Hi all I’ve read through the thread and had a question: a few people had said that it was indicated on the medal card that the medals were returned. The only document I have of my 2x great grandfather is a discharge certificate which at the top has a Class A and Class B badge with the number of the badge underneath. It doesn’t say if it was returned or not. I’m wondering if this is even the proper paperwork to determine that or not. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Edit: actually I don’t think it will matter. I see on the form you need to provide a death certificate which we don’t have :/ nobody knows what happened to him past the mid 1940’s.
I think you will find a British Service "Badge" is not a medal.
On my Grandfather's RAF Certificate of Discharge we have, he was awarded a badge at qualification and this was stitched on his uniform. Generally, some badges were metal and pinned to uniform, or go through a hole, with a retaining clip behind.
These Badges are on a Canadian forum
https://www.cdnmilitarycollectors.com/t844-ww1-cpf-class-a-and-a-class-b-badgeI once downloaded a Medal Card for a relation by marriage from the TNA, Kew website, but his Medal Bar had a lot more than those listed, but he was in two wars.
War is a nasty business (seeing best mates die) and regarding some WW2 Personnel (never asked WW1 Personnel), they or their next of kin never applied for their Medal entitlement. Some medals ended up in house clearances and several families of ex WW2 Servicemen have told me that they binned their medals because they wanted to forget what they had seen.
However, if any Medals were never issued, I believe you will also need to prove you are next in the MoD line of entitlement to be the applicant.
Mark