The veteran Issue 6
The quarterly magazine of the Alicante Branch of the Royal British Legion, issue 6
The quarterly magazine of the Alicante Branch of the Royal British Legion, issue 6
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Military awards and decorations of the United Kingdom<br />
Distinguished Service<br />
Order<br />
(DSO)<br />
<strong>The</strong> Distinguished Service Order is an operational<br />
gallantry award given for highly successful<br />
command and leadership during active operations.<br />
Personnel who perform a further act of such<br />
leadership which would have merited a second award of the DSO would be issued<br />
with a gold bar.<br />
It may be awarded to all ranks of the services. This award is not available<br />
posthumously.<br />
Instituted on 6 September 1886 by Queen Victoria in a Royal Warrant published in<br />
<strong>The</strong> London Gazette on 9 November, the first DSOs awarded were dated 25<br />
November 1886.<br />
<strong>The</strong> order was established to reward individual instances of meritorious or<br />
distinguished service in war.<br />
Since 1993, reflecting the review of the British honours system which recommended<br />
removing distinctions of rank in respect of operational awards, the DSO has been<br />
open to all ranks, with the award criteria redefined as 'highly successful command<br />
and leadership during active operations'. At the same time, the Conspicuous<br />
Gallantry Cross was introduced as the second highest award for gallantry. Despite<br />
some very fierce campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the DSO has yet to be awarded<br />
to a non-commissioned rank.<br />
<strong>The</strong> DSO had also been awarded by Commonwealth countries but by the 1990s most,<br />
including Canada, Australia and New Zealand, were establishing their own honours<br />
systems and no longer recommended British honours.
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