Hello everyone

[sedna]

As the tin says, stop in and say hello and introduce yourself so here I am.

I'm a retired member of the RCN (did 20 years), went to school in the UK. My father was a Royal Marine during WWII, his uncles and father served in both the Brit Army and CEF in WWI, my maternal grandfather was in the HLI during WWI. My mother was a Queen Alex nursing sister and her sister was a Wren (UK).

My husband is a CF Army officer and our daughter is a member of the RCN along with her husband. My husband's grandfather was from Newfoundland and joined the RAF in 1939. He was killed on Nov 5, 1945 when his aircraft went down over Corsica - they were on their way home to the UK. He was a member of 225 Sqn.

I live in Nova Scotia with my still serving husband and goofy dog.

My mother in law was just a wee girl (5 yo) when her father died and hasn't had much information about his military career. I recently obtained for her a copy of his page from the Book of Remembrance held in Ottawa and while researching some info for my own family, discovered that her father's medals has never been issued to her. We have since applied for them and are awaiting for them to arrive. We know that his sqn served in N Africa, Italy, BoB and have requested his service records as well.

What we'd like to do for her is to Court Mount his medals and then display them in a shadow box along with some service badges, cap and rank etc. That's what I'm hoping some of you can assist me with locating and verifying that they are bona fide issue to the time period and branch.

I'm also tracking down my father's medals but they are proving a tad more difficult to obtain as he only passed away in the last decade and I'm not his next of kin or estate executor (my older sibling is and the sibs are just plain cranky folks to deal with) I do have which medals he would have been able to obtain. (I'm dumbfounded that 70 years later the UK medal office is still issuing medals to the veterans at a rate of 200 application per month - the medals were not struck until 1948 nor where they mass mailed after the war and each member had to request their gongs. - My father immigrated to Canada in 1947 and never thought to get his medals - I guess as many did, that they would be mailed to them as they were in WWI and as the Canadians did).

Anyway, looking forward to digging around and finding out what I can. Looking forward to meeting the collective wisdom of the site.

Cheers

[engr9266]

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your quest. I am sure you will get much help here especially as we have many Canadian members as we do worldwide.
Jerry

[Sonofacqms]

Welcome to the forum, some very helpful people here and I do know of the problem with unclaimed WWII and Great War medals.

Best of luck with your searches.

Rob

[ebro]

Welcome to the forum.
Eddie

[Hussar100]

Hi there and welcome to the forum.

[grenadierguardsman]

Welcome