Chris Boonzaier

Some guys are very, very, very brave... and In the eye of the storm (25 June 1916 at Fleury for example) They get buried by shellfire, dig themselves out, then under heavy shellfire they dig their comrade out, then report to their CO and insist they are still fit for duty, go back into the battle to find the unit relieving then and guide that unit into position kinda Brave... ... and some of us are brave enough to buy a superb group... no matter what the hell the wife has to say 'bout it.... I was the 2nd kind of brave this week.....

On the 16th of April 1917 the Russian Expeditionary Force attacked near Courcy / Fort Brimont. The attack was decimated by the men of the Gruppe Brimont... The 2 Russian Brigades on tghe Aisne suffered losses of over 4500 men. After the Battle the Russian troops mutinied Vizefeldwebel Jäger was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class. The back of the cross was lightly engraved with his name and unit, obviously a well worn field piece the engraving is almost no longer readable... I assume the engraving was not "for show" but for praticle purposes incase he lost it.... much of the engraving was erased when the cross was repaired... So a hard worn cross to a really well healed unit... the French losses in the offensive were horrendous....

A really nice bar arrived today.... Not my collecting field... but I can appreciate beauty.....

I am totally useless at this :-( ... I have spent at least half an hour with the makers variation article in the BDOS magazine and have no idea.... Any thoughts? :-(

There are a number of great docs, but the Patent Commission and EK docs to the Freiwillige Motorboot Korps are rare... they were civilian boot owners who were commissioned and given a special uniform, they and their boots patrolled inland waters lakes and rivers in the operational areas... it is just a coincidence that he was in the Marinekorps as well

You tell me.... Watch this space.....

Here arer a nice selection of naval ground troops..... anyone spot the really rare one?

It is very possible that it is early Tirol... most of the men do not yet have Mountain boots yet.....

" decided at a meeting of the general student assembly to end the semester on April 12 and close the university, so that the students could provide a volunteer unit to the existing Reichswehr formations in case of need. " ... super, that confirms the tiny bit of Info I know, the wifes GGF was a WW1 Infantry officer, but was a Medical student at the univercity. The Grandmother used to say he went to classes in the morning, and guard duty in the afternoon.

On the notebook photos a button is usually open to accommodate the booklet, I dont think one can be squeezed in here. I thought maybe some glasses or a watch, but once again the bclosed button is wrong.

Hi, it may be possible that it is black, but the Leiber have red, and that comes out as Black on BW photos, so either is possible..

Probably a Hornist, but i thought they were for all musicians?

It was hard to see on the auktion... but it seems this is no Leiber... i am thinking it is the Propeller on the strap... and it looks like a fliers badge ring?

Yeah, I wondered the same, impossible to see on the pic....

Yup... extra rations for the Tuba Player!!!!

This is a pic of a salty bunch of Leiber of the 6th Company of the Leib Regiment. It was sent home by a soldier on the 10th of June 1916... he was killed at Verdun on the 26th of June 1916. Interestingly, I am assuming he is in the pic, and all are wearing the edelweiss... he was however not in the Tirol... he joined the regiment for the Serbian campaign....

Here is an interesting angle...

This is a pretty cool one, with the swallows nests

I think it is pretty well documented that the Felgraue band for Bavarians was to a large extent mainly a sentence on a piece of paper.... Tony on Kaisers bunker has a beautiful example of a Bavarian cap with Prussian colored band, and Kraus has an even better example in the Bavarian Army Museum... it says in Kraus that the Bavarian officers did not like the proposed Felgraue band and many ordered the caps with a Prussian colored band.

Nice one indeed... I have a very simple wooden handled one...

Exhausted Jäger arrive at their bivouac. Interesting the guys who are already there seem to have a recognition panel sewn to the back of their headgear....

I just picked up this to a man in the 1 Snow Shoe Battalion, 3rd Jäger Regiment.... He served at the front from the 24.6 - 11.7 1916, a short career whose end came when he was wounded by Splinters at Souville at Verdun. This was his only award.....

Hi, here are a couple more.... The 1st to a member of the 1st Bavarian Scchneeschuh Bataillon of the 3rd Jäger regiment, and the 2nd to a Leib Regiment Gold Bravery medal recipient....

Hi, I have probably had well over a thousand EK docs, the Black Ribbon Home service ones I have actively sought out and bought when I have seen them, I think I have about 4 in my files... and that was done with a lot of effort.

If I remember corrwectly, he was a fisherman with 6 kids... I wonder if he was able to go back to fishing?