Gordon Craig

nickstrenk, I have owned one of these for several years and i have not been able to identify it. I hope someone on the forum cam. Regards, Gordon

Scott, This is a link to a thread on the WAF where a one piece silver cross is pictured. Regards, Gordon http://wehrmacht-awards.com/forums//showthread.php?t=211641

djn, Interesting photo. What year was the book on the statutes of the Leopold Orden published in? Regards, Gordon

Alex, Great story and pictures. Good luck in your search for the Majors picture. We should all be lucky enough to hold an important medal like this in trust for future generations. Regards, Gordon

hoopa, The answer to your question; no documents are given for campaign medals long service etc. Docs are only given for bravery awards. Regards, Gordon

hoopa, This url will take you to the Canadian Forces site that describes the Canadian awards you are interested in. It does not mention any documents being presented with the medal. I know the designer of the medal and I'll ask him this coming week if he knows if there were any docs presented. http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/honours-history-medals-chart/medal-gcs-swa.page Regards, Gordon

demir, A great thread on an important person. I read it with increasing interest and have passed it on to a collegue who collects awards to nurses. Regards, Gordon

David, I am not aware of any regulation that would allow the award of the American Purple Heart to a member of an allied military service. For provenance of the award of the Purple Heart to your relative you would need the award certificate as proof. Or as has been said above, contact one of the many American societies online that keep records of Purple Heart awards. As for researching British Medals I suggest that you contact The British Medals Forum at http://www.britishmedalforum.com/ and ask for their assistance. Regards, Gordon

I concur with Trooper D and would be willing to contribute as well. Regards, Gordon

Andre, What scale are you looking for? What country? What model of tank? Regards, Gordon

Your welcome. Regards, Gordon

Morar Andrei, From Wiki again re your question. Post war[edit] After World War II, many M18s were sold to other countries. These were rebuilt and refurbished by Brown & Root in northern Italy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and bear data plates that indicate those rebuilds. One of the users was Yugoslavia, which kept them in reserve until the early 1990s. A number of these vehicles were later used by the Military of Serbian Krajina and Army of Republika Srpska during the Yugoslav wars. One example was used on an armored train named the "Krajina express" (Krajina Ekspres).[30] The Military of the Republic of China also operated several M18s until their chassis and hulls were worn out, at which point the turrets were salvaged and installed onto surplus hulls of M42 Duster anti-aircraft vehicles to produce Type 64 light tanks. The Greek Army received 127 M18s from 1952 till 1954. Initially these were organized in three Tank Destroyer Regiments numbered 397, 398 and 399. In 1959 the Tank Destroyer Regiments were reorganized in three Tank Destroyer Battalions with the same numbers. Most of the M18s were retired in the end of 60s but a few of them remained in service till the middle 70s for training. [31] The hulls of the M18s were dismantled and the turrets were used as gun emplacements in the northern borders of Greece and the Aegean islands.[32]One M18 is preserved in the Greek Army Tank Museum.[33] The Venezuelan military still operates M18s, with 75 still in reserve service. An unknown number of these vehicles were modernized by a Yugoslavian firm in 1991. An M18 is on display at the Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. M18 Hellcat "Amaz N Grace" is on loan to the Museum of American Armor in Old Bethpage, New York, from the US Military Museum. Regards, Gordon

Morar Andrei Thanks for the additional info on this armoured train. Very interesting. Regards, Gordon

Morar Andrei, Below I have copied some info from a WIKI article on armoured trains. Possibly this is the train mentioned in it. The complete article can be found here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_train#Later_uses Later uses[edit] A RT-23 Molodets in the Saint Petersburg railway museum In the First Indochina War, the French Union used the armoured and armed train La Rafale as both a cargo-carrier and a mobile surveillance unit.[22][23] In February 1951 the first Rafale was in service on the Saigon-Nha Trang line, Vietnam[24][25] while from 1947 to May 1952 the second one which was escorted by onboard Cambodian troops of the BSPP (Brigade de Surveillance de Phnom Penh) was used on the Phnom Penh-Battambang line, Cambodia.[26] In 1953 both trains were attacked by the Viet-Minh guerrillas who destroyed or mined stone bridges when passing by.[27] Fulgencio Batista’s army operated an armoured train during the Cuban revolution though it was derailed and destroyed during the Battle of Santa Clara. Facing the threat of Chinese cross-border raids during the Sino-Soviet split, the USSR developed armoured trains in the early 1970s to protect the Trans-Siberian Railway. According to different accounts, four or five trains were built. Every train included ten main battle tanks, two light amphibious tanks, several AA guns, as well as several armoured personnel carriers, supply vehicles and equipment for railway repairs. They were all mounted on open platforms or in special rail cars. Different parts of the train were protected with 5–20 mm thick armour. These trains were used by the Soviet Army to intimidate nationalist paramilitary units in 1990 during the early stages of the Nagorno-Karabakh War.[28][29] Towards the end of the Cold War, both superpowers began to develop railway-based ICBMs mounted on armoured trains; the Soviets deployed the SS-24 missile in 1987, but budget costs and the changing international situation led to the cancellation of the programme, with all remaining railway-based missiles finally being deactivated in 2005. An improvised armoured train named the "Krajina express" (Krajina ekspres) was used during the war in Croatia (part of the Yugoslav wars) of the early 1990s by the army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (a self-proclaimed republic of Serbs living within Croatia that sought to remain in Yugoslavia). Composed of three fighting cars and three freight cars hooked to the front to protect it from mine blasts,[30] the train carried a M18 Hellcat with a 76mm cannon, a 40mm Bofors, a 20mm cannon, twin 57mm rocket launchers and a 120mm mortar, plus several machine guns of between 12.7 and 7.62 mm.[31] During the siege of Bihac in 1994, it was attacked on a few occasions with antitank rocket-propelled grenades and 76mm guns and hit by a 9K11 Malyutka missile, but the damage was minor, as most of the train was covered with thick sheets of rubber which caused the missile's warhead to explode too early to do any real damage.[30] The train was eventually destroyed by its own crew lest it fall into enemy hands during Operation Storm, the Croatian offensive which overran the Srpska Krajina. The Army of Republika Srpskaoperated a similar train that was ambushed and destroyed in October 1992 at the entrance to the town of Gradačac by Bosnian Muslim forces that included a T-55 tank. The wreckage was later converted into a museum.[32] The Croatian Army deployed a two-wagon armoured train built in Split with a shield composed of two plates, one 8mm and the other 6mm thick, with a 30-50mm gap filled with sand between them. The vehicle was armed with 12.7mm machine guns.[33] One armoured train that remains in regular use is that of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, which the former received as a gift from the Soviet Union and the latter used heavily for state visits to China and Russia as he had a fear of flying. Pro-Russian militants in the Donbass region of Ukraine were pictured operating a homemade armoured train in late 2015.[34]

cimbineus, Thanks for posting the Kivalo/Erdemes Sporto badges. I have seen the third type before but not the other two levels. Regards, Gordon

nickstrenk, Sorry if I confused you with my terms on my reference to the Order of the Flag. In Hungarian it is actually "A Magyar Népköztársaság Zászlórendjének which my translation to English says "Flag of the Hungarian People's Republic". Cimbineus has posted some excellent pictures of the various classes of the order. Keep up the good posts! Regards, Gordon

nickstrenk, Very nice picture. A great addition to the Hungarian forum. Especially the Order of the Flag. This particular grade was only awarded for a very short space of time. Regards, Gordon

nickstrenk, Thanks for adding your Hungarian badges. Too bad that we have lost the badges posted by cimbineus. He has an especially good collection. Regards, Gordon

Sahil, Ed no longer posts on this forum so you will probably not get an answer from him. You pose an interesting question though and I will have to give it some thought. Regards, Gordon

Ladies and Gentlemen, This is one of the most interesting helmets from my Russian/East German helmet collection. It was a gift to Werner Felfe member of the Central Committee of the SED. The helmet is a Russian high altitude GSH 6a and was possibly presented to Felfe on a visit to this Russian unit. The inscription is transliterated as; "To Comrade Werner Felfe Member of the Central Committee of the SED. From the pilots of the Guards Red Banner Minsk Division March 1972" The symbols on the side of the helmet are for a Guards Division and for a Red Banner Medal that was presented to the Guards Division. The inscription is engraved into the helmet. Short bio for Werner Felfe, Werner Felfe (born January 4, 1928 in Großröhrsdorf , † September 7, 1988 in East Berlin ) was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED in the GDR . Life Felfe completed a commercial education. He joined the KPD in 1945 and became a member of the SED with the compulsory unification of the SPD and KPD in 1946 . In 1946 he joined the FDJ . Until 1953 he worked for the SED district administrations Kamenz and Flöha and the regional government of Saxony . He attended the Party School in 1953 and was until 1957 second secretary of the Central Council of the FDJ. 1954 to 1958 he was chairman of the Youth Committee of the People's Chamber , 1954-1963 candidate and then a member of the Central Committee (CC) of the SED . From 1957 to 1960, Felfe worked as Deputy Chairman and Chairman of the Council of Zschopau County and until 1963 as Chairman of the Council of the district Karl-Marx-Stadt . He graduated 1963-1965 after studying at the industrial institute of the technical university Dresden . He was then deputy head of department and from 1966 secretary for agitation and propaganda at the Central Committee of the SED. In 1968, Felfe became second secretary, in 1971 as successor to Horst Sindermann first secretary of the SED District Administration Halle . Since 1973 he was a candidate and since 1976 a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED and the National Defense Council . As secretary of the SED Central Committee for Agriculture, in 1981 he initiated a course correction in agriculture aimed at lifting the separation of animal and plant production, reducing bureaucracy and saving resources. On August 8, 1988 there appeared in the West German news magazine Der Spiegel an article in which there was speculation about a possible successors to Erich Honecker . The time of the change was assumed to be autumn 1989, when it was assumed that the 40th anniversary of the founding of the GDR was an appropriate date. As a possible candidate for the succession to Honecker, those was mentioned in the article, in addition to Egon Krenz, were Siegfried Lorenz, Günter Schabowski and Werner Felfe. Felfe was quoted in the article (analogously): "The political perestroika may not stop before the GDR." Just over a month after the article was published, Werner Felfe died of acute heart failure at the age of 60. His urn was buried in the memorial of the socialists in the central cemetery Friedrichsfelde in Berlin-Lichtenberg . Awards: VVO - 1974; KMO - 1978; form “WER WAR WER IN DER DDR” Edition printed in 2006. Pictures of some articles bearing Felfe's name that I found on the net. The picture of red folder, used by members of the Central Committee of the SED, is from the HGM.

peter, Thanks for your comments. Regards, Gordon

Gentlemen, What can you tell me about the medal pictured in this thread? Who made it, who designed it, who was it awarded to, date of institution etc. Any information would be greatly appreciated. I own this medal but it is on its way to me as we speak. Regards, Gordon

Ladies and Gentlemen, Ralph Pickard has asked that I post information about the publication of the third volume of his series of books on the STASI on the GMIC. The first two volumes were excellent reference material and third one promises to be just as interesting. I have ordered a copy before it is printed and you may wish to do the same. The book went to the printers a few days ago and should be ready for distribution shortly. Regards, Gordon

Farkas, Thanks for your post. This appears to be a late issue Schako badge for Niedresachsen (Lower Saxony in English). Probably late 80s early 90s before the Schakos were discontinued. Earlier Schako badges had threaded posts on the back of the badge and were held to the Schako with nuts screwed onto the posts. Here is a Schako with a Niedresachsen badge in place. Regards, Gordon