How were Military Medals awarded?

[Gray Ranger]

RedRoger,

Thanks, thats interesting. Ithought this might happen as I've read through some of the war diaries for his regiment, and there is very often mention of some officers going "off strength" to leave in England, and then coming back to the unit. My man was a C/Sjt, so its possible I suppose that he did get home at some point.

Chris.

[Redroger]

My father was a 15 year old volunteer in the Cambridgeshire regiment, and though there is some evidence he was promoted to Lance Corporal while at signal school in 1918 this is not confirmed and his service record is one of the 2/3 that were lost in the blitz.

The death of Lt. Col Saint in 1918 which my father must have witnessed was an extremely traumatic event even for WW1 and I wonder if the home leave he was granted afterwards had a compassionate element about it. He never talked about his experiences in the war, not even to my mother, so I have extremely little to go on other than an extensively annotated copy of the Regimental History, and a photo (now most likely lost) of the HQ dugout where Saint died.

[Gray Ranger]

Yes, we can only hazard a guess as to what those men went through.

It's no wonder they didn't talk much about what happened, and we have only so much to go on in trying to find out now about their service.