Dear All
I have been given the following information from the National Archives:
'The Ministry of Defence is in the process of cataloguing and preparing the Royal Navy medal rolls for transfer to The National Archives, but as yet there is no indication of when they will be received.'
Therefore it makes it even more important that everyone signs up to the petition listed below so that the other medal rolls/cards are considered for release. The link to the petition and details of the contents of the records are listed below.
The following is put together from Service Personnel and Veterans Agency responses to my freedom of information request about the records held by the Medal Office. The responses to the request have been very informative and as you will see my petition ‘Open up WW2 medal rolls so that family war service can be traced’ Open up WW2 medal rolls so that family war service can be traced - e-petitions should have been named ‘Open up WW2 medal cards…’. Please sign the petition and at 10,000 signatures the MoD will be required to give a response as to whether they are prepared to open up the Medal records for the purpose cited in the petition. The information the Medal Office has disclosed should also help organisations and individuals who would like to have these records for service personnel from WW2 more publicly available talk to the Government about making this possible.
Medal Office Records
‘The Medal Office holds the following information about the issue to individual servicemen of service medals from WW2 that have been claimed since the end of that conflict, however this information varies according to the Service the individual was in:
Royal Navy/Royal Marines – medal cards are held which detail the medals issued. These were completed after the war for each Service person and are kept in Service number order. The information was not generally recorded on the Service records.
Army – physical records of the medal issues are kept on both the individuals’ record and a central card index (CS20) which is held and sorted in alphabetical surname order.’
‘The entries on the cards can include all or some of the information you listed but will vary from card to card. For example on a World War Two card the fields are: Service Number, Christian or First Names, Surname, Class of Release or Discharge and Date, Age and Service Group No, Rank, Last Regiment or Corps, Medal Delivery Address, Medal Issue Date and list of medals issued. Information is recorded in the form of hand written annotations and stamps.
The cards held by the Ministry of Defence Medal Office cover, in the main, the period 1948 to 1995. A small number were raised after 1995.’
‘Royal Air Force (RAF) – medal cards are held for Officer’s in Service number order. There are no medal cards for RAF other ranks. Entitlement is recorded on their Service record and is cross referenced to a file held by the medals office which contains the entry.’
‘…the only records that are held in a ‘central register’ are from 1995 in respect of the Army, from 2000 in respect of the RAF and from 2005 in respect of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. The information is held electronically on a database which contains the following information: name rank, Service number, Service, regiment, date of birth, post nominals, requestor name, requestor relationship, address, telephone number, awards issued and date issued.’
'This [the database] has undergone several versions and improvements.'
‘…no separate register is kept for each medal issued for service in WW2’.
From Service Personnel & Veterans Agency responses to my freedom of information request. SPVA references 07-12-2012-120156-005 & 21-01-2013-170536-002
Justin