Topic: Medals
50,700 War Medals Still Unclaimed
Number Represents About One-Seventh of Those Who Served Overseas
The Montreal Gazette, 31 December 1931
(By the Canadian Press)
Ottawa, December 30.—War medals are still awaiting distribution to 50,700 former members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, or about one-seventh of the personnel who enlisted and proceeded to the front. Recently a general impetus seems to have been given to the demand for these decorations, and distribution has been made at a greater rate than for some considerable time past. Officials feel that the cause may lie in the growing feeling of the veterans that, with the rising generation which was in it infancy during the war asking the well-worn question: "What did you do in the Great War, Daddy," the tokens of service will be sufficient evidence to enlighten the questioners.
Replacements for lost discharge certificates are in great demand by ex-service men. Throughout the years many of these parchments have disappeared from family records, and for very much the same reason substitutes are being sought. In place of a duplicate of the discharge certificate the men are given a "record of service," which for all official purposes has exactly the same value.
With the Great War now fading into the past, veterans are more and more manifesting pride in the services which in the years between 1914 and 1918 they rendered to Canada and to the world.
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