Can someone identify this medal and what it was awarded for?

by AlwaysFeedTheYaoGuai

http://imgur.com/a/CYaBS

I hope this is the right place to ask this; I searched 'medal' and saw others were helped so I though I'd ask...

I was going through some old WW1 medals we found and here is some background of the recipient as far as we know:

  • Lived in Nottingham, England
  • Never lived in France (other than in the trenches)
  • Conscripted into Notts & Derby Regiment at age of 21
  • Shot in leg in 1915 and sent home
  • Also received: 1914-15 Star, Defence Medal, Victory Medal, British War Medal

This could have been one of his friend's though, as we found a second copy of most of the medals and a 1914 Star for a Corporal 'Bird' who I am guessing was a friend of his who was killed.

Thanks in advance!

The_DanceCommander

Ah this is a really intersting find!

From what I can find this medal is actually from after World War II. The inscription on the back roughly says "French Republic Medal for Internment and Deportation for acts of Resistance" (apologies I don't speak french).

The medal was issued by the French government in 1948 to commemorate the French citizens who were deported or interned during the war because of their involvement with the French Resistance.

The French government also retroactively extended the commemoration of the award to those who had fought with the French resistance during World War I, if you look at my source below "Art. 15. - The provisions of Articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11 of this Act shall apply to resistant deported and interned resistant 1914-1918." So basically those who fought during World War I will also be covered under the provisions of this award.

That would explain why someone who fought during World War I would have the medal with them. Most likely they would have been awarded the medal in 1948 for commemoration of their part in the first war.

There were actually two medals of this type as well. The one you have here, with the vertical blue stripes was made to commemorate citizens who were deported. There was another version of this medal that has the blue stripes running diagonally, which can be seen here, this was made to commemorate citizens who had been interned.

Here is my source for this information, you can read the official texts that the French National Assembly drafted when they created the medals.

Edit: Added the information about World War I

Bacarey

Are you sure this is from WWI? It looks like it is actually a WII medal. So it says "Republic of France Medal for the Deportation or Internment for Acts of Resistance". I found a list of WWII medals on Wikipedia and that's one of them. So basically whomever received this medal was part of the French Resistance and got caught (and sent to jail or deported).