Obverse: Winged Victory standing (front), a palm branch in her right hand, her left arm outstretched. Reverse: Within a laurel garland, inscription: 'THE GREAT WAR FOR CIVILIZATION. 1914-1919'. Inscription on edge: 'LIEUT. A.J. MAY.' Fitted with a ring and watered silk ribbon of rainbow hues.

Arthur John May (1880-1952) was born in Woolwich to John Walter May, a sergeant in the Royal Artillery and his wife Damaris Sarah (Warmington). Arthur trained on HMS 'Conway', being apprenticed to Liverpool shipowner Charles E. De Wolf in 1897. From 1898-1905 May was also a midshipman in the Royal Naval Reserve. During World War I, he served in the Royal Engineers with the rank of lieutenant and was awarded the OBE in the 1919 birthday honours: 'for services connected with the war'. He married Louise Amelie Casault from Montreal in 1919. He was then resident in Calcutta, India where he worked for the Bengal Pilot Service guiding ships on the Hooghly River between Calcutta and the Bay of Bengal. By the 1930s the couple had retired to Bexhill-on Sea, where he later died.