Carol I

I'm glad that I was able to help you because communist awards are outside my area of interest and I do not know all the details. Dragoş (dragos03) is much more knowledgeable in this respect.

Apparently they were awarded "to those persons who through their fight and political, social, cultural and scientific activity have contributed towards the development of the socialist order and the achievement of national freedom and independence".

Kevin has posted a nice review on the Romanian Victory Medal. See THE ROMANIAN INTER-ALLIED VICTORY MEDAL OF WW1 in Central & Eastern European States.

Nice badge, but it is from the later part of the communist period. The current badges of the Order of the Star of Romania are inspired from those existing in the 1930s and 1940s.

It seems that there are several types of cases for this order. Here is an image of a red case with right angle corners (as opposed to the light brown cases above with rounded corners).

Christian, I doubt L?hr has been Romanian. On one hand his name is not typical Romanian. On the other, he chose and built a career in the Austrian Army which alone might suggest a German ancestry. The simple fact that he was born in Romania does not have any relevance, because following the same line of thought, King Milan Obrenović of Serbia had been a Romanian as he was born in Mărăşeşti.

It was no correction Gerd, but only pointing out the differences. Besides the colours there are also differences in the shape of the metal pencil.

The colours of the fourragere seem to be red and green. None of the Romanian fourrageres had green in them according to the book by Safta et al on Romanian war decorations.

On the reverse is written "Plovdiv" which is a city in Bulgaria, so probably the medal is Bulgarian as well.

On 7 February 2007 Dumitru Prunariu retired by decree of the President of Romania.

Program badge

Flight badge

A while ago, while surfing on the net I came upon the page below with several photos taken on the border. Some uniforms are visible. And one of the photos is a close-up of a ribbon bar (for those interested). North Korea (DPRK) - Keson. 38-th parallel. Border.

Congratulations, your turn now! Actually it is said that the crash of his 1910 jet was caused by a combination of factors. The hot exhaust gases started sticking to the surfaces of his wooden airplane due to the later-named Coandă Effect and eventually set to the plane was one of them. The other was that Coandă himself was too caught up in studying the phenomenon to properly land the plane (I think the legend also says that he did not have a pilot licence at that time, but I cannot find any reference for this). Here is an image of the hall where this material is said to have been used.

You are on the right track, but the aeronautic industry in Romania started much earlier so you have to think much earlier. However, it is true that the gentleman in question gave it a big push in the communist time. One more hint: a patent of his is very much used for increasing manoeuvrability in modern fighters.

I think I have a new one, simple I hope. Who is the man in the photo below? He was an aeronautical engineer and inventor with a rather succesful career in the West who at the end of his career chose to move and work in an Eastern Block country.

I was afraid that it would turn out this way. I feel like I am stealing the wind of the more knowledgeable members of this section as soviet history is not high among my interests. I will try to come up with something by this evening, but it becomes tougher and tougher...

The first idea that came to my mind was "tanks produced at the Kirov Factory", but I guessed that it was not quite the answer Belaruski wanted. However, a subsequent search showed that during the Winter War the Soviets have used an SMK (Sergei M Kirov) tank protoype on the Mannerheim Line. I hope I am not right.

I have found out that the unknown badge in question is that of the clerical Order of St. Cyril and Methodius established in 1904 by the Roman Catholic Church in Bulgaria. The order has not been disbanded after the establishment of the state order with the same name, but the church had ceased to award it to avoid confusions. If you think this off topic discussion is interesting enough to have its own thread, please move messages #77-82 & #92 into Central & Eastern European States. Thanks.

Then this must be the reason. Thanks Mike.

Thanks Dave, but what I meant to say is that although the "Download PDF" option does appear on the page, when clicking on it only a blank page appears. I suspect that the "Download PDF" button is not linked directly to the PDF file and thus it might get out of proxify's settings.

Thanks, Mike. I gave it a try with https://proxify.com/ and it is possible to read them page-by-page (no download though).

I think I may have an explanation as to why Lt. col. Chiriţescu is wearing fourrageres, but not the other officers in the picture. During WWI Chiriţescu had been a lieutenant in the 30th Infantry Regiment Muscel. Both he and his unit were awarded the Order of Michael the Brave in 1917. Then, as the certificate in post #15 shows (and the photo with the writing on his hat), in the 1930s Chiriţescu was an officer in the 23rd Infantry Regiment Ialomiţa. I would guess that this latter unit has not received any awards during the war and hence that its other officers were not entitled to wear fourrageres. If this is true, then the photo also shows that it was customary for officers to wear fourrageres even after they had left the units that received the awards. This makes some sense as the fourragere was supposed to be a sign of the officer's contribution to the feats of the decorated units.

Thanks Dave for the links, they seem quite interesting. However they appear to be unreachable for the European users (see in Austro-Hungarian Military History ? Research Resources as well). Can this be solved from the settings of the browser?

Same for me. If this is the behaviour for the default European settings, is there any way to find the proper settings for the browser?