“28 DAYS” MEDAL

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25394, 17 January 1948, Page 2

“28 DAYS” MEDAL

STRIKING BY ROYAL MINT (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 10 p.m,) LONDON, January 16. The Royal Mint will soon begin striking millions of cupro-nickel medals. They will be the war medals for 1939-1945 which will be granted to full-time personnel of the armed forces wherever they served. The only qualification will be to have served for 28 days between September 2, 1939, and September 2, 1945. There will be no distinction between operational and non-operational service. The war medal will be awarded in addition to campaign stars and the defence medal. Its reverse side was designed and modelled by Mr E. Carter Preston. It shows a lion standing triumphant on a double-headed (iragon. The dragon’s two heads—an eagle’s and a dragon’s—signify the principal Occidental and Oriental enemies. The obverse bears the King’s head, crowned. COST OF BRITISH STEEL INCREASES IN SOUTH AFRICA (Special Correspondent N.ZJP.A.) (Rec 8 p.m.) LONDON, January 16. An echo of Sir Stafford Cripps’ warning about increasing costs for British goods was heard when Sir Henry Clark addressed the Royal Empire Society on the Union of South Africa. British rising costs of production were becoming “a disturbing factor” in the Union, he said.

The cost of British steel imported for the Rand was now £ll sterling more than that of ISCOR, the Union’s great iron and steel corporation. Before the war. British steel was cheaper than ISCOR. He thought the trouble lay primarily in the increased cost of coal, which was also passed on through increased steel prices to other industrial products such as machinery and motor-cars. Sir Henry Clark added that South Africa’s plans for new cotton-spinning and wool-textile industries would modify and possibly diminish the demand for imported goods. British manufacturers would ha.ve to be very much on their toes to hold their place in the South African market.

BURNED FRENCH MINERS TREATMENT BY N.Z. PLASTIC SURGEON (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, January 15. The well-known New Zealand plastic surgeon, Sir Archibald Mclndoe, has offered to treat a number of badly-burned survivors from the French mine disaster at Forbach last week. Squadron Leader F. T.‘ Moore, a leading British plastic surgeon, who was associated with Sir Archibald Mclndoe in the treatment of many injured Air Force personnel during the war. is flying to Forbach to examine cases suffering from severe burns, and he will arrange for those who can be treated in Britain to be brought to the East Grinstead Hospital, Surrey, where Sir Archibald Mclndoe is in charge. Twenty-one men were killed in a firedamp explosion at Forbach and 42 were seriously injured. The offer of assistance was the result of the initiative of an Englishwoman, Mrs Louise Vidaud. She remembered the plastic surgery “miracles” performed on British airmen she had seen at East Grinstead during the war, and she told the French authorities, who sought Sir Archibald Mclndoe’s aid.