The Long, Long Trail

A soldier, sailor or airman qualified for a campaign medal as soon as he went overseas. Even if you don't know which medals Grandad qualified for, you can easily find out. The records of medals awarded have all survived and provide essential basic information. The records will probably help you identify which unit he belonged to and what type of soldier he was.

The campaign medals were
the 1914 Star
the 1914-15 Star
the British War Medal
the Victory Medal

This is the best start point for your research if you know Grandad's number or regiment, or even if you do not but he had an uncommon name.

A record was kept for every individual, which showed their specific medal entitlement. Luckily, these records have survived. They are known as the Medal Rolls and are available for you to see in the National Archives in Kew, London. The details from each roll were summarised on a card known as the Medal Index Card, or MIC.

When you find his card you can glean quite a lot of useful information, although the information found on the cards varies. It will always give the man's number, regiment or corps, and medals to which he was entitled. Some cards show date of disembarkation for foreign service, date of death if applicable, and occasionally some other information.

Here's an example

What does this card tell us? It says Private 4658 Jesse S. Coulson, 7th Dragoon Guards, landed overseas on 13 October 1914. He qualified for the 1914 Star (more details on Medal Roll CC/7 page 13), and the British War Medal and Victory Medal (details on Medal Roll CC/103/B3 page 117). See this article on how to interpret cards you find

Your problem will be if his name was Bill Smith and you don't know his regiment or number, for of course there were many duplications of names. You might need to record them all, and see what else you can do to narrow down your searches. This is why the MIC is not necessarily the best starting point for men with common names unless you know their regimental number.

If the index card tells you his date of embarkation, you might find this list of embarkation dates of Divisions useful to match him to a Division.

It is often forgotten that the index card is only a summary of the actual medal rolls, which are very large volumes of typed entries arranged by regiment. The original entries sometimes carry more information: for infantrymen, they almost always record his battalion(s); unfortunately this is often where the search ends for a soldier of the Royal artillery, Royal Engineers, Labour Corps, Royal Army Service Corps and Royal Army Ordnance Corps, as the soldier's unit is rarely mentioned. When looking at the index card, you should always check the original rolls too. They are not on-line, and require a visit to the National Archives.

It is impossible to set out all the details of qualification for this medal, but essentially the requirement was that a member of the fighting forces had to leave his native shore in any part of the British Empire while on service. It did not matter whether he/she entered a theatre of war or not.

The medal is silver and circular. A truncated bust of King George V is on the obverse, while there is a depiction of Saint George on the reverse. There is a straight clasp carrying a watered silk ribbon. This has a central band of golden yellow with three stripes of white, black and blue on both sides. The blue stripes come at the edges. An attempt was made to draw up a list of bars, but it was found to be an overwhelming task and was abandoned. Some 4,700,000 of these medals were struck for distribution at home, and another 600,000 in the Dominions and Colonies.

6,610,000 British War Medals were issued.

The soldier's regiment and number are inscribed around the rim.

This medal was awarded to all those who entered a theatre of war. It follows that every recipient of the Victory Medal also qualified for the British War Medal, but not the other way round. For example if a soldier served in a garrison in India he would get the BWM but not the Victory Medal. In all, 300,000 fewer Victory Medals were required than British War Medals. All three services were eligible. It is not generally known that Victory Medals continued to be awarded after the Armistice, for the British forces who saw action in North Russia (up to October 12th, 1919) and Trans-Caspia (up to April 17th, 1919) also qualified.

The medal was struck in bronze. On the obverse is a full-length figure of Victory. On the reverse is the inscription "The Great War for Civilisation". There is no clasp, but a ting attachment through which the ribbon is passed. The official description of the colour of the ribbon is "two rainbows with red in the centre". An oak-leaf emblem was sanctioned for those who were mentioned in despatches.

5,725,000 Victory Medals were issued.

The soldier's regiment and number are inscribed around the rim.

A Star similar to the 1914 Star was issued to all personnel mentioned below, with certain exceptions, who served in a theatre of war before December 31st 1915 and who did not qualify for the earlier star.

2,078,183 1914-15 Stars were issued.

Simple rule: if a man did not qualify for a 1914 or 1914-15 Star, he did not see service in a theatre of war before 1916.

A combination of the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and Victory Medal is often called a "trio" or "Pip, Squeak and Wilfred".

Popularly but inaccurately known as the Mons Star.

This medal was awarded to all officers, warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and all men of the British and Indian Forces, including civilian medical practitioners, nursing sisters, nurses and others employed with military hospitals; as well as men of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Royal Naval Reserve and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, who served with the establishment of their unit in France and Belgium between August 5th 1914, and midnight of November 22/23rd, 1914.

The decoration consists of a lacquered bronze star, the uppermost ray of the star taking the form of the imperial crown. Resting on the face of the star is a pair of crossed swords, and, on them, is a circular oak wreath. A scroll winds around the swords : it is inscribed with the date Aug.- Nov. 1914. The ribbon is red merging into white and then into blue.

A bar inscribed "5 Aug. to 22 Nov. 1914" was given to all those who served under fire. Since the same ribbon is used with the 1914-15 Star, holders of the earlier award were permitted to wear a small silver rosette on their ribbon when the decoration itself is not worn. On the medal index cards this is usually noted as the "Clasp and Roses".

Note that men who served in Egypt and elsewhere at this time do not qualify for this medal. Note also that men who crossed to France after 23 November do not qualify for this medal, but the 1914-15 Star.

365,622 1914 Stars were issued.

A combination of the 1914 Star, the British War Medal and Victory Medal is often called a "trio" or "Pip, Squeak and Wilfred".

The combination of a Star, Victory Medal and War Medal was fairly commonplace (more than 2.5m trios were issued). This combination earned for itself the common nickname, "Pip, Squeak and Wilfred".

The pair of the Victory Medal and British War Medal is however more commonplace (3.2m) simply because more men and women served in the army after 1st January 1916 than before. This was often called "Mutt and Jeff".

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred of the Daily Mirror, and Mutt and Jeff originally of the San Francisco Chronicle, were popular cartoon characters of the day.