Australia Service Medal 1939-1945, officially renamed in a correct impressed style, awarded to Private R. Bedson, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, later 2/7th Infantry Battalion, Australian Military Forces. From Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, he originally enlisted under a false name in May 1940 owing to being underage, his false name being Roy Birch, and this caught up with him in August 1941. His was chequered career and he was regularly in trouble for drunkenness, absence without leave, threatening language and violence throughout his service, being once AWOL for four days in a war zone, which initially resulted in his being given a six months prison sentence, though only 18 days were served. He fought with the 2/6th Infantry Battalion in the Middle East and North Africa during 1941, and later with the 2/7th Infantry Battalion in New Guinea from January 1943, but was hospitalised and discharged in July 1943. In Melbourne in June 1958 he was the suspect in a violent robbery that saw £1,600 stolen from the licensee of the Orrong Hotel in Armadale.
Australia Service Medal 1939-1945, officially renamed in a correct impressed style; (VX45550. R. BEDSON)
Condition: officially renamed but as issued, Very Fine.
Ross Bedson alleged that he was born on 13 May 1919 in Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, where he was living at 21 Clark Street and working as a labourer when owing to the Second World War he attested for service with the Australian Military Forces at Melbourne on 6 July 1940. He was in fact only 17, and he took the assumed name of Roy Birch in order to enlist having lied about his age. Joining as a Private (No.VX45550) the Infantry Depot, in September 1940 he was posted to the No.1 Infantry Training Battalion at Balcombe, and later that same month was posted to the 2/5th Training Battalion. He would have a chequered career, and in November 1940 was charged for drunkenness and using obscene language and in the same month was also found guilty for being absent without leave, in addition to being drunk and using threatening and obscene language to a superior officer. He was given 28 days detention for the latter offence.
In March 1941 he was assigned to the 2/6th Infantry Battalion, and in the following month embarked at Sydney for the Middle East where he disembarked on 3 May 1941, and went on to see service in North Africa. That month he was again in trouble, be fined for conduct to the prejudice of good order. Whilst located at Kilo 89, he was again in trouble in July 1941, and would continue to regularly be so through to his eventual discharge. On 20 August 1941 he assumed his correct name of Ross Bedson, his original issue of being underage having now ceased to be a problem. In that same month he was found to have been absent without leave for some four days from 4 August to 8 August 1941, this having happened in a war zone, it was a serious offence, and he was charged on 26 August and sentenced to six months imprisonment without hard labour. Eventually he was only to be confined for 18 days, but forfeited a further 30 days pay.
Bedson was then posted to the 17th Australian Infantry Training Battalion in the Middle East, before being taken on the strength of the 2/7th Infantry Battalion on 15 February 1942, and seeing Garson duty in Palestine and then Ceylon. In August 1942 he returned to Australia, and then saw service in New Guinea fighting the Japanese from January 1943, and taking part in the fighting against the Japanese in the Salamana-Lae campaign until October 1943. His battalion then returned to Australia, being stationed in North Queensland.
Bedson was issued his Returned from Active Service Badge on 27 July 1943 after being returned for medical reasons and discharged. He went on to become the suspect in a robbery, as a newspaper article in The Age reported on 21 June 1958. He appeared in the Melbourne City Court under the name of Ross Reginald Bedson on a charge of having stolen £1,600 with violence from the licensee of the Orrong Hotel in Armadale. He was the second man to be charged with this offence. His home address was then given as Fitzroy Street, St. Kilda, and was then working as a painter and docker. He died on 29 June 1986 in Garden City.
