Paul L Murphy

Here is the document for the Croix du Combattant de l'Europe which shows what the medal looks like. I am still trying to dig out the others.

All three are awards made by certain veteran groups/organisations. It is unusual to see them written into a livret militaire since they are not official state awards. I will try to dig out some photos of them since I know for certain that I have at least two of them in Foreign Legion medal groups from the 60s.

I believe these were also worn by the Ministry of the Interior but not 100% sure on this.

Hi Paddy,

Many thanks, your help is greatly appreciated. That also probably explains why it came with a GvR cypher badge. Unfortunately the helmet plate was missing !

Regards,

Paul

Oos, didn't realise I had only posted the reverse of the award card. Here is the front.

And finally, his citation for his first Red Star. Not the most exciting citation since unless I am mistaken it is basically an award for good service over a period of time ?

His other three awards are for long service so there are no citations with them.

All in all, a nice group and one that I think was a bargain since even with the cost of the research it has worked out costing me about $700.

Next we have the citation for his Medal for Bravery. Since it is handwritten I have not yet worked it out so HELP !

Here is the list of his various postings but I have not yet got around to translating it (I hate cyrillic characters in handwriting !). If anyone would like to assist it will be appreciated.

I have a reasonable amount of information on him since there were some service papers. However it is all handwritten so going through it slowly, dictionary in hand !

He was born in 1906 and joined the Red Army in October 1928. He did not become a party member until 1939, I wonder was that in order to avoid purges etc ? He seems to have been commissioned from the ranks since from what I can make out he only made it to Junior Lieutenant in February 1943. Ended the war as a Senior Lieutenant, made it to captain in 1946 and then to major in 1950. He saw active service at the front from Feb 1943.

We always like a photo of the man behind the medals so here is Comrade Maister, before he got his Red Banner in 1951...

And the reverse of his award card verifying his medals .....

And the reverses .......

http://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125485848471.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125485849426.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125485850591.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125485851392.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125485852706.jpg

Next up, the medals themselves ......

http://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125485833363.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125485834544.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-12548583552.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125485836771.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-12548583805.jpg

In a recent auction there was a little group of Soviet awards comprising an Order of the Red Banner, two Red Stars, Bravery Medal on 1st type ribbon (but obviously re-ribboned) and a Military Service Medal. They cam with the award book but no research. I decided to take a punt since it looked like a group with two WWII era combat awards (the Bravery Medal and the 1st of the Red Stars) and then three awards for long service. Thanks to a fellow forum member the research has come back in record time and the group belonged to Guards Major Platon Maximovitch Maister. Admittedly he only reached the rank of Major in 1950 and his highest rank in WWII was Senior Lieutenant.

First up some photos of the award book.

http://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125485827012.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125485828364.jpg

Pictures now seem to be back !

When I looked at this post earlier today there were pictures but these seem to have disappeared. Gremlins at work or has the first post been edited ???

The Victory Medal has been widely copied, however the War Medals have not. You are pretty safe buying the 1914-20 War Medal. If you are still concerned you can send me a PM with your details and what you need and I will have a look for them when I am in Japan at the end of this month.

Regards,

Paul

I have never seen a good fake of this medal, it is a very safe medal to buy since it is not actively faked. The Victory Medal has French made copies but the 1914-15 War Medal and 1914-20 War Medal does not. Where have you seen these fakes ?

And here we have No2 dress for the Light Infantry, followed by bullion on black on red (presumably full dress for one of the regiments with black facings) and finally a bullion version on dark green (not sure which regiment this is for).

http://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125466032188.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125466033475.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-12546603491.jpg

Here are a few more bandsman's badges. The first is on a cherry red backing so presumably for hussars ?

Here are some more Royal Artillery Band musician's badges, but more recent than those shown by Leigh. We have both the No 1 dress version in bullion and the No 2 dress version in cloth.

http://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125459990695.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-1487-125459989564.jpg

I am hoping someone will be able to pin down what this is. It is the same size as an ADC cypher for the shoulderboards but rather than being the usual ERII it is like a combination of ERII with the cypher used by Prince Phillip. Has anyone seen this before, and if so what is it ?

Many thanks cosinus, much appreciated. It is a very well made badge indeed so I am not surprised to hear that it was produced by them.

:cheers:

Here is a close up of it, you can see that the naming is in katakana, rather than kanji.

Are there any examples of these award documents with a foreign name on them??

Yes there are, I have a number of these in my collection. My avatar is such a document, it is the original certificate for the Rising Sun with Pawlonia Flowers awarded to Lord French, the British Field Marshal. It is probably the best document I have in my Japanese collection.

When awarded to Japanese the Sacred Treasure was normally for long service or sustained merit over a period of time, whereas the Rising Sun tended to be for specific deeds or events. In the military in particular the ST 6th class was given to officers after 15 years and they were promoted in the classes about every five or so years. If you reached colonel you tended to get a 4th class pretty soon after, if you had not already got one. Other ranks were awarded the 8th class after 20 years and also promoted every five years or so.

Not sure on what differentiated things for foreign recipients. I do have examples of the ST to foreigners who lived and worked in Japan for a long time (teachers, bank managers) during the Meiji era and received various grades of the ST. In this case it is clearly being used as a long service award so I suspect that for foreign civilians the criteria were similar as to Japanese. The difficulty is with foreign military recipients. For British recipients I have seen a few cases where the ST was the first Japanese award given and it was followed later by a RS. This would reflect the fact that the ST was the more junior award. As Rick said, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions due to the small sample size.