The Sudan Defence Force General Service Medal was a

campaign medal A campaign medal is a military decoration which is awarded to a member of an armed force who serves in a designated military operation or performs duty in a geographical theater. Campaign medals are very similar to service medals but carry a hi ...

instituted in 1933 to reward service in minor operations within the

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ( ') was a condominium (international law), condominium of the United Kingdom and Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt between 1899 and 1956, corresponding mostly to the territory of present-day South Sudan and Sudan. Legally, sovereig ...

. It was last awarded for service in 1941.

Criteria

The medal was established in November 1933 by the

Governor-General of the Sudan The governors of pre-independence Sudan were the colonial administrators responsible for the territory of Turco-Egyptian Sudan and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, an area equivalent to modern-day Sudan and South Sudan. List (Dates in italics indicat ...

, it superseding the Khedive's Sudan Medal (1910). It was awarded on the recommendation of the Commandant of the

Sudan Defence Force The Sudan Defence Force (SDF) was a British Colonial Auxiliary Forces unit raised in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1925 to assist local police in internal security duties and maintain the condominium's territorial integrity. During World War II, ...

(SDF) to locally recruited personnel of the SDF, police and other approved Sudanese who served in minor operations classed by the Governor-General as of sufficient importance to warrant the grant of the medal.Captain H. Taprell Dorling. ''Ribbons and Medals.'' page 143. A.H.Baldwin & Sons, London. 1956. All qualifying operations were within the Sudan, and included the combatting of Italian forces who encroached into the Southern Sudan from

Italian East Africa Italian East Africa (, A.O.I.) was a short-lived colonial possession of Fascist Italy from 1936 to 1941 in the Horn of Africa. It was established following the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, which led to the military occupation of the Ethiopian ...

between June 1940 and November 1941. Members of the SDF were also eligible for British

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

campaign medals. No further awards were made after 1945, with the medal becoming obsolete with Sudanese independence in 1956. In total, about 9,000 SDF General Service Medals were issued.

Appearance

The medal is silver, in diameter with a plain, straight bar ribbon suspender. It has the following design:
Obverse: The seal of the Governor General of the Sudan, in Arabic script.
Reverse: A group of Sudanese soldiers, including two mounted on camels and one on horseback, with 'The Sudan' (in ) below.
Naming: The medal was issued unnamed.
Ribbon: wide, with a central stripe of royal blue flanked by two yellow stripes, with a narrower black stripe at each edge.
Clasps: None were awarded.
Manufacture: Struck at the

Royal Mint The Royal Mint is the United Kingdom's official maker of British coins. It is currently located in Llantrisant, Wales, where it moved in 1968. Operating under the legal name The Royal Mint Limited, it is a limited company that is wholly ow ...

in London.

References

{{Reflist, 34em British campaign medals Orders, decorations, and medals of Egypt Awards established in 1933 Orders, decorations, and medals of Sudan