My grandfather's name was John Harold Carroll. His service number was
421710 and he was born on 19/09/1920. He served in the Royal
Australian Air Force from 1942 until 1946. During his period of
service, he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre. It has long been a
mystery to our family *why* he was awarded the medal and Austra. Could
someone either provide us with the answer, or the complete
instructions on how to find it?

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Clarification of Question by freakout87-ga on 28 Jul 2006 03:56 PDT

Sorry, that truncated sentence at the end there should read:

It has long been a mystery to our family *why* he was awarded the
medal and Australian service records don't seem to have the answer.

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Request for Question Clarification by keystroke-ga on 28 Jul 2006 04:45 PDT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croix_de_Guerre

This site gives some good information on the award.

This website gives further information about the award

http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/croixdeguerre.htm

It explicitly states

"Open to soldiers, sailors and airmen of all ranks, and of any Allied
army, various types of Croix de Guerre were available: bronze (awarded
by the army), silver (awarded by a division), silver-gilt (awarded by
a corps), silver star (awarded by a division) and bronze star (awarded
by a regiment or brigade)."

I feel as though your best option would be to speak to the french
military datase directly

http://www.defense.gouv.fr/sites/defense/

hopefully you can speak french :)

The best I can come up as to why he was awarded the medal was for
being mentioned in a dispatch, I cannot find any other archives or
information specifically relating to him. Unfortunately too, my french
is a little on the poor side so I cannot use the french military
database website. I don't know if this is even the complete military
database. I would suggest though that the French would be the best
people to ask.

I hope this at least helps somewhat,

--Keystroke-ga.

If he had been "mentioned in dispatches" in the Australian records,
that might be a clue.  If you know his unit(s), perhaps there is
history source  (not necessarily online) that might mention him or a
combat situation in which individual assistance of the French could
suggest a reason for someone having been awarded the Croix de Guerre.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Mentioned+in+Dispatches

I just contacted the French Ministry of Defense and the French Army
Archive as well.
I hope that they'll reply to my request. i'll let you know if I get something.