Did people wear their medal/ribbon into battle?

[tankengine888]

A question which now puzzles me
did they wear their ribbon/medal into battle? Or were they not supposed to? 

[RedCoat]

Hi,

Ribbons were frequently worn into battle, medals were not. From memory, soldiers in the leading column wore their Waterloo medals during the storming of Bhurtpoor. Likewise, I believe some soldiers wore their DCM's at the storming of the Redoubt during the Crimean War.

Cheers

[TullochArd]

19 minutes ago, tankengine888 said:

....."did they wear their ribbon/medal into battle? Or were they not supposed to?" 

There was a conscious decision in the WW2-ish Battle Dress, which in various forms had replaced Service Dress, to avoid medal ribbons for practical reasons.  Medal ribbons were an authorised component of Service Dress and were very much worn up until then. 

There are several cases of recently exhumed fatalities being identified by medal ribbons.  Here's an example "In 1925, an Australian Officer wearing a medal ribbon indicating service during the Boer War was recovered from the location that Lieutenant Kennedy was last seen, and buried nearby at Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery, Souchez. At the time, the soldier was not able to be identified and was buried in an unnamed grave."

Full story: An unknown Australian soldier of the Great War identified | Minister for Veterans' Affairs (dva.gov.au)

 

[wulsten]

Many images of mc ribbons