned them - the gratitude D mentions I fear does not exist.

( My late mother being a "serial clearer outer" threw out the offical boxes which my father's brother's medals came in - I had "protected" them from her when I lived at home - she simply thought " sure no one wants these old things- my Dad's naval kit bag went the same way - so when I saw the scans of the papers Paul posted this was the first thing which crossed my mind
The Irish guards photo Paul posted - I wonder how many things like that have disappeared in so many homes over the years.).

 

They are still the same today....I got my first medal from Princess Anne at the end of the tour on a parade, the second (The one that means the most to me) from a civvie regimental clerk that said, 'here you go this came for you a few weeks ago' when I was walking through RHQ (It was about 18mths after coming home from Op Telic 1. The last one I received in the post to my home address a few months after coming home. The bit that really miffed me off - They address it 2***5233 Cpl A Newson followed with my full home address. I wasn't happy !

Cheers and I think its a sad fact that service personel are treated like crap by the government. This thread just confirms that it has always been that way.

Sorry, Rant over

Merry Crimbo and all that

 

Just to "dot the eyes" for you, the procedure the Army would have followed was to get information from one's records and then strictly follow the book.

The pic below shows the relevant sheet from my own records.

ps

Since writing the above, I've been back to my personal records and diaries of the period and have discovered something that really intrigues me.

My personal diaries for 1942/1943 were lost in wartime (probably due to the many moves I made and the fact that they were ony 2"x4" in size)

I was fortunate in that my very good friend Larry Fox has managed to hang on to all of his diaries and, as we were together from March '43 to Setember '44, I've always been able to confirm dates over that period.

Lew's diary for the 10th April '43 says the following:

10/4/43
After travelling all night we finally arrived at Liverpool, dirty and very hungry also, at the docks where soldiers, sailors & airmen & combined operational units, all coming on the same boat as us' At first we thought it was the "***" or the "***" as they were both in port but we finally discovered it was the SS Franconia with about 4100 men on board. We arrived aboard the ship about 10am. It was quite a nice ship, we were put in E6 deck,15A mess & sorted out 18 men to a mess. Hammocks were distributed too & they were very comfortable with blankets & a pillow. I went to bed very early. Wrote home an 'Active Service' letter

Note the date, 10th April and it obviously refers to the day before, the 9th of April.

Now look at my Army Record sheet, it gives the date of my service in North Africa as 9/4/43 so it look like my North African service started when I boarded ship in Liverpool. By the way, the alteration to the dates are the Army's, not mine.

Most interesting