peter monahan

Well, the Pakistan Army's web site, under "Accomplishments 2010" talks about sports medals awarded and a military competition in the UK in which a PA team placed first. There is also a reference to a video which apparently features 2 soldiers valiantly fighting off "1000 terrorists" in an attempt to 'eradicate terror from the land of the pure', but no mention there or in any news accounts I could find of awards for actions against the talebs and their allies. So, who knows?

You'd think so, yes, but these things are even touchier in Pakistan, where substantial sections of the military sympathize with and even covertly assist the Taliban and other Islamicist extremists. Not a subject likely to be much discussed, at least in public, in that country. Also, I think I recall that there was some considerable talk, originally, over the awarding a "northern Ireland" bar for the GSM, on the grounds that it was a 'police action', 'internal conflict' or 'a [pic PC phrase of your choice]' and not a pukka 'war'.

And before the current crop of VCs, for Iraq and Afghanistan,the last living [british] VC winner was [Honorary] Captain Rambahadar Limbu, VC. He won the Cross in 1965 in Malaysia, as a Lance-Corporal with the 10th Princess Mary's Own Gurkha Rifles. His original was stolen from a train in India but a replacement was issued and he was also made a member of the RVO for his role as Queen's Gurkha Orderly officer.

In the period with which I'm most familiar - say 1790 to 1820 - there is little or no evidence that drummers were boys at all, despite popular myth. I think one also needs to distinguish between 'regular recruiting' of boy soldiers and the kind of 'nudge nudge, wink, wink' war-time events referred to by George Parker, boy soldier. I've been working through pay records of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment from 1808 to 1816. There are about two dozen Drummers [a rank, some of whom were fifers] in 1812, but many appear to be returned to 'line' duties as the war goes on. Keep in mind that, in the early 19th Century, drums were one of the only means of long distance/ broadcast communication on the battalefield and a boy who couldn't master the dozens of calls would be of little use. Not sure what standard of musicianship would be needed, but surely not all 'boys' had it. Secondly, in 'my' period, drummers were also tasked with helping move wounded off the field, not a job for striplings. Finally, there would be considerable resistance, I suspect, from the bandmaster to having a revolving door on his band: spending months and years training musicians only to have them 'age out', leave the band for a line company and leave him with a new group to train. I suspect that the 'minature soldier' resplendent in muscian's regalia was much more common in Victorian postcards, stories and popular imagination than in the barracks and cantonments of Her Majesty's or His Majesty's imperial armies. In fact, Rudtard Kiplings "Drums of the Fore and Aft" wonderfully encapsulates both the mawkish sentiment and the rather different reality of drummers on campaign. I recommend it highly! My tuppence worth and more! Peter

Monkey God Are you sure such a thing exists? Many armies are leery of issuing awards for 'civil insurrection' duties, as they tend to be political hot potatoes. It may be that soldiers and police serving in anti-Taliban operations qualify for the regular 'time served' / 'long service' awards of their respective services but I wonder whether there is [yet] a specific award for hard and bloody 'internal security' duties. Any one else have thoughts on this one? Peter

Scott Not an expert by any means, but it appears that the recon. units in US armoured outfits used the M8 armoured car, called the "Staghound" by the British. Too lightly armoured for heavy combat, especially the floors, which were too thin to protect against mines. Perhaps that's the 'boobytrap' which killed your man. By the end of the Italian campaign, crews were stacking sandbags on the floorplates, which can't have helped agility on mountain roads! Here's a site with some general info. on the armoured division TO: www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/usarmy/infantry.aspx Good luck with the research. Let us know what you find out, please. Peter

Just a guess, but on the not-so-temporary rank, here;s a theory: an NCO, filling what is essentially Warrant Officer's rank because he has the experience, knowledge and initiative to fill a kept appointment, but lacks the education [or perhaps unblemished record] to meet the formal requirements for permanent stsus in the rank. Or, a way to get him the pay and prestige of a Sub-Conductor when there was no space on the table of organization for another Sub-C. My thruppence worth Peter

I agree! A risky business but one which, in this case, worked out very well. Very good looking ribbon. Peter

Very classy looking medals! Any chance of researching the Lieutenant? Peter

Harry Let me check my old records and collogue with a friend to make sure my middle-aged memory is correct. Don't want to start any wild hares. I'm fairly sure that the chap is Daf. Mangal Singh but will try to confirm that.

Years and years ago, "BC" [before children] I was lucky enough to own this man's medals. He was photographed - this shot- at the 1995 Jubilee celebrations in London, when he was a Daffadar [sergeant of cavalry] but went on to become Rissaldar Major, the senior Native Officer in an Indian cavarly regiment, the Colonel's right-hand man, a cross between the RSM and the Adjutant and the link between the British Officers and the Indian ORs. This man was apparently a demon polo player, though in his later years he looks to have weighed a good few stone - hard on the ponies! Also, interestingly enough, he left Mesopotamia in 1917, with his Colonel, from which he returned calling himslef "Alhaji": one who has been to Mecca. Mecca, of course, was well inside the Turkish Empire at that time. I was never able to find out any more than that, but it had 'diplomacy' [thinly veiled espionage] written all over it!

Stuart I've got a uniform with badly tarnished silver lace - I wear it when I do war of 1812 re-enacting [big boy war games ]. I have used the cream of tartar treatment, just made into a paste with a little water. The bread is just an alternative to Elvis 'leather' - it takes off the paste but isn't hard enough to scratch or tear the lace. It works fairly well, except when trying to clean crevices and folds. Your cap looks ideal, at least around the body: nice smooth surface. The vinegar might help too. When I asked the same question on an 1812/ Napoleonic forum, someone suggested 'potatoe water' - what's left after you boil pratties - as a slightly acidic liquid to soak the lace in. It works, of course, only if the fabric under the braid is colour fast. When I tried soaking a test piece in it it got shiny but also went green - perhaps more a comment on the quality of modern 'silver' lace then on the method, so I'd stick with the paste of Cream of Tartar and water and gentle rubbing. Good luck! Peter

The other volume of his biog. is called "Bring on the Empty Horses", from a command Alex Corda allegedly gave during the filming of "The Charge of the Light Brigade". Corda's English was practical but not elegant. Another anecdote, possibly apocryphal, has Corda losing his temper with Niven and Errol Flynn when they laughed at one of his utterances and roaring "You, you, you think I know f**k nothing! Well, you are wrong. I know f**k all!" This volume is also worth a read.

If you look at the Guest Identification forum you will see a litle more information on the British snake bucle belts in its 19th century incarnations. Peter

I tend to agree with you. Sorry, Noor! The medals/awards are those of the awarding authority / nation. The fact that an Englishman [or Irishman] won the Croix de Guerre wouldn't make it a British medal, whether he won it in the French Army or Foreign Legion or had it given him for some valiant act associated with France or French troops. Mind you, fine thing however one labels it! Peter

What a lovely thing! I've always had a weakness for anything realting to the 'Yellow Boys'. In fact, I have a limited edition print painting by an artist called W E Fente: a head and shoulders portrait of a Sowar of HH against a backdrop of several galloping men and one of the frontier forts {Ali Musjid?]. I've recently sold my Indian cavalry badge collection but Skinner's Horse and Hodson's were the ones I was most tempted to keep. If I lived on the same continent, Mervyn, I'd likely have that statue off you pd.q.! Peter

And the "G" probably stands for a records series in the Archives. I know that in our [Canadian] National Archives runs or groups are lettered "G', "H", "M" and so on in some arcane formula known only to the archive gnomes but one does have to have the letter as well as the actual box/fond/file or reel numbers to find anything. I don't see the "22 F.D.S." you mention but at a guess, for that period, I'd say "Field Dressing Station" - first stop on the road to Blighty for wounded or ill airmen and soldiers. Does that make any sense in the context? Might he have been a medical orderly or some other useful trade which would see him attached to a local aid detachment? Peter

Yeah, but parking her in the driveway would seriously annoy the neighbours! :whistle:

I agree! A very fine artifact indeed. Thanks for posting the news.

Hear, hear!

Old age is a terrible curse! That and twenty years or more since I handled the Mk 4 "'Tini". Michael is correct: this is not the long lever Mark 4 at all. Mea culpa! The reason for the lever being lengthened, however, is as stated. This site has some nice clear shots of all four models: http://www.martinihenry.com/infantry.htm

This is a Mark 4 version of the 'Tini too, with a long lever rather than the short one which was in fact more common. The was a slight tendency for the rifles, when heated by repeated firings, to jam. I believe that the original cartridges, like those for the Snider Enfield, were brass foil on a solid brass base and when they jammed the base came away, leaving the foil in the barrel. One solution for this proble, obviously, was to go to a solid brass cartridge but in the Mks 1-3 these jammed entirely, so the 'long-lever' was an attempt to solve this by giving the user a little more leverage during extraction. BTW, it's these - Mk 4s - that were used in the film Zulu. The Indian Army had thousands of them, one of which I owned in the palmy days of my youth, and they eventually flooded militaria and gunstores across the former empire [in Canada, in the late 1970's]. A lovley gun, still one of my favourite pieces of British issue! Peter

I tend to agree with the 'cheap tat' thread here. Sure, getting it at all has some value, but soldiers like flash and glitter, hence the complete failure of every army I can think of to put all the guys and girls in the same uniforms, without the so aptly named 'tribal distinctions' for Grenadiers, Fusileers, Alpini, special forces and so on. A boring hunk of cheap metal is what this is. As someone suggested, it looks like the stuff you find in souvenir shops next to national landmarks - pencil sharpeners, key chains and so on ad naseum. I also wonder how long it will take all the Planning and Support rear echelon types to swap off for the yellow stripe the sharp end troops get to wear. SIGH!

Many years ago there was a bloke who showed up in Toronto [Canada] representing himself as an officer and a veteran and wearing a group of medals starting with an Egypt and running up to and including WWII. He managed to get himself accepted as a member of the Canadian Military Institute and was treated in all ways as an honoured old soldier. However, a canny member of the CMI eventually twigged top the fact that the ribbon for "an Italian award" which he wore behind his other ribbons was in fact the same IGS ribbon Mervyn has shown here! At that point somebody stopped to do the math and figured that he would have had to have been 12 or 14 at Tel-El-Kebir to have earned them all. He was outed and quietly crept away into deserved obscurity. Oddly enough, the Egypt and 'his' Boer war pair floated around the medal dealers and junk shops in Toronto for years after alway, to the best of my knowledge, with this story attached. As best I recall, they were name erased, not renamed to him - he had an explanation for that too, apparently. I'm not sure whether its a good thing or a bad that we are still so prone to take a man at his word, but it must say something about the brotherhood of old soldiers that we do. Sadly, this seems to be an increasing problem. The Yanks have even passed a new law after several fairly high profile outings of "self-made men" and I recall the fuss last year when a British chap tried to pass himself off as a decorated vet at a memorial parade. We are a curious race!

Brian Very clever indeed! When I saw the post topic I immediately thought 'Oh, yes, a jeweller's tapered [whatchamcallit]', which they use to restore the other kind of rings to roundness. But of course those have no provision for the ring on the medal itself, which your groved dowel does a treat. Wery wery good indeed! Peter