Gordon Williamson

Many thanks !!

No 2

I bought these photos purely because I needed pics of the Wound Stripe being worn, but can anyone help with identifying rank/branch for these two just so I can get the captioning accurate. No 1

Hi Tim, Yes, it does display quite nicely. Both it and the BWM were mounted together in the same way, glued onto on a single piece of this wafer thin bakelite type material. However in the post on the way to me it had been snapped, separating the two medals. As they'll have to be re-mounted anyway, I'll go for tracking down some original ribbon and mounting them on the correct metal medal mounts. I have some more MFP / MMP pairs in the pipeline so will wait until they are all in before sourcing the ribbon and mounts just in case any others have been mounted like this. Hadn't come across it before.

Hi Jim, Yes, I have one of these little silver Victory Pins for Wounded/KIA. They came in two sizes. So far I only have the smaller size, which is rounded rather than following the contour of the leaves.

Hi Tim, I'd thought most if not all of the nations which awarded the VM would have had broadly similar award criteria. I'm trying to get my head around the awards which though not created for that specific purpose, were also awarded in respect of wounded and KIA. The British War Medal was automatically awarded to the NoK of those killed in action as, I believe, was the VM but I can't see any reference anywhere so far, to provision for the British VM being awarded to the wounded. I'm trying to decide what awards to include in a project on Wound/KIA awards of WW1 and WW2 and it does get rather complicated. There are many specific awards created for being wounded ( Wound Badges, Wound Stripes, Medals etc) and for the NoK of those KIA (the Memorial Plaques etc) but also a host of awards where some clause was written into the regulations allowing other awards to be granted in the case of those Wounded/Killed. Leaning towards including those where the regulations specifically state that the award could be bestowed on those wounded in action, especially as with some of these ( like the Belgian Commemorative Medal you mention)there was often a ribbon device to indicate that the wearer had been wounded, plus those posthumous awards which were visually different (like the Finnish Cross/Medal of Mourning where a different [black] ribbon was used to indicate a posthumous award). So, it looks like maybe only some of the Inter-allied Victory Medals might fall into the category of being approved for award to the wounded. Next job is to track down the various regs and establish which :unsure:

Named to P-3072 L.CPL. E.F. Melton. M.F.P. Came with his BWM. sadly they have been mounted (quite nicely) with scraps of ribbon glued onto a thin bakelite type card backing so replacement original ribbons will have to be found.

Interesting to see that the French regulations also allow for the VM to be awarded in recognition of having been wounded. Anyone know if this was a standard provision in the regulations for other countries too ?

Yep, Kriegsmarine cap eagles for the Bordmütze, probably French made. Well, at least this exact type are often found on Bordmützen made by Chapeliers Parisienne and other French hatters.

Another nice tropical shot, from Erich Wolter, same guy as in the Wehrpass photo above.

This one is kinda cheating as it isn't in the book but is a spare Soldbuch ID photo which was tucked into the folder of his Wehrpass (which has a photo in civvies.) Major Messthaler of Wehrmacht Streifengruppe z.b.V. 24

Oberleutnant Schreier from Zugwachabteilung 502

Feldwebel Erich Wolter of Feldgendarmerie Trupp 422. More typical of Wehrpass uniformed shots, in his dress Waffenrock.

Oberfeldwebel Böbel of Feldgendarmerie Trupp b (mot. 631). Nice crisp shot of the tropical tunic, unusual in a Wehrpass.

Looking at the photo in the latest Soldbuch I just acquired from Kevin got me thinking about the quality of photos you sometimes see in IDs (the Ausweis, Soldbuch, Wehrpass etc). I've seen some pretty rare awards worn, but often in crummy blurred photos , so the quality of the photograph could vary dramatically. How about showing some of your really crisp photos. Not necessarily rare units or rare awards, just really nice photos. Here is an enlargement of Hauptmann Marquardt of Bahnhofskommandantur 402, shown as Oberleutnant with Artillery Regt 116.

Only three awards shown but clearly, from his photo, there are more. So far identifiable, EK2 1914 Ehrenkreuz f. Frontkämpfer Spange zum EK2 Westwall Teuedienst Ehrenzeichen Austrian WW1 Commemorative Medal Hungarian WW1 Commemorative Medal.

And later with Bahnhofskommandantur 402

His front line career appears to have ended due to injury/illness. We then see him acting as Bahnhofs-Offizier,Ausladekommisar and Transport Kommandeur Oslo

A teacher in civilian life before joining Artillerie Regiment 116

Thanks to Kevin for allowing me to acquire this one. This one has a number of qualities that attracted me. Firstly, its an officers Soldbuch and by definition much scarcer than NCOs or Enlisted Mens books. Secondly it has a particularly nice, crisp , clear photo but from my point of view,thirdly and mostly importantly due to his assignation to a Bahnhofskommandantur. The Bahnhofskommandantur controlled all military aspects of the use of railway stations and it is to this office that members of the Bahnhofswache would be assigned. (In the same way that Feldgendarmerie troops were often allocated to Ortskommandantur, Feldkommandantur etc). So although this guy wasn't personally a member of the Ordnungstruppe, his office would have controlled the Bahnhofswache personnel.

Very nice Soldbuch to a member of an elite unit, and a great piece of research that just shows how these things can be made to come alive with a bit of effort.

And the first one. Certainly looks like Zugführer

Here are the other pencil entries a bit bigger.

The little green enamel swafish badges were, at the time, sold off by the Archive to raise funds, (they wouldn't do that with items donated by ex-U-Boat crew themselves but as they got a box load of these for free keeping a sample for the Archive collection and using the rest to raise funds was a sensible idea). They really should have charged much more for them even back then. I recall buying one for just £10 ! You couldn't even buy a fake one for that price now, let alone an original. I seem to remember though that you could only buy a single example. These crew badges tend to be almost automatically associated with the U-Boats but the truth is that they were also widely used amongst the smaller surface units. The larger units (battyleships, cruisers etc) were subjected to a higher level of discipline and uniformity and although badges with ships crests etc were made, they were not to be worn on the cap in the way that U-Boat crew badges were. The biggest part of the Kriegsmarine in terms of the number of ships and personnel was the Sicherungsverbände,(Minesweepers, R-Boats, Geleitboote etc) and many of them adopted Flotilla badges. Sadly,there has been very little research done on these other badges. Hopefully one day someone might produce a reference work on thesed similar to Högel's work on the U-Boat emblems.

Very nice. Every U-Boat Badge collection should have an example of the Mayer and Juncker type badges.