Award of Military Medals

[Mike Jones]

Morning Lads,
I recently got involved in an argument over the award of a Military Medal. Basically the argument revolved around the "Fact" that a M.M. will not be awarded if the brave deed in question involved the death of the man. So a man can not die winning an M.M.. Is that true or not?
Regards Mike

[beardie]

hi mike,
to cut a long story short, you are right!

the awards you could could get were the v.c. or mentioned in depatches!

the 'real' escapers in which the film'the great escape' was based were murdered by the germans in ww2 were all mentioned in depatches.

this does not mean that a mm cannot be awarded to a man dying of wounds a few days later! if the award is already in the system!

i suppose someone will prove me wrong

forgot to say ! dont know if the rules have changed recently!

[LarsA]

I don't think anyone will prove Steve wrong on this. I understand this was the rule until 1979, when decorations excluding orders could be awarded posthumously. After 1993 the MM was discontinued and the MC open to all ranks.

Still, a raid on Google shows a number of WWI MMs considered posthumous. This would be the incidents Steve describes when the recommendation postdates the death, if only very briefly.

/Lars