Chris Boonzaier

A very nice shot with grenade bags, wire cutters etc. etc. Hard to read the back, but I got the "Dear Mother, look after the photo, do not give it to anyone, it may be a last sign of life"... the rest is really hard to read... cannot figure out the guys name....

A Sturmtrupp of the 1st Marine Inf Regt in August 1918, "In the new positions"

Yup... was on ebay ;-)

I am getting old and grey and my back is bending... otherwise all is OK ;-) ...welcome back!

Nice looking badge! Looks like a lawmans badge at first glance....

At a brief first glance this looked to be OK..... Then I looked on ancestry to see who number 148 in the 1st company was.... ...so it is fake......

Did you manage to snag the rest of the group?

Waht was the connection between the bFAR7 and mountain troops?

I do not have the breakdown of the 15th, but it is the only bavarian formation with a 5 in it ;-)

I think the 5 Sturmbat was probably an error on the part of his parents when they ordered the card? They probably meant 15th

Hi, he was with the Infanterie geschutz Batterie 24, Joined the army in Dec 16, was in a Gebirgs Arty Ersatz Battalion, then joined the 24th in September 17, Badly wounded on the 1.6, died on the 3.6.... born 16.4.98... very sparse record indeed!!

Fantastic photo with the bergmütze!! Here his mine with his beautiful bride :-)

Damn.... I was scratching my head looking at the infantry straps :-(

Hi, can anyone guess this one? Thanks Chris

thats what I did with mine as well to preserve the straps

Yup, its like musical chairs the way they changed regiments

Hi, the 1st regt lists 8 MMJO? 28. August 1914: Hauptmann Balduin von Winckler (gefallen am 6. September 1917) 2. Oktober 1914: Leutnant Kurt Hopffer 25. Oktober 1914: Oberleutnant der Reserve Karl Gruny 28. Juni 1916: Leutnant der Reserve Otto Lang (gefallen am 12. Juni 1916) 27. Mai 1916: Oberleutnant Wolfgang Eder (gefallen am 13. März 1916) 1. November 1916: Leutnant der Reserve Joachim Hitzen (gefallen am 13. Oktober 1918) 23. März 1918: Major Eugen von Schobert 21. Oktober 1918: Major Johann Schmidtler

Here is an interesting article.... https://samilhistory.com/2018/07/21/the-predominantly-white-armed-struggle-against-apartheid/

Hi, that is possible... I cannot remember what color lining Bill Shea's had all those years ago...

Hi, The (almost) unique thing about the Bavarians is that there is absolutely no prerequisite for the baravey medals... not the EK2, EK1, MVK that the prussians had. A guy could get the Golden Bravery medal as his first award in August 1914 and no further award until the end of the war. I am unaware of any silver and gold recipients, but if they exist I would love the group!!! :-) But given the fact that silver and gold were awarded from the outbreak of the war, with no prerequisite needed to get an award... I think we can assume the ratio must depend on a certain extent to what the commander put in for. Lets also not forget, the level of bravery is often not related to the size of the battle. A daring trench raid in a quiet sector could have just as much chance as a defensive action in the middle of the Somme. In some cases units in quiter sectors may have had more chance to have men put in for awards as there was less fog of war... Also a thought... one of the main reason the Leib Regiment introduced the "leiberring" was because the officers thought that the Leiber (and other hard charging regiments) were getting the same awards as regiments in Quiet zones, and that it had become rather difficult to judge someones contributions by the amount of medals they had... maybe this was some sour grapes because the 12 bRIR was ahead of them on the table. I remember reading something about Vietnam, where some units had a papermill, churning out medal applications, while in others it was done more conservatively

I am going to go out on a limb here and say I think he made a copy error. The 12th bavarian RIR was in the 1st bavarian Reserve Div until mid late 1916, the Division average was just above 3000 KIA during the war, then to the 5th bavarian reserve Division where it joined the 7th and 10 bRIR... whose average was under 3000 KIA during the war... I dont have the history for the 12th bRIR, but I am guessing the 9688 number was the wounded? Lets assuming the Regiments within a division were rotated and unless the 12th was on everyones shtlist, they would have spend as much time in the line as anyone of the other regiments, under similar conditions... That also begs the question, the amounts of medals to other regiments it served with ... they must have had the same amount of time in the line... Unit -gold bravery - silver bravery - MMMJ 12th bRIR - 45 - 76 - 4 7th bRIR - 12 - 39 - 2 10 bRIR - 36 - 60 - 3 1 BRIR - 15 - 30 - 4 2 BRIR - 9 - 59 - 4 3 BRIR - 26 - 88 - 2 Another point that confuses me.... how can the proportions of gold:Silver medals vary so much.... of course, sometimes there is a spurt of bravery that will a single unit the edge over others in the "hero" category, but this over the whole period of the war... I think the proportions are interesting Gold:silver 12bRIR 1:1,6 7bRIR 1:3,25 10bRIR 1:1,6 1bRIR 1:2 2bRIR 1:6,55 3bRIR 1:3,38 Somehow I get the feeling that the numbers of awards were severly influenced by the willingness of a Regt Commander to send in a request for the award. Unless the members of a regiment were inheritasntly braver than those of another unit, the proportions Gold:silver should be similar?

And now the silver..... 89 – b.I.L.R. 88 - b.R.I.R. 3, 76 - b.R.I.R. 12 69 – b.I.R. 1, 65 – b.I.R. 12 63 – Bavarian Jäger Regt (1. B.J.B. 22, 2.b.J.B. 21, 2. B.R.J.B. 20) 61 – b.I.R. 9, 60 - b.R.I.R. 10 59 – b.I.R. 15, b.R.I.R. 2 56 - b.R.I.R. 4 53 - b.R.I.R. 15, b.R.I.R. 52 50 – b.I.R. 18 46 – b.I.R. 2, 8, 11, b.R.I.R. 16, 44 - b.R.I.R. 11, 42 – b.I.R. 4, 41 – b.I.R. 10, 16 b.R.I.R. 18, 40 – b.I.R. 24 39 - b.R.I.R. 7, 38 - b.R.I.R. 8, 36 - b.R.I.R. 19 35 – b.I.R. 3, 20, b.R.I.R. 17, 34 – b.I.R. 25, 33 – b.I.R. 23, 31 – b.I.R. 17, b.R.I.R. 31 30- b.I.R. 13, 22, b.R.I.R. 1, 30, 29 – b.I.R. 19 28 - b.R.I.R. 22 27 - b.R.I.R. 13 26 – b.I.R. 7, 25 – b.I.R. 5, 22 – b.I.R. 22, b.J.B. 1 21 – b.J.B. 2 20 – b.R.J.B. 2 19 - b.R.I.R. 5 16 - b.R.I.R. 20 15 – b.I.R. 15, b.R.I.R. 14 12 – b.I.R. 6, 26, 11 – b.I.R. 27 10 – b.R.J.B. 1 9- b.I.R. 31 6 - b.I.R. 30, 32 5 - b.I.R. 28 2 - b.I.R. 29

I counted up the number of Bavarian Bravery medal awards for each Active and reserve infantry regiment.... I must say, this astonished me. Of course, we need to take into account when some of the regiments were formed, but the 12 Reserve Infantry Regiments 1st place really astounded me.... 45 - b.R.I.R. 12 38 - b.I.L.R. 36 - b.R.I.R. 10, 11 30 – Bavarian Jäger Regt (1. b.J.B. 19, 2. b.J.B. 9, 2. b.R.J.B. 2) 26 - b.R.I.R. 3, 24 - b.R.I.R. 17 23 - b.I.R. 3, 18 20 – b.I.R. 19, 19 – b.J.Btl. 1 18 - b.R.I.R. 20 17 – b.I.R. 7, 13, b.R.I.R. 4, 8, 16 - b.I.R. 1, 2, 4, b.R.I.R. 14, 16, 21 15 – b.I.R. 6, 10, 11, 15, b.R.I.R. 1, 13, b.R.J.B. 1 14 – b.I.R. 8, 16, 21, 13 – b.I.R. 23, b.R.I.R. 22 12 – b.I.R. 9, b.R.I.R. 7, 11 – b.I.R. 5, 14, b.R.I.R. 6, 10 – b.I.R. 17, b.R.I.R. 15, 9 - b.R.I.R. 2, 19, b.J.Btl. 2 8 – b.I.R. 12, 20, 22, 7 - b.R.I.R. 18, 23 6 – b.I.R. 24, 25, b.R.I.R. 5, 5 – b.I.R. 26, 3 – b.I.R 28, 2 – b.R.J.B. 2 1 – b.I.R. 31 0 – b.I.R. 27, 29, 30, 32

Yes indeed... but in general he was not a likeable guy... I was reading a Bio, when between the wars he was teaching at the same academy as Rommel, the feeling was that Rommel commanded by his personality, Schörner was respected because of his rank and reputation as a soldier, his personality not being something that warmed him to others. I have a few groups from WW2 where the guy was a combat stud in WW1, and a distastefull fellow in the 3rd Reich. Its a bit like OJ Simpson.... there was the football player /B Movie actor.... and there was the murderer.... a Before/After kinda deal....

I have his Leib Regt honor ring and Militärpass as well ;-)