peter monahan

Owen While the 3rd Battalion was present and must have qualified for the Egypt Medal in 1882, the period Francis was in country is not covered by any of the bars to the Egypt Medal, so he likely did not qualify. The Camel Corps, to the best of my limited knowledge, was an ad hoc unit made up of volunteers [or 'voluntold'] from various units. A prime target for faked multi-bar medals, its not clear to me that there was ever a permanent roll of serving members, but on balance its very unlikely that he served with it, as the 3rd must have been garrison troops by then. The Naval and Military Press has a selection of books on the various campaigns 1882-1885 in Egypt, but not likely anything as detailed as to mention replacement troops as late as 1887. I feel afe in saying, however, that its pretty unlikely Francis had a gong for that bit of his service. Peter

The cigarette case is lovely, and I like the collection of badges he wore. [thumbs up]

Monty was known for husbanding his men and resources till he had a substantial advantage over his immediate opponents so... Would he have waited until there was evidence the bombardment had done its work and suppressed the German machine guns and artillery? Perhaps. Used the rolling barrage to better effect? Probably. A different battle, I think. Though perhaps not much different ultimate outcome, just less murderous for the British.

Lest we forget.

Both superb examples!

Ilja Thank you for sharing these. Do you have any information on the 'l'Ordre de l'Arc en Ciel' [Rainbow Order] ansd what it ia awarded for? It's very colourful!

And the extra holes in the corners for an extra secure attachment - sewed on - which was not a feature of the original issues. Very interesting piece!

In answer to your question about Private Francis and other possible medal entitlements, I suspect the answer is 'no'. Single campaign medals are not rare, even for 12 year men and the 3rd Battalion seems to have had a fairly peaceful last quarter of the century. Some men were with the Camel Corps in the Egypt campaign and qualified for the medal with 'The Nile 1884-85' and 'Abu Klea' bars. They seem then to have gone to India and were there through to the end of 1902 at least.

Very common with foreign awards: either confusion, self aggrandizement or even a replacement piece, using what was available, either by the recipient, his family or some subsequent owner of the group.

Excellent! Thank you for posting these, Antonio.

Nope, the caption is wrong, as you suggest. Pretty typical of "We need a photo, with a tank in it..." by editors who aren't subject specialist. Just leafed through the Smithsonian's new book on WWI and found 3 errors on a single page, all in photo captions. And I wasn't even looking. One was similar - page on 1915 showing gear not issued till 1917.

Only awarded to the RAF, 30, 55, 70 an 84 Squadrons. Got nothing else.

I'd agree with Mervyn - 'improvement' of a group going on here. I'd guess that he got the 1887 and then was either issued in error or bought the miniature with the 1897 bar and simply decided to wear both 'for the look of the thing'.

Possibly one of the temperance groups, also often associated with military service in the late 19th and early 20th centuries?

Megan I'd say, speaking from a position of near total ignorance, that the Order of the Eagle and the Order of the Sea eagle are very likley one and the same. This illustration is perhaps a lower grade than the one pictured on page 1, but two virtually identical/identical orders seems odd to me.

Johnny On the burials question: it is very possible, even likely, that he was originally buried somewhere other than the CWGC cemetery where his remains currenly lie and that the re-burial of three men from one unit, killed the same day, reflects the fact that those remains were relo0cated at the same time from their original resting site to their current location, rather than any purposeful 'setting aside'. Just a thought

I like it! Many of the current renderings, of which there are a profusion, strike me as pretty insipid. I'm not sure I'd have called him handsome, but he had a strong face and your bust captures that excellently, IMHO.

Maybe he had a m,an who carried them behind, like the Drum Major of Napoleon's Guards, whose triple plume was so large that he had a drummer boy to carry his hat when he walked.

Not strictly relevant to this discussion, but the slouch hats were even issued to the Assyrian Levies and other locally recruited units in the Middle east, which suggest to me that they were likely ubiquitous out there.

Good to hear that reputable firms are still out there and prepared to pull dodgy items. Well done, all!

The Aden Protectorate Levies seem to have been used largely for garrison duties, though the anti-aircraft unit formed in 1939 did apparently shoot down at least one Italian aircraft, so at the very least those men would have qualified for a War and Defence Medal, I think, while the rest probably qualified for the War Medal. Again, info. compliments of Wikipedia. There was at one point a web site called 'assyrianlevies,com' but it doesn't appear to be active any longer. I suspect records for these medals, which would have been scrupulously recorded at the time, are in most cases with the RAF records, wherever those are currently kept. For the Ethiopians, no idea - they may have disappeared in the ensuing years. I hope this is all of some slight interest to the members. Peter

Africa Star: "one or more days service in North Africa between 10 June, 1940 and 12 May 1943..." Army qualification was "entry into North Africa on the establishment of an operational unit... Service in Abysinnia, The Somalilands, Erirea and, be it noted, Malta was included, but not that in West Africa" [same source]. So presumably, Ethiopians in Imperial service would qualify by virtue of their unit being declared 'operational' for one or more days. Current MOD info. says service in Abyssinia and so on was 'between certain specified dates' but does not give those. I suspect they have to do with when and where untis were considered to be operational, as opposed to actual battles or campaigns, but I may be wrong. The War Medal was awarded for 28 days service, so the Iraq Levies would indeed qualify, I think. Award of the War Medal was automatic with the award of any of the Stars.

Qualifications for the 1939-45 Star: Army (1) "Six months service in an operational command, except for service in Dunkirk, Norway and in some specific commando raids and other services for which the qualifying period was one day. Airborne troops qualified if they had participated in any airborne operations and had completed two months service in an operational unit." RAF (1) "Operations against the enemy... [with] two months service... (2) Non-aircrew... six months service... except that service at Dunkirk, and in Norway, etc. also counted." I wonder whether "other services" might cover SOE drops into Frnace and so on - high risk if short duration. The Merchant Navy had to do six months or had performed service during the Dunkirk evacuation. Source: Tapprell Dorling, British Battles and Medals, 4th edition, 1971. According to Wikipedia: The War Medal 1939–1945 - Awarded to Levies after 28 days of service in World War Two. The 1939-1945 Star - Awarded to Levies after six months service in World War Two. The Italy Star - Awarded to parachute company personnel that served in Albania, Italy and/or Greece. A number of companies of the Assyrian Levies served in Cyprus and Malta as well as the Middle East. Members of the Cyprus Regiment - mule pack companies - were in France before Dunkirk, and the unit served in North Africa during the qualifying period for that Star, as well as in Italy, so may have qualified for those two Stars as well.

Yeah, what Frank said! Please don't stop doing these, Steve.

Jonsey If he was a casualty there are other resources available - CWGC and the Canadian Virtual War Memorial and Canadian Great War Project which may shed light on his career and death. Library and Archives Canada also maintains card records on veterans circumstances of death but they are far from complete, as I believe they were dependent on next of kin submitting the info. Other than that, for thise who survived the war there is not a lot readily available. LAC is promising to release complete service records for men whose names start with A to C this summer, but haven't done so yet. If you'd care to share his name I'd be happy to poke around up her for you. Peter