Chris Boonzaier

A rare bird indeed, and although it is a boot unit is is not really part of the navy, this man was just by chanced attached to them FMK is the Freiwilligen Motorboot Korps.. See here http://www.dsm.museum/Pubs/24_11.htm

another Uboot EK1, boat unknown

EK1 to a less than honorable U-Boot. The commander was the only U-Boot commander to be tried for war crimes. He did things like picking up the survivors with their lifeboots, machine gunning the life boats while the survivors were on the deck of the U-Boot, then diving and letting them drown... or torpedoing hospital ships...

Here is a pretty cool one to the Raider "Greif"... sunk on its first voyage, basically as they steamed out of port.... You can see a fantastic marine Death document to a man from the same ship here http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=3296&hl=greif&st=20

That is a really nice example of units being changed on a disk! S'funny, I usually assume teachers would have been made officers.

I would never categorically say "yes!" or "No!" For me it would be a case as to whether I like the people or not. Just like with anything else in life. If I saw they were really very interested in their family history and were nice folks, I would say "screw it, here it cost me EURXXX and I spent EURXX on postage, research etc... so take it for EURXCV" and I will use the money to buy me something just as nice. If I thought they were arrogant SOBs and were not that interested, I would tell them to dig deep. An old School friends mother just sold her paternal grandfathers WW2 medals last month and she is REALLY POd with her mother. The mother said "I never did like the old Bastid" and my old school chum is fuming because she was never asked if she wanted them. Mother sold them for EUR3 for each medal :rolleyes:

Hmmmm... could it be that initially all the battalions were numbered with Komp 1-4 and were then numbred 1-16 for the regt? So this card was before they were numbered 1-16?

;-)

Hi, a small possibility, but I think that Landsturm with Jäger Tschako photo from the other thread is a huge exception. They were also not issued Lebels. I would go with telegraph, or something in that line. Best Chrs

Hi, some of the rear area units were issued Lebels, they even had adaptors for German bayonets. Best Chrius

Its up to each collector to decide for himself. Personally, if the folks were nice, I would have given it to them for what i paid plus a little on top for research efforts. if they were not nice, i would not bother. But I suspect you are going to get answers that range from "give it to em for X-Mas " to "Demand market price" and some pretty excited reasoning as to why you should. There is no way at all of knowing if the family will keep or sell it. Best Chris

Nice! I will get some of mine up tonight!

I was looking at a MG the other day and saw the Stamp was a crown with e "J" underneath it... Any idea what that is? We see tons of crowns with "W" or "L" but I hab not seen a "J" before. Thanks Chris

Good one Les!

Anyone have any ideas what this young man is?

Anyone want to guestimate what ribbons they are wearing?

Any idea if it is the same grenade as the one I have pictured? I am still not sure of how mine fits into the picture...

Hi, According to a local newspaper the 3rd battalion of 8. b. LIR left Aschaffenburg on the 9th of August to join the other two battalions of the regiment on the way to the front. I am guessing the other two battalions had spiked helmets and the A-berger battalion Tschakos. Best Chris

The 14th SB was at Seicheprey in 1918, I think there were Austrians not to far away in the St Mihiel Bogen at the time. Best Chris

You know whats REALLY depressing? REALLY depressing is when you see your own biological clock ticking.... You are no longer young enough to be active, you would have been reserve....... you would have been Landwehr..... You would have been landsturm...... You are an old bastid who would be relegated to unloading Train Wagons 50 miles behind the front.... Strange but true... in this day and age there are old guys hopping around battlefields that would never have left Germany in WW1 !

Fantastic stuff! I dont know how I missed this!!! Were there any pics of the field guns of the Btl?

A note to this.... a battalion of the 8th Bavarian Landwehr was mobilized in Aschaffenburg. This was of course 2nd Bavarian Jäger hometown and not infantry. I assume for this reason that these Landwehr men are wearing Jäger Tschakos... I am not sure how long they kept them for.

Here is a death card to a man killed at Verdun

Hi, whats it like to be buried alive on the battlefield? See here... If I said "Senussi" would you know what I mean? See here... http://www.kaiserscross.com/152301.html A nice little update....

It is noticable that the bavarians have the best EK documents, not always but when there are fantastic, multi coloured heavy paper docs ... well, the bavarians take the cake. I have a per theory... it is because they are catholic. So... what the hell does that have to do with it? Simply this... the Bavarian printing companies mass produce high quality confirmation and church related certificates... more so than any of the non catholic parts of germany. There was waaaay more need for decorative high quality documents... and when it came to EK docs, they were already set up for the trade. Any thoughts on this ? :-)