Home
What's New
Pensions & Compensation
Service Records, Medals & Badges
Welfare, Support & Contact
Special Support Programmes
Armed Forces Memorial
Veterans Community
Raising Awareness
Veterans World
Vets Advisory & Pensions Cttees
|
Medals
Claiming for campaign medals
Replacing campaign medals
How is a medal instituted?
National Service medals
The Pingat Jasa Malaysia Medal
Claiming for campaign medals
The vast majority of Service personnel receive campaign medals
awarded to them while they are still in the Armed Forces, as they are required
to be worn for ceremonial duty and other functions for which their uniform
is required. If, however an individual leaves the Armed Forces before the
medal can be issued, it is his or her responsibility to claim them from the
Ministry of Defence Medal Office. As a result, there are still many veterans
who have not received the medals to which they are entitled. By far the largest
group of veterans were those who were in the Armed Forces during the Second
World War.
As a general rule, most Second World War Service personnel
were not issued with medals before they were de-mobilised at the end of the
war and consequently they had to claim them after they had left the Services.
This differed from the arrangements at the end of the First World War when
the majority of medals were sent out automatically. This was not considered
to be practical after the Second World War, as most people had returned to
'civvy street' before the medals were instituted and manufacturing commenced
in the late 1940s. The task of locating them individually would have been
an enormous and hugely expensive task. It was decided at the time that only
those people who remained in the Armed Forces would receive their medals
automatically. Everyone else had to claim them. Although the availability
of medals for wartime service was widely advertised at the time, many people,
for a variety of reasons, did not do so. Even now, nearly 60 years later,
several hundred veterans, or their next of kin, still make an initial claim
for Second World War medals, every month. They were, and still are, issued
in the first instance free of charge. Medals can be issued to the legal next
of kin of deceased ex-Servicemen/women, however proof of kinship will be
required.
To claim medals which never before have been issued, replace
stolen/destroyed medals (see below for special instructions), or find out
if an individual is entitled to a medal, please write to the medal office
at the address below. The following information (or as much as possible)
will be required:
Service Number, Regiment/Corps (Army/RM), Branch/Trade (RAF
and RN), Full Name, Date of Birth, Rank and date of discharge, plus, of course,
your current name and address. At the moment, the medal offices are unable
to accept claims or queries by e-mail.
As a large number of people have not claimed for their medals
until now, there is usually a backlog of requests, all of which are dealt
with strictly in the order the claims are received. All claims are dealt
with as quickly as possible and there are teams of skilled officials who
work on this task all the time. Every effort will be made to acknowledge
and process claims in a timely manner, but please appreciate that if you
are claiming a medal for service performed many years ago it will be necessary
to recover files from the archives, which will take a little time, so please
be patient.
All information about medals issued to First World War veterans
is held at the National Archive at
Kew.
Claims for medals for service in the Home Guard are also dealt
with by the MOD Medal Office.
Contact the Ministry of Defence Medal Office at the following
address:
Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA)
(Joint Personnel Administration Centre)
MOD Medal Office
G36, Innsworth House
Imjin Barracks
Gloucester
GL3 1 HW
JPAC Enquiry Centre
Email: Medals@SPVA.mod.uk
Fax: 0141 224 3586
Free Phone: 0800 085 3600
Overseas Civ: +44 (0) 141 224 3600
Mil 94560 3600
Medal
Application (For non -serving personnel)
|
