small family display

[Kriztofer]

Hi Gents

I would like to share this display of my grandfathers/great grandfathers awards. I received them about 8 months ago from my Mom who has come to the time of her life to "pass down" the stuff. Unfortunately, thanks to the lovely British climate haha & bad storage, a lot of the photos have turned to mush.

I don't have any info on my great grandad other than he was in France and he died a few years after returning to the U.K. My grandfather signed up for home defense in 1939 and was trained on Light AA bofors. He spent time ( acording to my mom) either in Malta or Sicily before moving on to Burma where he stayed until 1947.

The awards are pretty common and I had to replace two of the ribbons which were missing. I did clean them for the display because they were almost Black with patina but they are already starting to turn a nice brownish Bronze color.

Chris.

[leigh kitchen]

A nice display, & yes, common medals but in a way unique as they are to family. I would have kept the medals in their 2 groups I suppose, but that's no criticism.

Are the medals & their ribbons glued to the backing?

What are the units, & have you researched them at all?

[Kriztofer]

Hi leigh

Most of his paperwork/photos have rotted away, they were in a box that was put in an outside shed for years, but I have a couple of items that survived. One is a regimental Christmas greeting card from the 3rd Indian LAA regiment 1st Royal Artillery Division, South East Asia command. The other is an award doc for the Burma Star and a couple of photos with his regiment and Indian soldiers. An award cardboard box survived, but I have no idea what award came with it.

I also found a snippet of history on the movements of the RA LAA Bofors Div. It seems that they were deployed in the Mediterranean in Malta, Sicily & Gibraltar as and when needed. Some of the troops bound for Asia were temporarily used in support action ( AA) then sent on to their original destinations. I can only assume this is what happened with my Grandfather.

He didn't say much about the war except that he loved India, he volunteered to stay on after the war to help the army with cleaning up the thousands of corpses that were a result of the famine. My mom told me that in the photos that were lost, she remembers seeing certain pics with mountains of corpses that were being burnt & rivers full of dead people, animals etc

Here is a link to a web site on the Burma Army, the gentleman who runs the site was helping me to determine my Granddads unit before I found the docs.

http://www.rothwell.force9.co.uk/burmaweb/3rdlaaregtIA2.htm

To mount the medals I sewed, with transparent thred, a strip of Velcro on the ribbon and glued the other piece to the mat. The medals are free to move around but the always find center. The mat itself is Acid free which I had to special order, a real SOB to find.

I hear ya about the grouping, I tried all ways to find the best display layout, finally I thought this one fit the design best but not order wise.

Thanks for your comments Leigh.

[Riley1965]

Thanks for preserving your families history!!! That's a very nice display!!!

Doc

[leigh kitchen]

At first glance it looks like the box would have contained the WWII medals.

What are the details on the WWI medals, they should be easy to check for a Medal Index Card & perhaps more on, if you have'nt done so already.

Do'nt gve up on the damaged photos & documants, if you ca'nt "improve" photo images on your scanner or photo programmes then somebody on GMIC may help out, or your local photo studio.

People like forum member Norstrum may be able to help out with advice ob how to reclaim individual pages from the mush of damaged paperwork.

Edited April 21, 2009 by leigh kitchen