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The Burma Star with Pacific Bar

Posted in 1939-1945 Service Medals with tags , , , , , on February 14, 2010 by The Dude

Flag_of_the_United_KingdomThe Burma Star was a campaign medal of the British Commonwealth, awarded for service in World War II.

The medal was awarded for service in the Burma Campaign between 11 December 1941 and 2 September 1945. This medal was also awarded for certain specified service in China, Hong Kong, Malaya and Sumatra:

  • Hong Kong – between 26 December 1941 and 2 September 1945
  • China and Malaya – between 16 February 1942 and 2 September 1945
  • Sumatra – between 24 March 1942 and 2 September 1945
  • Second World War service in China, Hong Kong, Malaya and Sumatra after 8 December 1941 but prior to the above start dates was recognised by the award of the Pacific Star.

British uniform regulations stipulated that the Pacific Star would not be awarded to a prior recipient of the Burma Star. Subsequent entitlement to the Pacific Star was denoted by the award of the Pacific clasp.

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New Zealand War Service Medal

Posted in 1939-1945 Service Medals with tags , on December 4, 2009 by The Dude

Flag_of_New_ZealandThis medal was awarded for one month’s full time service or six months’ part time service in any of the Armed Services, the Reserve or Home Guard between 3 September 1939 and 2 September 1945. This medal was the first distinctively ‘New Zealand’ campaign medal, which was emphasised by the use of the fern leaf motif on the reverse and the national colours of black and white in the ribbon.

The New Zealand War Service Medal was issued unengraved, as were other Second World War campaign medals awarded for service for New Zealand.

Being a New Zealander I am especially fond of this medal. My grandfathers medal bar contains one as does the one belonging to the Grand-Uncle that I am named after. I have two examples of this medal.

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Southern Rhodesia Medal for War Service

Posted in 1939-1945 Service Medals with tags , on November 28, 2009 by The Dude

800px-Flag_of_Southern_RhodesiaInstituted in 1946 and only issued 1700 times.

This is the second rarest Commonwealth service medal to get hold of since the Rhodesians were not allowed to operate as a separate unit. Most of them were either drawn into South Africa units or British formations. If the former, then they were usually awarded the Africa Service Medal.

This medal was only awarded to those Rhodesians who were not eligible for any other stars or service medals. I have only seen a handful of these since I started collecting a decade ago. The most interesting was in a group with the BWM and Victory Medal for some bloke who had served in East Africa in the Great War and then did home service in WW2.

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