Hello All: Re WWII medals, the Canadian & Australian websites below give details of the qualifying periods for various stars, from one day for some Stars including the Burma Star, to six months for others. The 1939-45 Star & Atlantic Star had 6 months for Army/Navy or 2 months for Air Force. The awards were the same for all Commonwealth countries. The “War Medal (1939-45)” was sometimes called the “28-day wonder”. http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=collections/cmdp/mainmenu/ group04 http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-medals/1930-1945.htm The qualifying periods are for active service or operational service, or service in an operational area or service in Britain etc. I suppose there is a subtle difference between operational service and service in an operational area. The cutoff date for the War Medal (1939-45) and the Pacific Star was 2 September 1945, though for the Defence Medal, Africa Star & Italy Star it was 8 May 1945. Finally, advice from Australia and New Zealand on wearing & mounting medals: http://www.dpmc.govt.nz/honours/overview/wearing-insignia.html http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-medals/medals-mount.htm Yours, John Wilson (New Zealand) > Just a cautionary word. Whether one was entitled to certain British > campaign medals depended upon how long you had served in that theatre, > the qualifying period for which was, as I recall, six months. > > >I have received medals for my father, The 39/45 War Medal and the Defence > > medal. What I`m interested in is the 39/45 star and the Burma star which I > > believe he was entitled to. He went to India in 1942 to join the 16th field > > regiment of the R.A. and was involved in pushing the Japanese out of Burma > >