WW2 Medal Grouping

[Steelhead10]

Hi All,

My most recent pickup today, a group of medals with the box naming them to J. E. Bollington of Bullbridge, Ambergate, Derbyshire. The grouping still has the medal index issue sheet. As usual it's difficult to prove whether or not the medals and boxes truly belong together, however a nice group of medals to have in unworn condition.

Attempting to do research shows there are a few J. E. Bollingtons around the address on the box and nothing on Forces War Records at this moment. I believe it's likely he would have been Naval with this group of medals.

The Group consists of six medals, two clasps all with a length of original ribbon and the paper sleeves for them.

I've not correctly ordered them in the pictures so I'll follow the pictures order.

The Africa Star, with a North Africa 1942-43 Clasp.

The Burma Star with the Pacific Clasp. This one appears to have some mottling to the finish on the medal itself.

The Italy Star.

The 1939-45 Star.

The Atlantic Star.

Finally the War Medal.

I hope you all enjoy,
Matt

[Jack59]

Nice & nteresting set for sure Matt. I hope you find info on Mr. Bollington.
Regards
Jack

[Pauls1970]

Great find Matt, they look great ! I think you've made a good assumption there regarding the branch of service & I'm sure you'll get a lead to the family with a bit of hunting around, good luck mate !
Paul

[paulscoot]

Very nice indeed! Regards Paul

[Rescue190]

Great grouping.
John

[Hastriq]

Great find! Very interesting to see the mottling on the Burma Star as well. I've got a different star with a similar finish on it but hadn't seen that effect before, so it's good to see an example like this that has the mottling even in unworn condition.

[Rakkasan187]

Just seeing this now. A wonderful grouping.

Smitty

[Steelhead10]

Went back to the shop I got this grouping from today after a phone call from the owner of the shop. After talking to the him last time he stated that this grouping came in with a set of pictures and he would dig them out for me, he took my name and number and got the call today that he had them all for me. So I will be posting them along on here in the coming weeks between work and other commitments.

From these I believe I was correct in J E Bollington being Naval or a Marine if these were indeed his.

Matt

Adding a photo after a quick sort through that potentially shows Mr. J E Bollington, many many more photos to come.

[Steelhead10]

I've been sorting throught the pictures between night shifts. This one is aboard HMS Colosus at Christmas of 1945. It potentially shows J E Bollington as there is a dot above the man 2nd from the right on the front row. Whether or not this is an intentional dot or damage from nearly 80 years.

Many of the photos are marked on the back with a red stamp stating "SUITABLE FOR TRANSMISSON THROUGH THE POST (NOT FOR PUBLICATION)". The example shown here shows a ships band on deck.

And the A M Crown Copyright fortunately shows written on the back "Aircraft Ready for Boosting"


For ease of identifying obverse and reverse I won't overload single posts here and I will colour code them soon.

Matt

[Watchdog]

An interesting subject and if your man is as the script on the back of the photo suggests "No9 front rank" then he was in fact a Royal Marine. HMS Colossus (R15) was a light aircraft carrier.

As an aside another explanation for such a group (obviously not this one) containing the Atlantic Star alongside others more usually associated with land forces is that Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships aka DEMS did include members of the Royal Artillery from the Royal Artillery Maritime Regiment as gunners.

In this case the associated photographs provide great provenance

Regards

Mark