THE D.C.M.

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 119, 13 February 1919, Page 6

THE D.C.M.

: Tho Distinguished Conduct .Medal is quite a modern decoration, dating with the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal of the Hoyal Navy in 1851, the year of the commencement of the Crimean campaign. The Meritorious .Sea-vice Medal dates back nine years earlier. The earliest known medal for distinguished conduct is that, awarded by Charles tho First. The re-, cipient was Sir Eobert Welch, of tha Irish Command, who (recovered the Boral Standard at the Battlo of Edge Hill. Presumably that award would bo the equivalent of officer's. D.C.M. of to-day—name-' ly, the D.S.O. Tho youngest winner of the D.C.M. is Private John M'Kinnon, of the Black Watch, a sixteen-year-old ' boy. The medal was awarded him in. 1910, and 1 ; much to chis regret, his parents succeeded in getting him discharged from the Airmy because he was under age! Youth will be served. During the war something like one thousand D.C.M.'s. have been conferred for individual cases of distinguished conduct and devotion to duty in the field. Many of the recipients have earned the decoration on a second, third, and fourth occasion, and have been given bars to their medal accordingly. Here and there many years have separated the winning of the D.C.M. from tha't of gaining the bar. For example,. Company Sergeant-Major W. L. M'lntyre, of the King's lioyal KiSe Corns, who won the D.C.M. in the South African War during 1902,. was given his clasp for bravery during the present war in August, 1916. Thus fourteen years separated tho winning of the medal and the winning of the clasp. On one occasion the iD.C.M. was cancelled, and the Victoria Cross given in its place. This_ happened a couple of years ago to Private W. Jackson, of the Australian Imperial Forces. A man in the ranks wears the D.C.M. in the place of honour on the- left breast of his tunic, unless he holds the'V.C. All other medals an 3 awards—excepting the V.C.-follow the D.C.M. But the officer who gains the D.C.M. in rho ranks and afterwards wins further decorations in the form of the D.5.0., M.C., D.F.0., . D.F.C., or any of the Orders, of Knighthood, wears the D.C.M after them, but still in front of the war medals.