Gordon Williamson

Deumer, often erroneously referred to as late war Zink Schwerin.

Okay, here are some Zinkers. First, Baqueville

If anyone is interested, I will add some "Zinkers"

An unmarked and unidentified piece but bearing a very strong resemblance to the FO design.

Paul Meybauer (L/13) This example belonged to Knight's Cross winner Max Teichert, commander of U-456

B H Mayer (L/18)

Otto Schickle of Pforzheim

Next, Hymenn, a design that for many years was written of as "fake" because it lacked a propeller/rudder. but is actually shown in period literature.

Next, a real treat for the eye, what I believe to be Juncker. This badge belonged to U-Boat commander Oberleutnant Heinrich Niemeyer. Interestingly I have the badge which belonged to another U-Boat commander, Kapit?nleutnant Reschke which is identical.

For those who like U-Boat Awards, here are a few early Tombak pieces. First, Schwerin, my least favourite of all. Some die cutter should have been sacked for producing such an awful looking eagle. Still, the quality of the actual badge, if not the design, is superb.

Don't know the maker Tony, but a very, very nice piece. Brass centred EK2s don't turn up every day. Here are my brass centred EK1s. The one at left is unmarked, the one at right (which has a replaced pin) is an L/19. Some of you will know I don't like LDO marked pieces (except for U-Boat badges where I will take anything thats going !!), BUT the fact that it is an LDO piece is made up for by the fact it belonged to a German Cross winning U-Boat commander. In fact they both did. The one at left is from Oberleutnant Heinrich Niemeyer of U-547 and at right from Kapit?nleutnant Franz-Georg Reschke of U-205.

Superb photo Dave, and particularly interesting because I am fairly certain you are showing the 2nd Class version of the variant Darrell has, with its distinctive head shape, rather than the "Juncker" type.

Tony, My guess would be a generic packet, may well be origtinal to the medal, but not specific to it if you see what I mean. In other words loads of other awards may have come in the same style packet. A bit like those so-called 1914 EK2 packets with the pic of the EK on it from Wilhelm Froese, Hagen, but are actually just generic bags from that firm used for several awards. Still nice to have a period packet for it !

Another remarkably well executed little award than can still be had for relatively low prices but getting difficult to find nice undamaged ones.

A very attractive and under-rated little cross. Anyone have one with a Spange attached ?

Darrell, Snap !

Here is my "26". It has the case usually associated with these, with the rectangular push button, case also mint.

Nice piece Darrell. This should have a second plate ( a large "washer" which goes between the screwplate and the back of the Spange ( like many Imperial EK1s), but they are usually missing. The example of this type I had some time back also had this washer missing. No, this isn't the Juncker type. The Juncker type had a much better defined eagle, but both are desirable pieces. Here is the Juncker type.

Lovely pieces John. I see that Fran?ois has joined too. Hopefully we may get the chance to see some of his fabulous collection of Luftwaffe material.

Very nice example. Normally you wouldn't expect to find a Pr?sidialkanzlei marked award in an LDO box, but as the boxes had individual prices, and could be bought in their own right its perfectly feasible someone who received the official award in a paper envelope might buy such a box to keep the award afe.

Gr?ner's standard work identifies the following vessels as "Hilfskreuzer" HSK 1 Orion Crew 372 HSK 2 Atlantis Crew 346 HSK 3 Widder Crew 359 HSK 4 Thor Crew 341 HSK 5 Pinguin Crew 415 HSK 6 Stier Crew 321 HSK 7 Komet Crew 265 HSK 8 Kormoran Crew 393 HSK 9 Michel Crew 395 HSK 10 Coronel Crew 347 A total of 3554. Even allowing for some crew changes and rotation of various crew members on/off these ships, thats a very low number and suggests the Aux Cruiser Badge could be rarer in award terms than the Knight's Cross, and certainly a lot rarer than the German Cross in Gold.

I like the campaign shields too, but try to restrict myself to those with a Naval connection (Narvik, Krim, Kuban), especially if I can find evidence of them being worn by U-Boat crews (i.e. many U-Boat crewmen were ex-Destroyer crews whose boats were sunk at Narvik and thus wore the Narvik Shield) Actually, Demjansk is just about the only one with zero Naval connection. There was a Naval transport unit at Cholm so even that one could legitimately be found on blue backing though I've never heard of one - these guys would normally have worn field grey uniform anyway, but may have had a set of "best blues" uniform for dress occasions. My KM Narvik is a nice early, used piece in tombak

Your Aux Cruiser looks like too. Who is the maker ?

My other main passion lies with Kriegsmarine material, especially U-Boat Badges. Anyone else into KM material ? I see John Temple-West is here so we have at least one advanced collector of Luftwaffe pieces too and I'm sure others will come along. As for KM badges, one of my favourites is the Auxiliary Cruiser, and this one an early Tombak piece, but one which has definitely "been there" was picked up from EBay for peanuts.

Darrell Difficult to say. As with all these sorts of projects just as you think you have it completed, something else comes along you want to include. Its now at around 500 colour photos and 300 wartime b/w photos, mostly the Knights Cross winners. I'm working through the last of the photo captioning and hope to get the whole lot off to Roger Bender in the next couple of weeks. Roger is currently working on my U-Boat book, so even when he gets the KVK material it will have to await its place in the queue.