Hugh
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Posts posted by Hugh
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And lo, suddenly, I got an email. The sites are all in Hangul, but they appear to be the current awards system. Maybe Rogi can give us some idea of what they contain.
Best,
Hugh
ëŒ€í•œë¯¼êµ í›ˆìž¥ì˜ ì¢…ë¥˜ (키워드) http://blog.naver.com/yusicoc/50187082404
í›ˆìž¥ì˜ ì¢…ë¥˜ ë° ìˆ˜ì—¬ ëŒ€ìƒ http://www.army.mil.kr/history/%B9%DF%B9%DF%B9%E8%B0%E6/%C0%B0%B1%BA%BB%E7/honour.htm
í›ˆìž¥ì˜ ì¢…ë¥˜ë¥¼ 알아보ìž! http://blog.daum.net/mma9090/6916
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I've sent him an email. Let's see what happens. If we get anything, I expect it'll be in Korean. Perhaps Rogi can help.
Hugh
Haven't heard a thing from either source. I've stopped holding my breath.
H
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These tokens bear a superficial resemblance to the "boi" shown on Ed Emering's site http://www.emering.com/medals/french/annam.html, but are certainly not the same. As Rogi observes, tokens like this are seen widely in China and Korea, and are often sold in stores. They are handsome decorative pieces.
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I've just sent this article off to a friend who is the president of the 5th Marine Division Survivors Association. They had a reunion here in Tampa this summer. Let's see if he has opinions.
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Here is some more information and photos.
https://greatwarlondon.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/harry-fusao-ohara-japanese-fighter-pilot-1918/
Aha! It sounds as though my guess about the Japanese spelling of his name was correct. This was a great blog post.
Best,
Hugh
Wim Reedyk
20 November 2013 at 1:32 pm
I am moved by the fact that so much is told about my grandfather, and that Mr Love personally has known him and his family. My mother happens to be his youngest daughter, Geraldine. She married my father, a Dutchman, in 1954 and moved to Holland where she still lives. She, 82 years old, is still doing well. Unfortunately for me, Harry O’Hara, my grandpa, died before my birth in 1957. Interesting to note is that his name was Ohara. But when he enlisted in the British Army in India, a recruitment officer said to him: We don’t have any Ohara’s here, so we call you O’Hara. My mother told me this story many times, and I’ve got every reason to believe that this is correct.
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I'll bite - who is it?
Hugh
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Just shows how long it's been since I've been to Pakistan. Oh, well.
Hugh
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Welcome, Tariq,
It's good to see a Pakistani on this forum. I wonder if some of the military tailors in Lahore might have supplies of old for some of these rare medals. In the years when I was visiting Pakistan regularly, I know the tailors in Rawalpindi and Karachi had items from many decades past. This might be a solution to ribbon problems.
Best,
Hugh
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Ohara (without the apostrophe) is indeed a Japanese name. Doesn't mean this man was Japanese, but it's not impossible.
H
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Be happy to help with the translation.
But the ribbons have me thinking a bit, do they all fit the period? I know the Korean orders have had variouschanges from the 50s to 60s to late 60s etc, lots of the Order of Military Merit went through ribbon and color changes.
Leaves me with questions, if this is 50s issue of all the orders (with which at least some of the Military Merit should be if the uniform fits the period)
So, could the Order of Military Merit be a Eulji Medal with star (red ribbon at the time with white stripes) and not Chungmu (which would be light blue and white stripes)
One next to it in the same row to the right could be Chungmu (although it does look purple and not light blue)
I agree completely. This appears to be a mixture from various periods. If I remember correctly, the Ulchi should have 4 white stripes on each side, more like the green ribbon to its left. It's also a very high-ranking award for an NCO, even a very senior one. We all know how unfaithful color can be on different monitors, but that purple ribbon on the right seems to be much different from the light blue for Chungmu, and only has two stripes on each side.
Here's my guess: These three ribbons represent the three grades of the Order of Military Merit - Ulchi, Chungmu and Hwarang - but are from a different period than we are familiar with. Seems like a very heavy ribbon bar for a non-officer.
What's your guess on the third row, first and third ribbons?
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in regards to the Chungmu, the ribbon is red, depending on how many stripes are on it, could very well be it, Would be nice to have close ups of the ribbon bar.
Thanks, Rogi,
When I blow the image up (Control +), I see three white stripes on either side. I MAY be able to get some documentation on ROK ODM from a friend (former US Army Colonel FAO). It'll probabky be in Hangul. Could you help with translation?
Best,
Hugh
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Names are not official, but just a verbal description by my friend.
Here are a few tentative identifications:
Fourth row, second medal. - Recovery from worst year medal 1984 ( year of Park Chung Hee assasination)
Fourth row, 3rd medal - Wound medal, severe wounds
Fifth row, 1st medal, - Korean War commemorative medal
Fifth row, 2nd medal - Wound medal, non severe wounds
Fifth row, 3rd medal - UN Korea medal
Right pocket - ROK Presidential Unit Citation
Best, Hugh
Some additions using information taken from Don Pfeifer's website home.earthlink.net/~dfifer/index.htm
Second row, 2nd medal - this MAY be the Order of Military Merit, Chungmu
Third row, 2nd ribbon and fourth row, 1st ribbon - Although these appear slightly different, I think they are both the Merit Medal for Defense.
Fourth row, 2nd medal - I have apparently misidentified this. Pfeifer shows it as the Guerilla Warfare Service medal.
There have been several generations of these awards, with different ribbons, so it's hard to get a handle on them. I believe that Don Pfeifer's site shows the current generation.
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Are we sure that the two purple ribbons are for the Purple Heart? Also, I would expect that with the discrimination present within America at the time, all folks of "Asian decent" would have been sorta lumped together. I would think that he would have been with the 442nd, which fought in Europe. I can easily see the tailor who made the ribbon bar erroneously(or by design of the US vet who was proud of his US service) instinctively placing the US ribbons over the Korean Ribbons. The American Defense Medal should be the highest ranking of them though.
Do we have anyone here who is familiar with the Korean ribbon combination?
Names are not official, but just a verbal description by my friend.
Here are a few tentative identifications:
Fourth row, second medal. - Recovery from worst year medal 1984 ( year of Park Chung Hee assasination)
Fourth row, 3rd medal - Wound medal, severe wounds
Fifth row, 1st medal, - Korean War commemorative medal
Fifth row, 2nd medal - Wound medal, non severe wounds
Fifth row, 3rd medal - UN Korea medal
Right pocket - ROK Presidential Unit Citation
Best, Hugh
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I'm certainly confused by his ribbons. If he is in the ROK forces (as the uniform certainly suggests), why would he put the US ribbons first? Further, unless he was in the US armed forces before / during WW II, how did he become eligible for these ribbons? (Korea was a colony of Japan during this period.). Not impossible, e.g. if he was an ethnic Kprean, served as a US soldier pre-Pearl Harbor, then in the Pacific and Army of Occupation, took a discharge overseas and enlisted in the ROK Army in time for the Korean War.
I wonder if the shield lapel insignia shows that he was a KATUSA (Korean Augmentation to the. US Army). If he had served all that time in the US Army, he'd have the English language qualification.
I recognize many of the ROK ribbons below the top line.
Curious
H
Not that it makes much difference to our speculation, but I just noticed that the US ribbons show service in the European Theater of Operations (ETO), not the Pacific during WW II. Curiouser and curiouser.
Has anyone run a search in US records for his name? (I don't have the facility)
Hugh
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Any chance your Colonel friend can give you a set of current Korean medal regs?
I've sent him an email. Let's see what happens. If we get anything, I expect it'll be in Korean. Perhaps Rogi can help.
Hugh
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Do Americans have non aerial flights as well???
Perhaps non- aerial flights would be hours in the flight simulator. ;-)
Hugh
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Shades of Josephus Daniels, US Secretary of the Navy, who banned alcohol on USN ships in the early 20th century.
We finally repealed Prohibition ashore, but not on board.
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Thanks fr this, Mervyn. This rounds out the story.
Best,
Hugh
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I got one of these long ago, and if I remember correctly, it's for the Governor of a province. Windu will know.
Hugh
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I'm certainly confused by his ribbons. If he is in the ROK forces (as the uniform certainly suggests), why would he put the US ribbons first? Further, unless he was in the US armed forces before / during WW II, how did he become eligible for these ribbons? (Korea was a colony of Japan during this period.). Not impossible, e.g. if he was an ethnic Kprean, served as a US soldier pre-Pearl Harbor, then in the Pacific and Army of Occupation, took a discharge overseas and enlisted in the ROK Army in time for the Korean War.
I wonder if the shield lapel insignia shows that he was a KATUSA (Korean Augmentation to the. US Army). If he had served all that time in the US Army, he'd have the English language qualification.
I recognize many of the ROK ribbons below the top line.
Curious
H
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Thanks, Rogi. That's a better answer.
H
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My Korean friend lives in Seoul, and I 'm in Florida, so we're not in frequent correondence. Still, if you can scan the document, perhaps he might give us some idea of what you have. His English is sometimes a little interesting.
H
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One is always hesitant to post on such a wellknown subject, but this writeup, along with the photos seemed a little special.
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Doubtless many of you will be familiar with this story, but I couldn't resist posting it. It appears to have originated in a website called Abroad in the Yard (see below). Unfortunately, GMIC would not accept the photo of his medals, but you can see them on the website below.
H
Veteran of Boer War, WW1 and WW2 was wounded 9 times, and bit off his own fingers when a doctor wouldn’t amputate themIn a military career spanning 1899-1947, Adrian Carton de Wiart fought in 4 wars, and survived being shot in the stomach, groin, head, hand, ankle, hip and leg; as surviving well as two plane crashes and five escape attempts from a POW camp. He lost an eye and a hand in 1915, but still won the Victoria Cross in 1916.
It is a war story that sounds far-fetched even by Hollywood standards, but Adrian Carton de Wiart really existed.
Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart was born in Belgium in 1880 to an Irish mother and a Belgian aristocratic father (although it was widely rumoured he was the illegitimate son of the King of the Belgians, Leopold II
)When his mother died and his father remarried to an Englishwoman, his new stepmother sent Carton de Wiart to boarding school in England. From there he went to Oxford University in 1899, but dropped out after one term to join the British Army.
The Boer War had just started at the time and, after enlisting under the false identity of ‘Trooper Carton’, Carton de Wiart was sent to South Africa. However, he was seriously wounded in the stomach and groin early in the war and invalided home. As soon as he had recovered, he returned to action in South Africa in 1901 as a commissioned officer under his true identity.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Carton de Wiart was en route to British Somaliland
in the Horn of Africa, where the British were engaged in a low level war against the “Mad Mullah“. In an attack on an enemy fort, Carton de Wiart was shot twice in the face, losing his left eye.He wore a glass eye for a short time after but, whilst travelling in a taxi, threw it out of the window and put on a black eye patch, which he wore for the rest of his life.
In 1915 he embarked on a steamer for France. As an infantry commander on the Western Front, he was wounded seven more times. Soon after his arrival he lost his left hand (biting his mangled fingers off when a doctor declined to remove them). He was later shot through the skull and ankle at the Battle of the Somme, through the hip at the Battle of Passchendaele, through the leg at Cambrai, and through the ear at Arras.
It was during the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 that he won the Victoria Cross
, the British Empire’s highest award for gallantry in combat. His citation read:“For most conspicuous bravery, coolness and determination during severe operations of a prolonged nature. It was owing in a great measure to his dauntless courage and inspiring example that a serious reverse was averted. He displayed the utmost energy and courage in forcing our attack home. After three other battalion Commanders had become casualties, he controlled their commands, and ensured that the ground won was maintained at all costs. He frequently exposed himself in the organisation of positions and of supplies, passing unflinchingly through fire barrage of the most intense nature. His gallantry was inspiring to all.”
In his later autobiography, Happy Odyssey
, he made no mention of his VC. Of the First World War itself, and despite the loss of various body parts, he said: “Frankly I enjoyed the war.”
Adrian Carton de Wiart
From 1919-1921, Carton de Wiart saw further front line action in Poland against the Red Army in the Polish-Soviet War
. On one occasion, while out on his observation train, he was attacked by a group of Red cavalry. He fought them off with his revolver from the running board of the train, at one point falling on the track and quickly jumping back on. He even survived an aircraft crash which led to a brief period in Lithuanian captivity.He retired from the Army in 1923 with the honorary rank of major-general, and spent the next 15 years shooting waterfowl on a friend’s 500,000 acre marshland estate in eastern Poland – his home a converted hunting lodge on an island, only a few miles from the Soviet border.
His peaceful life was rudely interrupted by the Second World War in 1939, when he was recalled as head of the British Military Mission to Poland. When Poland was attacked by both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in September 1939, the estate was overrun and all Carton de Wiart’s possessions were confiscated by the Soviets, then destroyed by the Germans in later fighting. He never saw the area again.
Carton de Wiart and his mission team escaped Poland by road convoy, with the Germans and the Russians in hot pursuit. Despite being attacked from the air by the Luftwaffe, the convoy made it across the Romanian border. Carton de Wiart then made it back to England by aircraft, travelling under a false passport.
In 1940 he was dispatched to Norway, where he took charge of an Anglo-French force with orders to take the city of Trondheim. With few supplies and little support, he managed to move his forces over the mountains and down to Trondheim Fjord, despite coming under frequent attack from the Luftwaffe, being shelled by German naval destroyers and machine gunned by German ski troops. Unable to effectively challenge the superior German forces, Carton de Wiart was eventually ordered to evacuate. Royal Navy transports got his men away, but they were bombed severely on the way out. Carton de Wiart arrived back at Scapa Flow on his 60th birthday.
Even back on British soil, Carton de Wiart found himself on the frontline when his London home was bombed by the Germans during the Blitz. All of his medals and decorations were destroyed or lost and he had to apply to the War Office for official replacements.
In 1941 he was appointed head of the British-Yugoslavian Military Mission, just as Hitler was preparing to invade Yuogoslavia. After negotiating with the Yugoslavian government in Belgrade, Carton de Wiart’s aircraft was heading for Cairo when both engines failed. The plane crash landed in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italian-controlled Libya. Carton de Wiart was knocked unconscious in the crash, but the cold water revived him. When the plane sank, he and the crew were forced to swim a mile to shore, where they were captured by the Italians.
Carton de Wiart was sent to a special prison for senior officers at in Italy. With his distinguished comrades, he five escape attempts, one of which including seven months of tunnelling. During one attempt, Carton de Wiart evaded capture for eight days disguised as an Italian peasant – but his age, eye patch, empty sleeve, multiple scars and lack of Italian gave him away.
Carton de Wiart was released from prison in 1943 and taken to Rome, where the Italian government secretly planned to leave the war and wanted Carton de Wiart to act as messenger to the British government. He was accompanied by an Italian negotiator to Portugal to meet Allied contacts to facilitate the surrender. From Portugal, Carton de Wiart made his way back to England.
Carton de Wiart was immediately summoned by Churchill to be his personal representative in China, where he worked for the rest of the war and up to his retirement in 1947. On his way back to England, he stopped off in Rangoon as a house guest of the local army commander. Coming down stairs, he slipped on coconut matting, fell, broke his back and knocked himself unconscious. He eventually made it back to England and into hospital where he slowly recovered. The doctors succeeded in extracting an incredible amount of shrapnel from his old wounds.
In his memoirs he wrote, "Governments may think and say as they like, but force cannot be eliminated, and it is the only real and unanswerable power. We are told that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I know which of these weapons I would choose."Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart VC KBE CB CMG DSO finally settled in County Cork, Ireland, where he died in 1963 at the age of 83. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography described him thus: “With his black eyepatch and empty sleeve, Carton de Wiart looked like an elegant pirate, and became a figure of legend.”
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Thailand Life-saving medal ? Help requested.
in South East & East Asia
Posted · Edited by Hugh
It is classified as a Royal Medal in a category described as Medals for Acts of Bravery, and I believe it may come in three classes: Class 1 with olive branches, Class 2, 1st Category with a sort of explosion device on the ribbon, and Class 2, 2nd Category with no ribbon device. An excerpt from the precedence list of the official website of the Cabinet Secretariat lists it as shown below with some other medals between the second and third class.
P. 132 ๔๑. เหรียà¸à¸žà¸´à¸—ัà¸à¸©à¹Œà¹€à¸ªà¸£à¸µà¸Šà¸™ ชั้นที่ ๑
Freeman Safeguarding Medal (First Class).
๔๒. เหรียà¸à¸žà¸´à¸—ัà¸à¸©à¹Œà¹€à¸ªà¸£à¸µà¸Šà¸™ ชั้นที่ ๒ ประเภทที่ ๑
Freeman Safeguarding Medal (Second Class, First Category).
P. 133 ๔๓. เหรียà¸à¸£à¸²à¸Šà¸™à¸´à¸¢à¸¡
The RajaniYom Medal
๔๔. เหรียà¸à¸›à¸£à¸²à¸šà¸®à¹ˆà¸
The Haw Campaign Medal.
๔๕. เหรียà¸à¸‡à¸²à¸™à¸žà¸£à¸°à¸£à¸²à¸Šà¸ªà¸‡à¸„รามยุโรป
The War Medal of B.E. 2461.
๔๖. เหรียà¸à¸žà¸´à¸—ัà¸à¸©à¹Œà¸£à¸±à¸à¸˜à¸£à¸£à¸¡à¸™à¸¹à¸
The Safeguarding the Constitution Medal.
๔๗. เหรียà¸à¸žà¸´à¸—ัà¸à¸©à¹Œà¹€à¸ªà¸£à¸µà¸Šà¸™ ชั้นที่ ๒ ประเภทที่ ๒
Freeman Safeguarding Medal (Second Class, Second Category).
"The Defender of Freedom" medal.
The medal is founded by king the Frame IX in 1969. It was entrusted military and civil persons for display of courage in struggle against communistic insurgents, and also wound and the victim (posthumously) in operations on maintenance of safety of the country. Rushes on the left side of a breast.
The medal has two classes, and the medal of the second class has two degrees.
The medal of the first class is entrusted the persons who have lost (posthumously), critically wounded patients or proved in struggle against communistic insurgents.
The medal of the second class of the first degree was entrusted militarians and police grades, civil servants and simple citizens for oustanding service in dangerous conditions in struggle against communistic insurgents.
The medal of the second class of the second degree was entrusted militarians and police grades, civil servants and simple citizens for service in struggle against communistic insurgents.
The medal of dark color has the form of two squares put against each other (with displacement on 90 degrees). In the center the emblem of armed forces of Thailand is located.
The medal is attached to a red tape with eight white thin strips.
The medal of the first class has on a tape an ornament as two gold olive branch
The medal of the second class of the first degree has on a tape a gold ornament as the stylized image of explosion of a bomb.
The medal of the second class of the second degree has no any additions on a tape.
UNQUOTE