Unofficial Restoration of Peace Medal : Private J T Marsden, 2/20 Battalion

Unofficial Restoration of Peace Medal. This medal is gold in colour and hangs from a maroon ribbon with a gold vertical centre stripe. In the middle of the suspender is a dove with a palm branch in its beak rising in flight. The palm branch symbolises victory. The front of the medal has a large V which sits in the middle of a representation of the globe with Africa and Europe on the left and the Pacific nations on the right. '1945' is embossed in the centre of the V and the words 'A TIME FOR PEACE' are embossed around the lower circumference. The reverse of the medal has a wreath around the edge and the words 'FOR ALL WHO STRIVED FOR PEACE' embossed in the centre.

This is an unoffical medal purchased by John Talbot Marsden, or his family, in the 1990s. The medal was first issued in 1995 at the behest of the British Red Cross Society to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Private (Pte) John Talbot Marsden of Mount George, New South Wales, a bush worker by trade, enlisted in the AIF on 20 June 1940 and embarked from Sydney on 3 February 1941. He arrived in Singapore with 2/20 Battalion on 18 February 1941. When Singapore fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942 Marsden was officially listed as 'Missing/Prisoner of War' . He spent the next three and a half years in the Japanese prison camp at Changi and was released on 5 September 1945. He embarked from Singapore aboard Hospital Ship Oranje on 15 September that year and arrived in Sydney on 28 September. That same day he had his left leg, badly wounded by shrapnel, amputated at the thigh. Marsden was discharged on medical grounds on 26 November 1946.