WINDOWS OF THE WORLD

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 303, 22 December 1937, Page 18

WINDOWS OF THE WORLD

International Scenes and Affairs

THE NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS

MEN WHO FORGOT.. ; RUSH FOR WAR MEDALS. • i 800 APPLICATIONS A MONTH. LONDON. Since tlie inauguration of tlie rearmament programme one symptom of the revival of patriotic fe°ling which the War Office did not anticipate has been the steadily increasing number of applications from ex-servicemen of all ranks for war medals which they should have received in 1919. Some hundreds of thousands of men who had not received their medals before demobilisation eitheptdid not bother to apply for them afterwards or forgot to do eo. Now, nearly 20 years late, the nuiiVber of applications for the medals h.is risen to 800 a month. Owing to the large proportion of fictitious claims that have been made in the past the War Office has been reluctant to announce that those who qualified for medals in the Great War are still entitled to apply for them. Each application involves careful eearch in the records for confirmation of the details of active service, and the staff available is limited. Only those who served in the actual theatres of war, or who entered for active service overseas are eligible. Since the war, for which these medals were awarded, no fewer than 23 medals have been given for campaigns in different parts of the world. These, however, have been dealt with as the occasion arose, and, owing to the relatively small number who qualified and the fact that tliey were still in the service, no difficulty has arisen in their distribution. Another illustration of the reaction of the 1914-18 class of ex-«serviceinen is found in the success of the Officers' Emergency Reserve, under which ex-offi-cers who served in the Great War were invited to offer their services in the event of a national emergency. Within a month of the inception of the scheme 600 war-time officers had been enrolled.