Can't find Grandad on the Medal Roll

[Jackie]

Apologies if this is a duplicate - I thought I posted it last week, but can't see it anywhere.

I have spent two days at Kew trying to find my Grandad on the medal roll.

He was born Henry Bruce Cunningham, in Tyrone, on 19 November 1894, but his mother remarried and he moved to Dublin, and was known as Bruce Quinn.

I have searched the medal roll but can't find anyone that could be him. I know he served in German East Africa, and he drove a lorry. He was in hospital in Ireland at the end of the war with malaria. He definitely had medals, because my Dad can remember playing with them when he was small, but nobody knows where they have gone. I searched for all combinations of his name for people who were NOT in France/Belgium etc.

I have also looked in the soldiers' records, but couldn't find anything there.

Can anyone tell me:

1 Was everybody who got a medal actually put on the medal roll?

2 Does anybody know what medals someone in German East Africa might have

got?

3 Has anyone got any bright ideas about anything obvious I might have missed,

or other places to look?

Thanks

Jackie

[Chris Caul]

Jackie,

I'm not much of an expert I'm afraid, and I'm not sure if I can help much, but in the absence of any other replies I thought I would reply as your problem is very similar to mine.

I have been trying to find my great grandfather for over a year now, off and on. I know that he only served in Mesopotamia, but thats all I know. His records don't exist anymore. As far as I know (and as I say, I'm not an expert), everyone that went into a war theatre was issued a medal, but unfortunately the medal roll gives very little information, and I can't remember coming across one yet that shows a soldier's first theatre as being one of the more remote ones like Mesopotamia or German East Africa. I have now resorted to writing down every George Bacon on the medal roll(luckily there aren't that many) and I am trying to eliminate them one by one.

I started off by writing to the local regt museum. Then I visited the local studies centre and made a list of all the military units that were in my local area in 1914. I found them listed in a book called 'Kellys dictionary of Derby' and another called the 'Derby and district directory'.

I have compared this list with the official record of the Mesopotamia campaign to see if any of those units were in Mesopotamia, and as far as I can see they were not. But I did discover that the N.Staffs (not too far from here) were there, and one George Bacon was with the N. Staffs, so I will be following that line shortly.

Sorry I can't be of any more help. I wouldnt spend too much time looking for a soldier with your grandads name who wasn't in France or Belgium though - I am convinced my great grandad is on that list and many of them do not have a first theatre recorded.

Good luck!

Chris