With our experts Jayne Shrimpton, Celia Heritage and Tim Lovering

YOUR Q&A

Photo 1

A soldier’s appearance can provide many clues to his service: for instance the medal ribbons and badges of rank both provide details to be verified and cross-referred with any documents you have for your soldier ancestor

My soldier step-brother

Q My sister sadly passed away last month and I have been given a photo of my eldest brother (legally step-brother) who passed away in 1994 at the age of 70. Like many others he did not speak about his time in WW2. There is a ‘family story’ that he served in Burma and was with the Chindits, was a prisoner of war (PoW) for a time, stayed in the Military Hospital in Singapore, and finished his time there as a Staff Sergeant. However, I have found no mention of him at all online. I am just about to apply to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) personnel records in Glasgow to see whether it can help.

The photo shows him with a medal ribbon above his left breast pocket. I think the photo was taken after the war when he was a member of the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) Territorial Army in Stoke-on-Trent. Sadly I do not know what unit he served with during WW2. From the photograph, is it possible to tell me what medals he was awarded?

I have received a second photo that shows my brother on the right of the picture (see photo 2 on page 84), wearing what I think to be a ‘Warrant Officer Class 2’ (WO 2) badge on his right arm and of course the row of service medals. I also note that the cap badge does not look like that of the RASC – possibly because he joined them after the war and this photo is prior to the end of the war before he was demobbed?

In my family story that he served in Burma, there was never any mention that he held WO 2 rank. The hat badge looks similar to the old Stafford Regiment and I wonder if your experts may also have a view on this? Frank Gray fodgray@btinternet.com

Photo 1 A Starting with photo 1, the medal on our left is the 1939-1945 Star, consisting of equal dark blue, red and light blue stripes. For the Army, this medal was awarded to men with more than 180 days’ operational service during the war.

The order of the medals

Based on the width of the 1939-1945 Star, a total of four medal ribbons appear to be worn here. Luckily, the order in which medals are displayed is prescribed by the Army, so if we can identify one medal we can work from that. Campaign medals are worn in date order, therefore in this instance the remaining medals should be Second World War or later campaign medals.

Confirming the family story

The second ribbon has narrow dark-light-dark stripes on either side. This is a very strong match for the Burma Star, which was issued for service in the Burma Campaign between 1941 and 1945. I think, therefore, the family story is likely to be confirmed.

The other medals

The fourth medal is a good match for the War Medal 1939- 1945, which was awarded for serving at least 28 days of fulltime military service during the war. Taking account of his other medals, we would expect your brother to have qualified for this.