Second World War: 15% of NZDF never claimed awarded medals

Notoriety in the media has brought attention to the fact that roughly 15 per cent of the campaign medals that were supposed to be presented to troops of the 28 (Maori) Battalion during the Second World War were never actually issued.

Matthew Buck, a historian with the New Zealand Defense Force, recently conducted research that suggests a low rate of adoption of medals by veterans of the Army and Air Force from across NZ armed forces and of other Commonwealth countries.

According to the findings of my research, around seventy-five per cent of veterans who served in the NZ Army and Royal NZ Air Force during the Second World War did not submit an application for their respective campaign medals within the first few years after distribution of awards began in March 1950.

Given the significance of medals in today’s society, it is difficult to comprehend that only around a quarter of veterans of the NZ Army and the Royal NZ Air Force had claimed their awards by the year 1960. After that, people only joined in a trickle, which is less than a third of a per cent each year, according to Mr Buck.

This investigation identified a pattern of poor uptake, and there were just two instances in which it needed to be followed.

They were veterans of the Royal New Zealand Navy, who were given a particular payment of £5 10s called “Naval Prize Money” if they applied for their medals; and the relatives of the almost 12,000 New Zealanders who passed away during the war, who were sent their awards automatically in the mail. Both groups were eligible to receive medals.

Because there were no general assessments of the adoption rate after 1960, we cannot provide an accurate estimate of the number of medals that have yet to be distributed by the Army and the Air Force. However, if this rate was comparable to that of the 28 (Maori) Battalion, we estimate that around 22,000 New Zealanders who served overseas throughout the war were never granted their medals.