Ian Martyn is a man on a mission. After 37 years in the air force and the New Zealand army followed by a complete change of tack as a funeral director, he began in 2014 to devote much of his time to reuniting service men and women with their lost war medals.
He spoke to our society in October last year, illustrating his talk with a selection of medals he had acquired over the years.
One aspect Ian touched on in answer to a question was what the different coloured ribbons attached to medals represented. This is a story in itself and the following link to the NZ Defence Force’s website will illustrate the added layer of meaning which a ribbon adds to the medal.
Ribbons of Miscellaneous New Zealand Medals and Awards
The Queen’s Medal (for Champion Shots of the New Zealand Naval Forces)
The Queen’s Medal (for Champion Shots of the New Zealand Military Forces)
The Queen’s Medal (for Champion Shots of the New Zealand Air Forces)
The New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal
The New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal 1993
Interest in medals awarded during the Great War was rekindled during 2014-18 with the 100th anniversary of the “war to end all wars,” as H.G. Wells optimistically called it.
Ian describes how it all began on his website Medals Reunited and how his fruitless search for the medals of his great grandfather, Jack Ormsby, killed on the Western Front in 1916 when a stray artillery shell obliterated his billet, gave him the impetus and interest in re-uniting soldiers’ families with the war medals awarded to their relatives during the Great War – many of which had been sold during the depression of the 1930’s
On his website Ian writes: “It is my belief the rightful place of any war or service medal that has been found (or no longer required by its custodian/collector/owner) is with the veteran’s descendant kin. This belief, together with my own so far unsuccessful search for my great-grandfather Jack Sullivan’s WW1 medals, sparked in me the desire to honour the memory of veterans whose medals had been separated from family ownership, by reuniting them with their descendants. It is a sad fact that when reunited with a medal, some descendants reveal they had no idea they ever had a military veteran in their family. Medals Reunited New Zealand© aims to re-kindle in families the memory of these largely forgotten and anonymous Veterans through the return of their medals.”
Acknowledgements:
Medals Reunited website for image of medals and photo of Jack Ormsby.
NZ Defence force site for images of medal ribbons
WAIMEA SOUTH HISTORICAL Inc. 1981 