1939-45 Star, awarded to Sapper Percy Charles Petty, New Zealand Engineers

Campaign medal made of copper zinc alloy in the form of a six-pointed star. On the obverse, the royal cypher, 'GRI VI', for King George VI, surmounted by a crown, with a circlet inscribed with, 'The 1939-1945 Star'. The medal is suspended from a dark blue, red and light blue ribbon.

Sapper Percy Charles Petty, 8 Field Company, New Zealand Engineers was killed in action, aged 32, at El Alamein, on 23 October 1942. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records his burial at El Alamein Cemetery in Egypt.

The 1939-45 Star was bestowed upon personnel who had seen service on one or more of a specific list of mainly overseas operational theatres. It was the first of eight very similar bronze campaign stars to be issued. The ribbon has three equal stripes of dark blue, red and light blue, symbolising the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force respectively.

From a medal group awarded to Sapper Percy Charles Petty, New Zealand Engineers.