emeritus, no one seems to have answered your question. (Sorry Tocsin missed your post).
Originally Posted by
emeritus
This seems to be an appropriate forum to make some enquiries about medals/campaign ribbons.
1 Can anyone recommend any books that will explain the basics of decorations.
Book, no, but this link is a good starting point.
Currently authorised medals
There are decorations such as the VC, GC, DSC, DFC, AFC and GM, DSM, DCM, AFM. The difference was that officers got the crosses and other ranks the medals. the exception was the VC. Then more recently this differentiation was abolished. Awards such as MBE, OBE, CBE, KCBE in the military are rank related with the C and K being automatic.
Turning to campaign medals, there were just the 3 in WW1. In WW2 there were 7 campaign medals with a maximum of 5 to anyone person. If that person would have qualified for more then they were given a clasp to add to one of the others. My father qualified for 6 but only got the Pacific clasp to add to the Burma Star and the France and Germany clasp to add to the Atlantic Star.
Then there were other medals such as the coronation and jubilee medals, general service medals with different forces such as the RN and police having different ribbons. Latterly there have been many more campaigns.
2 Is it my imagination that the Americans and Russians always seem to have decorations all over their uniforms.
Several other countries have a lot more medals that Commonwealth countries. This might be on the box-top basis to try and play match-up. Gaddaffi was a case in point as was Idi (Walt) Amin.
Now the Americans are something different and that could justify a book. Some are awarded where a unit receives a citation. Now I challenge anyone to accurately read the salad dressing and say what the all mean.