Vol. 66, No. 3 (May-June 2015) 17

created, is described above. The Kiaps to whom it is mostly being awarded, operated in extreme isolation in the then-Australian territory prior to independence. They maintained law and order in remote villages, patrolled the border with Indonesia, and faced risks ranging from tribal warfare to an extremely unhealthy climate. Numbers of them died. Because of the nature of the award TPNG will mostly be found as a single clasp (Figure 19). An estimated 150 clasps have been awarded to date, although several hundred more ex-police are eligible.

AFGHANISTAN

Declared on February 9, 2013, notified in Commonwealth Gazette C2014G00029 of January 8, 2014 and published on the Governor-General’s website. This clasp is to be awarded for 90 days “capacity-building service undertaken by Australian police on duty in Afghanistan” from October 1, 2007.

AFP officers serve in Afghanistan with partners from the NATO Training Mission, to work with the Afghan National Police “in an advisory, training and liaison capacity to assist them to develop their policing capabilities.” This has included counter-narcotics operations. Because the deployment is categorized as “capacity building,” officers have to serve 90 days to qualify for the Afghanistan clasp, which seems inconsistent with some other POSM clasps and with qualification periods for the ADF and Australian civilians in Afghanistan. As at June 15, 2014 no awards of

Figure 19: The medal group to an unidentified recipient: from left, Australian Active Service Medal 1945-1975 with clasp VIETNAM; Vietnam Medal; POSM with clasp TPNG; Australian Defence Medal; Anniversary of National Service 1951-1972 Medal; Papua New Guinea Independence Medal; Vietnam

Campaign Medal (South Vietnam) (courtesy British Medals Forum member “Max”).

this clasp have been made, however at least 150 officers are believed to have satisfied the criteria.

CONCLUSION

On the weekend of May 24/25 2014, police veterans who had served in Cyprus gathered in Canberra to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Australia’s first contingent to UNFICYP, and by extension the first service that became eligible for the award of the Police Overseas Service Medal.

The POSM is a unique award that tells the story of the strong contribution made by Australian police to law and order in various diverse locations around the world for more than half a century, including in Australia’s own backyard, the South Pacific. The POSM reflects the changing nature of international policing, and the emergence of the Australian Federal Police in particular as an outstanding contributor to peacekeeping operations, and a respected and highly effective provider of training and expertise in fragile and post-conflict states.

The medal groups illustrating this article are some of the most significant and interesting groups featuring the POSM. They show the diversity of service recognised by the medal, and the bravery and outstanding contributions displayed by many of the recipients. They feature all 12 of the clasps that have been approved and awarded to date.

18 JOMSA

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank the staff of Government House, Canberra and the Australian Federal Police for their assistance, in addition to Don Barnby; Tim Britten, CV; Shannon Britten; Clive Johnson; Bill Kirk, AM; Paul McEwan, BM; John Meyers; Tom Milburn, AFSM; Paula Smith; Ian Standish; Jack Thurgar, SC, MBE, OAM, RFD; and “Max.” The views expressed in the article are entirely the author’s own.

Sources:

AFP Platypus Magazine, various dates, but particularly September 1998 (peacekeeping edition).

Australian Federal Police website, www.afp.gov.au.Commonwealth Gazette, various dates.Johnson, Clive. Australians Awarded, 2nd Edition. Banksmeadow:

Rennicks Publications, 2014.Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands website, www.

ramsi.org.UN Peacekeeping Operations website, www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/

operations.

Eric R. Caubarreaux. The Decorations and Awards of George A. Custer, George S. Patton Jr. and George Washington. Charleston, S.C.: CreateSpace, 2014. Paper, $24.95. Kindle, $9.99. Available on www.amazon.com

While George A. Custer, George S. Patton Jr., and George Washington are familiar to most Americans, little has been written about their military awards and decorations. OMSA member Eric R. Caubarreaux has changed that situation with his new monograph. The import of The Decorations and Awards of George A. Custer, George S. Patton Jr. and George Washington is that it shows that the awards presented to them for their conduct as soldiers were, with the exception of Patton, not the decorations or medals familiar to us today.

George Custer received no military decorations and, while he was entitled to both the Civil War and Indian Wars Campaign Medals, never received them (the medals were authorized in 1907; Custer was killed at Little Big Horn in 1876). But Custer’s gallantry under fire was rewarded with a number of “brevet” promotions with the result that, at the end of the Civil War, George Custer was a brevet major general in the United States Volunteers but a mere captain in the Regular Army’s “permanent establishment.”

Similarly, George Washington received no military awards or decorations. The Continental Congress, however, awarded him a gold medal in 1776 and, two hundred years later, the United States Congress posthumously rewarded Washington’s service with the rank of General of the Armies of the United States (General John J. Pershing is the only other person to hold this rank).

As for Patton, author Caubarreaux provides a complete list of all his orders, decorations and medals; the most interesting (in this reviewer’s opinion) being the roughly 50 foreign awards and badges awarded to Patton for participation in the 1912 Olympics and service in World War II. This is a fine book with a wealth of information not to be found elsewhere.

Reviewed by Fred L. Borch

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IN THE NEWS

A Victoria Cross for Afghanistan

Lance Corporal Joshua Mark Leakey of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment has been awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions on August 22, 2013 in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. The reason for the award was summarized by the Ministry of Defence in the following words:

Under fire yet undeterred by the very clear and present danger, Lance Corporal Leakey ran across the exposed slope of the hill three times to initiate casualty evacuation, re-site machine guns and return fire. His actions proved the turning point, inspiring his comrades to fight back with renewed ferocity. Displaying gritty leadership well above that expected of his rank, Lance Corporal Leakey’s actions singlehandedly regained the initiative and prevented considerable loss of life.

Submitted by Fred L. Borch

Vol. 66, No. 3 (May-June 2015) 19

It isn’t often that one finds a United States World War I Victory Medal that can be attributed to an individual recipient since these pieces were always issued unnamed. Some examples do exist of US World War I Victory Medals being named on the rim or on the obverse or reverse like British medals, but these were done unofficially. Most US World War I Victory Medals that can be connected to a soldier, sailor or marine are part of a larger group containing named decorations or numbered campaign medals or part of a group that has been positively identified through family ownership or other personal connection to the recipient. Rarer still are Victory Medals that can be attributed to members of the same family who served in the war. An even rarer subset would be those that can be positively linked to spouses who both served in the Great War. This article tells the tale of two such pieces and the personal story surrounding them.

About 23 years ago I purchased a group of medals from a coin dealer in Philadelphia. The group contained two American World War I Victory Medals. One carried the service clasp ENGLAND and the other was a common two-clasp MEUSE ARGONNE and DEFENSIVE SECTOR specimen. Other medals in the group included the City of Albany, New York Medal for World War I Service (named to Ruth M. Spencer) and an American Red Cross Service Medal. Along with the medals were two sets of Army identity discs or “dog tags,” and a World

War I US Army Corps of Engineers patch similar to ones worn on the right sleeve of the Army tunic. The dog tags identified one soldier as “R. E. Riblet, Company F, 23rd Engineers” and the other as “Ruth M. Spencer, A.N.C.” I attempted to do some research on these pieces soon after I acquired them, but my inquiries to the Army Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri proved fruitless and were met only by the standard letter, well-known to researchers of American military medals, indicating that the records I sought were probably destroyed in a fire the center suffered in 1973. For years the medals stayed in the envelopes in which I had purchased them, the identities of the recipients unknown to me. Several months ago while going through some of the outliers in my collection, I re-discovered the Riblet/Spencer groups and thought I would try again. A quick name check on the Internet hit immediate pay dirt and within hours I had located a trove of information which told the story of two Army veterans and their medals.

THE MEDALS

Figure 1 shows the Ruth Miller Spencer group that consists of the World War I Victory Medal with service clasp ENGLAND, the City of Albany Medal for World War I Service and the American Red Cross Service Medal. Accompanying these medals are two Army World War I identity discs made of a cheap metal (possibly zinc-aluminum alloy). The Victory Medal

VICTOR/VICTORIA: A TALE OF TWO VICTORY MEDALS

JACK THOMAS TOMARCHIO

Figure 1: The medal group of Ruth Miller Spencer. A. N. C.