peter monahan

He does not appear in the Commonwealth War Graves records. My subscription to Ancestry does not cover the UK, but their records list over 100 Frank Hirst hits, so likely 10-20 individuals [my guess] odf that name saw service in WWI. Perhaps a member with an Ancestry.UK account could help.

I should have thought of the Gurkhas, all of whom of course were Rifle regiments. Ten regiments pre-1947 and 3 after gives lots of scope for pill boxes, which were standard gear fro them for many years. Not sure when the Indian Army, who got the other 7 units at Indepepndence, would have stopped using pill boxes but possibly quite late, as they have a great affection for the old style uniforms and seem to have the funds to outfit bands, honour guards and so on in the 'old style' uniforms. Sending a phoito to the Rifles Muzeum may be your best bet.

Not sure what you mean by 'ordinary nurses' but, yes, by WWII when I think all Allied nurses were officers rank it was a source of cinsiderable rancour that 'only those so**inf officers' got a crack at them. And our Matron, while no balltleax is a fromidable woman. She has been known to hand packages of period correct propholactics to erring Tommies and Doughboys before handing them over to our chaplian for the obligatory lecture! Love the 'legless' story, BTW. "Twue wove..."

Too bad! That would be one classy looking award if real.

I'm not sure how accessible WWII records are, as my Cdn interests are Great War, but the serial string may help. In WWI, blocks of numbers were asigned to regiments and I assume the same was true in WWII, so the first few digits - probably first three- may ID the unit in which your man enlisted. The Queen's York Rangers and GG's Horse Gurad were, I think, the only other MD2 armoured unit, as the 1st Husasar were London based [MD 1] Good luck!

Jojo Welcome to the GMIC! We're all interested amateur's here, so no guarantees we can help, but many of us are willing to try. Odd sword. The style is almost 'cutlass', given the heavy pommel and guard, but with a straight blade - certainly not anything modern in terms of style. The large pommel is rather unusual and, from what little I can see, the workmanship on the guard is quite crude. I think the grip is disks of leather. All that suggests to me a home made piece, but I may be very wrong. More photos, showing details and any markings at all would make a definite identification more likely. Peter

I'd say your best bet - as a non-expert [me, I mean] - is to keep searching for examples of 'Rifles cap', 'pill box cap' and whatever other variant search strings pull up images and look for similar pieces. OR, check the Rifles Museum - http://riflesmuseum.co.uk/?page_id=142 - and see what they can tell you. It certainly has the character of a late 19th century Rifles cap, or something made to look as if it were - again, to my non-expert eye - but the King's crown may argue the latter: a modern piece made up for the historically garbed band of a Rifles regiment. Good luck. Nulli deperandum!

Stunning!

Soldiers and sex? Perish the thought! The Canadian Army Medical Corps in WWI in what I strongly suspect was an attempt to make their nursing sisters less 'accessible' to the ordinary soldiers, made them all officers. Over, it need hardly be said, the strong protests of much of the officer corps. It would be naive in the extreme to think that young women in the kinds of situations these found themselves in would not have formed both romantic and sexual liasons at times. Their very presence at and near the front already broke many social taboos and sex outside of marriage, contrary to what today's young people seem to think, is NOT a new phenomenon!

Interesting indeed. According to an earlier post by Ed Haynes - who would know - and a quick scout round ebay, the 'MANIPUR' bar is actually for the Samanya Seva medal, not the Tanggh. It was awarded for counter terrorism operations in 1980, according to this old post on our site: Odd that the bar appears on this medal, but then medals from the sub-continent abound in oddities: tailors copies, wearing two of the same, wrong ribbons and so on. Intriguing.

I agree that it is probably an ID, not a sweetheart. Of course, bracletes were private purchase, so there were no rules as to form or size. The serial number prefix 'B' means an enlistment from Military District 2, headquatrered in Toronto and extending up through central Ontario, so could be Ontario Reg't or one of the other central Canadian armoured units. Or not: I'm not at all clear for WWII how much moving around recruits went through between basic training and assigment to their units. The serial number does not turn up in the CWGC list of casualties for 1939-1947.

I'd still go with Rifle's. it seems awfully 'restrained' for a civilian band item, unles they were trying to mimic the Rifles.

I haven't seen Cdn medal ribbons produced in this form of enamel before. It reminds me of some of the Eastern European 'enamelled' ribbons but I suppose the sterling mark makes that unlikely'. odd and intriguing.

Lovely work, Brian.

Indeed. It's clearly too well made to be a theatrical piece and may well be from someone's army. I'm by no means an expert on all aspects and periods of the British and Imperial Armies but it doesn't look quite right to be English 19th century. I may be wrong! Can you tell whether it is hand or machine sewn? I assume you'd have mentioned any labels or marks. BTW, when I said 'may be Indian' I meant that it could conceivably have been a unifrom for one of the Indian princely states which were incorporated into British India. OTOh, as I say, it may be non-military. One effect of having a large and successful empire is the tendency for people to ape one's fashions and fraternal groups were very strong in the late 19th century.

The crown on the button, if that is a button, is a bit blurry but could be either a 'naval crown' or a 'mural crown', usually associated with cities and towns. The style similar to the British military 'frock coat' of the Victorian period, though the row of very small buttons down the front is unusual, I think. Also what I take to be slits down the sides [?] are unusual and thre braiding is very elaborate. I wonder if it might be a garment made for, just as an example, an Indian [South Asian] or some fraternal organization, but modelled on a British style. Hard to say without more information on the sewing and other details. Interesting item!

Interesting indeed. While truth is stranger than fiction, and two men with identical names and ranks is not at all improbable, especially such a common surname, the two having died on the same date would be quite a coincidence. I suspect that they do refere to the same men and that either he was attached to the Buffs for some reason or that two men of simlar rank and name have been conflated by War Graves. It isn't possible to tell from the CWGC site whether the two documents shown - the Register and the Graves Registration report are compiled one from the other or from a common source. If the latter, a clerical error may simply have been perpetuated. Other than that, I have nothing to offer other than the obvious: look elsewhere for evidence that this S.A. soldier was attache dto the Buffs when he died.

Thuis is a long shot admittedly, but as he was a Private in the Royal Marienes, might there be a connectiion to HMS Deal castle, which I believe was an RN shore base, named after a frigate which was lost in a storm in 1780? As I say, a bit of a long shot and RN is not my field, but I've never seen this kind of prefix on a WWI medals before.

Indeed! More than just a little challenging for a gunsmith to restore. Where was it dug up, do you know?

Ah! yes, a European tour would explain that lot, and I can see how eager the Europeans would be to welcome a 'cvivilized' monarch from one of the more benighted corners of the world. And there are probably odder combos than a Hawaiin in a Haube out there. The kilted regiment of the Afghan Army comes to mind! 'Like that' would explain it. The last version of the movie Vanity Fair has some truly horrendous uniforms in it, between 17 year olds apperaing on Major General's uniforms and an art dierctor who used plum, burgiundy, pink etc instead of the proper red, which apparently he disliked. My comment on first seeing it was that a lot of them looked like what one got when Native States rulers pointed at pukka outfits and said 'Like that, only with more bling!'

OK, I see that now. The 1st Cdn Corps used a red/white red rectangle with a gold maple leaf on it but that seems unlikely, to me, to be on a helmet. I'd expect a regimental or corps marking.

I suspect that the this explanation is the correct one. The other, far less likely possibility, is that someone deliverately mixed the medals before sending the two groups to two destinations - perhaps two branches of the family?

That insignia is very faint! I'm afraid I can't make much of it except that it appears to be red / dark / red. A close-up shot of that bit of the helmet might help others make more useful comments.

Huzza. Excellent find. Congratulations. A dozen gongs is not to be sneezed at and reflects the service this gent put in. Well done, again. A tribute to your patience, indeed.

Nice!