Chris Boonzaier

Hi Bernhard, thanks a million... ads 30% to the 70% I could read! All the best Chris

Another one that should be easy, but somehow is not :-(

This should not be that hard... but I can only make out the gist of it :-( Thanks Chris

This is pretty cool.....

Very nice piece indeed!

Hi, muchos grazias. Have been meaning to get that book for ages!

Another railwayman

Hi Andy, thanks! Any idea for this guy? Another Railway staff officer

Hi, Can anyone hazard a guess? Thanks Chris

Very interesting to see how the system worked, someone in the battalion must have kept track of the different origins..

Hi, the colalr badges seem to be a version of the Legion grenade, but I cannot find any corresponding Legion example that looks like that and I dont know of any 2nd REG back then.... even then, I dont think Legion engineers would have used a black backing cloth?

Hi, I am no expeert on these but from what I read, the wartime ones were steel. Most of the ones online are brass.... does that mean many bout brass ones after the war, or brass ones are being churned out today? best Chris

What an absolutely fantastic document, for an attack in the Souville Schlucht! What do we learn with this doc? Rohr makes a request for the Anhalt Friedrich cross... why these two men? Are they from Anhalt?

Hi, I think most wartime ones were not, padding seems to have become populat either at the end of the war or a bit later?

Indeed, South African 1940s I think.

Wow.... Nassau seems to have had terrible quality medal makers.... were they all deported from other states ?????

Here was the school he was Direktot at before the war....

Bang! Thanks Dave, that nails it and gives me a huge leg up... that info will help me along big time. Some of the same with other bits.... Geboren am 4. Dezember 1875 zu Oldenburg i. Gr., besu chte das Realprogymnasium in Naumburg a. S. bis zur Schlußprüfung, dann die Oberrealschule zu Oldenburg i. Gr. und bestand hier Ostern 1896 die Reifeprüfung. Mi- chaelis 1899 erwarb er sich durch eine Ergänzungspr üfung im Lateinischen zugleich das Reifezeugnis eines Realgymnasium. Seit Ostern 1896 studierte er neuere Sprachen in Jena, Heidelberg, Genf und Halle. Im Mai 1901 promovierte er zum Dr. phil. Nach bestandenem Staatsexamen wurde er im Herbst 1902 dem Melanch- thon-Gymnasium in Wittenberg zur Ableistung des Semina rjahres überwiesen. Seiner Militärpflicht genügte er vom 1. Oktober 1903 ab im Metz. Nachdem er sein Probejahr an der Oberrealschule der Franckeschen Stiftun- gen in Halle a. S. vollendet hatte, wurde er am 1. Oktobe r 1905 an der gleichen Anstalt als Oberlehrer angestellt. Zugleich wirkte er als Erzieher an der Pensionsansta lt der Franckeschen Stiftungen. Am 27. September 1912 erfolgte die Allerhöchste Bestätigung seiner Wahl zum Direktor der Realschule mit Reform-Realprogymnasium in Ems. Er veröffentlichte: „Über die Geographie bei A ndrea de‘ Magnabotti“. Diss. inaug. Halle 1901, fortge- setzt in: Romanische Forschungen, XI II. Bd., 3. Heft; Erlangen 1902. Aus: Programm Bad Ems Realschule 1913.

Hi, tough call, somewhere between 4.5 to 5 sounds correct.

Hi, would this be 31st Infantry?

I hate it when a printers loupe and cheap phone get better results than me!

Hi, the Wound badge was introduced in 1918 and awarded retroactively. It is very possible that someone who was invalided out in 1916-17 slipped between the cracks. He could have applied for it, but it seems in the 1920s there was not thaaaaat much interest... when the Nazis came to power medals and badges and uniforms were in fashion again. I have a number of Wound badge documents from the mid 1930s, so guys were still applying then, or applying then again. P.S. initially it was for NUMBER of wounds... so he qualified for black. If I remember correcty it was long after WW1 that severity of wound counted. Men invalided out during the war qualified for black, unless the number of wounds was high enough for silver/Gold

Hi Tony, how did you get such nice photos??

The form of his left ear seems to match, it has a pretty unusual shape.

Hi, similar, but has an 1870 EK1