peter monahan

​Matty A lot of these commemoratives are issued either by veterans groups or, in some cases, by a municiplaity or county/canton where the actions being remembered took place. As a resuklt, they do not appear in the official lists issued by the various national cahncery offies [or their equivalents] as they are not official awards. It makes identifying them a bit of a challenge and in future will undoubtedly confuse any number of collectors!

The standard price for a plain, common SA dagger seems to start at about $600 USD and goes up to 4-5 times that dependiong on a number of factors I'm not qualified to speak on. Here is an old site which gives lots of information about them, though again I don't know enought to vouch for the accuracy of the fine details. http://quanonline.com/military/military_reference/german/blades/sa/sa_dagger.html The site above mentions post war made for sale to GIs - from war time parts - and modern copies and I know Nazi knives are a collector's minefield for outright fakes, 'improvements' and other scams, so can't comment on wether this is a good oen but looki g over the site may give you an idea of where to start your research as to its true value. Good luck!

That sounds right. So, he's have worn dark blue with, I think, gold [yellow] GC stripes. Emphasis on 'think', as I haven't checked. By 1874 the Gunners would have been in khaki like everyone else and the stripes would be khaki or white, as I recall.

I live just down the road from Canadian Forces Base Borden, our largest training establishment, with something like 35 different schools. One of the bigger ones seems to be to train militia types to drive our trucks /lorries, so I not inferquently run across route markers stapled to telephone poles on the roads round town. Ours seem to consist solely of black clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds on white paper, not a patch on those lovely things!

It is in the style of WWI and date stamped 1952 by the look of it. An interesting item.

From the buckle I'm going to guess a trooper in the Household Cavalry. Not fancy enough for an officer but that is their buckle. A very nice little item, though.

I was that dumb at 20, though skulls were never my thing. Hell, I carruied a swagger stick around college for a while! OTOH, the French troops in Mali were dong some 'hearts and mind' stuff as well as potentially engaging armed opponents, so I can see why his superiors would not have been amused.

I'd be very pleasantly surprised, given the current atmosphere in Ottawa, if the Forces were permitted to do anything so generous.

A member of the Worchestershire Reg't. Note GC stripes on right sleeve.

Pierce The so called 'good conduct badge' was a chevron, worn point up on the lower sleeve and earned for a certain number of years' service without any charges against one's conduct [drunkennes, AWOl, etc]. In Victorian times each extar badge brought a penny a day increase in pay - to a base pay of something like 18 pence, i think, so not an inconsiderable incentive. Here are the periods required to earn them in various decades, as quoted on the Victorian wars Forum: he 1836 and 1854 rules awarded badges at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years of service. The 1860 rules awarded badges at 3, 8, 13, 18, 23, 28, 33, and 38 years of service.The 1870 rules awarded badges at 2, 6, 12, 18, 23, and 28 years of service. The 1876 rules awarded badges at 2, 5, 12, 16, 18, 21, and 26 years of service. The 1885 rules awarded badges at 2, 6, 12, 18, 23, and 28 years of service. Hope that helps. Peter

You might want to give him a ring then and suggest a) a safety deposit box and b) more insurance. If he were burgled they'd just as likely bin the stuff after a fence turned it down and that would be several kinds of tragedy. Peter

Pylon That was very accomodating of the authorities! Somebody up there must love you. Frank I remember the 125th medal - "piece of rubbish" as our British cousins would say! Maybe the nice ones I saw were replacements like Python's, or the S-G and his buddies were lcuky in their timing. Who knows.

Pierce Sadly, no. I know that HM government issues replacements to serving members of the Forces and to the surviving family of those killed or died on service. I think they may also issue replacements to survivng vets in extraordinary circumstances, but certainly not in the case of service that long ago. Your only recourse is to assemble a set of specimens representing the medals your ancestor earned, which can be either exciting or frustrating, depending on your personality and whether you'll accept copies, name erased samples, named medals to others and so on. Good luck, whatever you decide to do! Peter

Obviously I imagined/misremembered the shileds for the NZ riot squad in '81, but, yes, those are the lads I was thinking of. Very impressive lot.

Nice work, Kris.

Someone commented on the NZ riot squad during the Springboks tour. I remember watching a film clip of them practicing for the anticipated protests: shields held up and short batons projecting forward, ahead of the shield. The whole squad advanced in lock step and every time their right boots came down they jabbed the batons forward at solar plexus height, very quickly, and withdrew them. It looked like a threshing machine and was one of the most frightening things I'd ever seen! It reminded me of what i imagined a Roman legion must have looked like wading into a crowd of 'barbs' and, I suspect, with the same effect.

Lovely indeed! I expect to see a few such next month, at Waterloo! "They came at us in the same old way, and we drove them off in the same old way." Wellington.

Taras That is indeed odd. I wonder if the post has somehow been moved or the wrong image attached due to the new web system which the administrator introduced.

I was lucky enough to be in Ottawa last weekend for the ceremonies around the dedication of a statue to John McCrea, who wrote the famous poem 'In Flanders Fields' and was able to meet a number of senior officers, including the current and former Surgeons General of the Canadian Forces, with their various staff, ADCs and so on. Many many sparkly orders and decorations and all looked, to me, very well made. But perhaps, as in all other things, rank hath its privileges? Me in the back row, in WWI CAMC kit, next to the shiny officer [also in WWI kit].

Iceman If you click on the envelope icon at the top right of the page you can send a personal email to arrestanddevelopment. I have sent him a note asking if he has seen your post and whether he still has the O wings. If he responds, I'll ask him to contact you directly. He does not seem to have made any other posts more recently than 2009, but I hope that his posting on your relative means that he is still a member of the GMIC and will get my note and any you may send him. Peter

Sadly, Mervyn, I suspect protests, public or otherwise would be more likely to encourage further outrages than the opposite as, like ISIS, the modus operandi of the various jihadists seems to be to deliberately outrage the West in hopes of provoking a reaction which they can characterize as 'ant-Muslim', 'imperialist' and so on. Ugly, hateful but with a certain low cunning!

Dave Not strictly my field but I'm intrigued by the combination of Garrison Court Martial - which suggest a more serious crime than would be dealt with by a Regimental Court - and the pretty lenient sentence of 12 days stoppages and imprisonment. You didn't say where the alleged offence occurred, nor which regiment or corp your distinguished forebear was with, which might well make a difference as to where you should look next. perhaps with some of that info. our UK members can suggest next steps.

Thanks for sharing the photographs. I don't think I've ever seen a 'live' one before. I suspect a lot were sold out of service to farmers and teamsters and driven until they were scrap, then left in a field somewhere, as is so often the fate of old farm machinery, at least here in Canada. Nice to see one preserved.

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What a great story! Do you know if there is a biography, printed or private for her, Dante? Any descendants?