PKeating

Exactly! But one of the problems is that the guys who found them or who brokered them to dealers in Paris and London seem to have repainted a lot of the badges with the kind of gold paint used on picture frames. PK

The standard of finish of the Zimmermann crosses was quite high. PK

They didn't make one. Nor did they make the Minesweeper Badge. They made the following: Destroyer Badge High Seas Fleet Badge Auxiliary Cruiser Badge U-Boat Badge E-Boat Badge Coastal Artillery Badge They also produced buttons, summer tunic eagles and other bits and pieces. PK

It's absolutely original. PK

More than likely... The crosses in the special multiple sets given out after the campaigns of 1939 and 1940 were Godets. They also used the Imperial-style ovaloid ribbon loop. PK

Yes, indeed it is, Alex. However, you're fairly safe with Juncker crosses too because the factory was bombed to smithereens in December 1944 and there is nothing to suggest that the dies survived to be put to use after the war. Nothing wrong with being a novice or with asking valid questions like this! We were all novices once... PK

If the cross is not identical to the Zimmermann displayed here then forget about it. Godet and Zimmermann had a reciprocal agreement for Iron Cross manufacture and it is fairly safe to assume that Zimmermann produced the RK and EK1 supplied by Godet to the PKA. Had Godet produced these crosses, they would be very common today because of the reuse of Godet tooling and dies in the 1960s and 1970s. PK

Interesting. Josef Bucher - SS-Nr 276 204 - is listed elsewhere as an SS-Unterscharf?hrer with 3./SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Rgt 3 Born 20.11.1917 in Bayrischzell Died 10.5.1945 SS-Pz.Gr.AuE.Btl.2 in April 1945 as SS-Hauptsturmf?hrer 1./SS-Panzergrenadier-Rgt 5 in August 1944 as SS-Hstuf und Chef 10./SS-Panzergrenadier-Rgt 3 in February 1943 as SS-Ustuf (presumably promoted to SS-Ostuf there) 4./SS-Infanterie-Rgt 7 in November 1941 as SS-Ustuf 3./SS-Panzergrenadier-Rgt 3* in September 1939 as SS-Unterscharf?hrer I don't think the SS-VT had any panzergrenadier units in 1939 and he was commissioned in 1936 so perhaps this entry is an error due to postwar administration. PK

You won't usually get a reply from Arthus Bertrand in the rue de Rennes other than to refer you to their retail outlets. Their principal retail point for ODM and accessories is 6 Place Saint Germain des Pr?s, 75006 Paris Tel.: 33 (0) 1 49 54 72 10 Opening hours: Mon. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. and Tue. ? Sat. 10.15 a.m.-7 p.m. shopinfo@arthus-bertrand.fr More precisely, the ODM department can be contacted at decorations@arthus-bertrand.fr or by phone on +33 (0)1 6993 6993 There are people there who speak pretty good English. Don't mention that it's for a Vichy cross... Hope this helps, Paddy

I confirm Hendrik's report. I can walk across the road and buy an ordinary LdG (chevalier) in good condition for ?50-60.00 and a Maroc medal with Casablanca clasp for ?40-50.00. PK

Just saw this. Very glad to see you back, Bob! Got a nasty shock when I read Paul's post at the head of this topic. PK

As a fellow Dub, albeit ex-pat, it is great to see Ireland's small but active community of students, historians and collectors "coming out of the woodwork". Welcome Paul! And a very interesting post too! Small differences in external dimensions and weight can often be attributed to hand-finishing, even in pieces emanating from the same mint or medallist, particularly back then. I think the problem with this piece was its marked difference in size, suggesting a casting from an original. I am sure that there are plenty of pikeys in Ireland with the requisite skills to make convincing cast fakes for people who have never seen an original example of this very, very rare medal. PK

Stunning! I did look at a couple of DSC listings when composing my response and my eyes lingered on Baer, I must say. There again, this wonderful tunic bears Captain's bars. Did Baer make Captain? I suppose he might have been upshifted a rank when he left the service. I looked at Everett Cook too. However, Cook was born in Indiana but his residence is given as Memphis, Tennessee. Mind you, he was only 24 in 1918 and his family must have been in Indiana so his home town after the war could be irrelevant. He served with the 91st Aero Squadron and got the DSC for "...extraordinary heroism in action near Damvillers, France, September 26, 1918. While on a photographic mission in the vicinity of Damvillers which necessitated a penetration of 20 kilometers within the enemy lines, Captain Cook was attacked by seven enemy pursuit planes, and his plane was riddled with bullets. In spite of the attack he continued on his mission, turning only for our lines when his observer had secured photographs of great military value. In the combat one enemy aircraft was destroyed." The uniform appears to have been worn in the 1930s if the Croix du Combattant ribbon is any indication. Other Indiana USAS DSC winners include: 1st Lt Edward Harold Greist, 3d Observation Group, for actions on 1.11.1918. 2nd Lt John W Jordan, 88th Aero Squadron (11.8.1918). 1st Lt George R Nixon, who was a balloonist. 1st Lt Karl Joseph Schoen, 139th Aero Squadron (10.10.1918) Other USAS DSC winners from Indiana include: Harvey Weir Cook, Kenneth Smith Clapp, George C. Carroll, Glen A. Preston, George E. Goldthwaite, Kenneth H. Holden, Burdette S. Wright and Thomas G. Cassady. Capt Harvey Weir Cook joined the USAS in 1917 and served with the 94th Aero Squadron, ending the war with seven victories, including four balloons. Many of the 94th's pilots had come through the Lafayette Flying Circus system. Was Cook breveted by the French or the Americans? He was killed as a Lieutenant-Colonel when his P39 Airacobra crashed in New Caledonia in WW2. 2nd Lt Clapp served with 27th Aero Squadron, 1st Pursuit Group. 1st Lt Carroll was a balloonist. 2nd Lt Preston was an artillery officer on attachment to 99th Aero Squadron as an Observer. Unlikely. 1st Lt Goldthwaite served as a pilot with 24th Observation Squadron. Now, he is listed with one aerial victory on 5.11.1918. This would tie in with the single palm. 1st Lt Holden served with 12th Aero Squadron and originally came from Michigan but lived in Indiana. 1st Lt Wright was an Observer with 12th Aero Squadron. He was a Vice-President amd General Manager of the Airplane Division of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation in the 1930s and during WW2. The company had a contract to supply a hundred P40B fighters to the French Air Force just before WW2. The Free French air force flew Curtiss-Wright CW-21 planes. Could Burdette Wright have been promoted to Officier de la L?gion d'Honneur through this connection? 1st Lt Cassady served with 28th Aero Squadron. Anyway, food for thought, perhaps. PK

The L?gion d'Honneur would have been bestowed on a foreign pilot of singular distinction who would normally, though not necessarily, have received a valour award of some kind from his own government. However, it could also have been bestowed upon an American who served with the French armed forces and who never received an American award. This would suggest the Escadrille Lafayette, formed on 16.4.1916 and disbanded on 18.2.1918. It shouldn't be too hard to find any Indiana-born members as just thirty-eight pilots served in the squadron. Nine of them were killed in action, narrowing it down to under thirty. There again, 209 Americans received French pilots' brevets through the Lafayette Flying Corps training programme, of whom around 180 actually flew combat missions with French squadrons prior to America's entry into the war. Many continued serving with French squadrons despite pressure to transfer to the newly formed US Air Service. Sixty-five of the Lafayette Flying Corps "graduates" were killed in action, so you have around 115 possibles. Just thirteen of them were recognised as aces, which narrows it down a bit more as your man received the Croix de Guerre avec Palme, which means that he was mentioned somewhere in an Army level dispatch. Of course, there are also the flyers of the 49th, 94th and 95th Aero Squadrons, as well as some of the other flying units created before the cessation of hostilities. But this man would appear to have flown in a French unit or a unit under French command. This might explain why he got the Croix du Combattant years later. It is unusual but not unheard-of for foreigners to receive the Croix du Combattant, particularly when they have served in a French unit or a unit under French command. A friend of mine, Peter Churchill, served with No4 Commando in 1944/45 and as this was essentially an FFL unit, he received a chestful of French medals and awards, including the 1939-1945 Croix du Combattant, along with his British campaign medals. Regarding his L?gion d'Honneur, I would suggest that he was promoted to Officer within the order some years after the war. To pass to Officier, one must first be named Chevalier. Eddie Rickenbacker was appointed Chevalier de la L?gion d'Honneur. So I imagine that your man ended WW1 as a Chevalier. It usually takes a minimum of five years or so of dogged service or usefulness to the state or one's profession - whatever - to climb a grade. So, given that your man received a Croix du Combattant in the 1930s, perhaps we could work on the assumption that he maintained links of some kind with France and was promoted to Officier de la L?gion d'Honneur some years after the Great War. This probably brings you no closer to your goal and maybe I'm teaching you to suck eggs, as it were, but it should at least provide you with a starting point. You could try getting in touch with Charles Woolley, who wrote Echoes of Eagles, with Bill Crawford, about the 95th Aero Squadron - The Kicking Mules - and whose father flew with the 95th. If you don't have any means of doing so, drop me an e-mail and I'll put you in touch with Charlie. If he cannot turn up a 95th Aero Squadron candidate - here's a squadron roster: http://www.us95th.org/history_roster.html[/url - then he might be able to pass you onto someone who could help you. After all, he spent forty years researching the history of American pilots on France in WW1! Hope this helps in some way. PK

That's absolutely what it says, Tony. This chap received what is commonly known as a Quartermaster's Commission. PK

Thanks, Simon! PK

I'll have to visit the monument to the 1er DBCCP men the next time I'm in Meucon. I wonder where exactly it is. PK

Looking forward to seeing this WP. The scanner will "change your life"! I have scanned many of my documents and paybooks and can enjoy looking through the files of high res repros while the sometimes fragile originals rest in the safe. Means other people can look at them too, for research and reference purposes without compromising the old paper. PK

One similar British insider humour gag comes to mind in the case of a airlanding brigade in the 1960s whose flash was identical to the normal maroon and blue Pegasus airborne forces flash but with a yellow Pegasus on a blue background. It was known as the "Yellow Donkey". Oddly enough, I landed at Meucon recently when my pal and I flew his 1955 Cessna to Brittany. I didn't know it was an airborne training establishment. Can the Brevet be attributed to an soldier through the issue number? PK

Can you post scans of the pages in question? If you have them but are unsure about posting here, we'll happily help you. It would also make sense to record a man's swimming abilities. It would be interesting to find that he qualified for both badges but wouldn't a Reiterabzeichen be entered as just that: Reiterabzeichen? It's a bit like the Kraftfahrbew?hrungsabzeichen, which you can see on this awards page. The KBA was a military award but I would have thought that the Reiterabzeichen as awarded to a soldier would count too, given that it was worn on uniform tunics by recipients. PK

Absolutely. The German Army relied heavily on horsepower and requisitioned horses in various theatres, especially the East. So a man who could ride a horse could be very useful when, for instance, the cooks needed to replace or obtain more horses for hauling their wagons. A commander would send the unit's riders off out into the countryside to bring back horses, donkeys or mules. PK

In the end, I think Raymond did the decent thing by her. The man to tell us would be Chris Ailsby, aka here as Warlord. He knew more of the story than I did. I saw the documents and I saw some diamond-studded awards presented as Rudel's. However, I do not recall the awards I saw being displayed publicly. But I do remember the documents. PK

One story has it that they were stolen from Rudel sometime after his surrender by a British military policeman and found their way into porn king Paul Raymond's war museum in London in the early 1980s. They were then the subject of a lawsuit in the High Court as Rudel's widow sued for their return. Return was refused because, one suspects, the judge was pressurised into finding against the plaintiff for fear of creating a precedent that could well have emptied Britain's museums! As the story goes, Raymond subsequently did the decent thing by the widow and the medals found their way back to the Rudel family. Rudel surrendered to US forces and while they took his medals and even his false leg, he appealed to the CO of the unit holding him and and his men and got his medals back. He was described as having them with him when he left the custody of the unit in question. PK

Another portrait of Rudel in all his finery.

Why not name and shame here? For my own part, I come here for the peace and quiet. For an explanation of that, read the above two posts. They only touch on the tip of the iceberg. Bent dealers have often been named. There is a whole section devoted to bent dealers on one forum website. They do not sue! They know that if push really came to shove in a legal battle, they would lose. I suppose that one might be open to legal action in theory but in practice, it is extremely hard to take legal action over something written and published on the internet, particularly if one does happen to be a militaria dealer with a rather doubtful reputation. I was threatened a couple of times with legal action. In one case, the proverbial $100 letter was received by the ISP who passed it on. It ended up scanned and posted in the offending thread, causing general hilarity. As for the original, I put it to appropriate use, carefully refolded it and sent it back to the attorney. He was in Catsfart, New Jersey and I was in France. What was he really going to do? Especially as what I had written about his "client" was pretty well-documented. Had I been in NJ or even in the US, he might have had a case for sending a noxious substance through the mail. There again, I am not daft: I would have sprung for Fedex just for the satisfaction of it. One of the things that often makes me grin is the spectacle of idiots falling out on the internet and threatening legal action. These clowns are usually using ridiculous pseudonyms. Now, as one lawyer explained to me, if I threaten to beat up or kill "SS-General" or "Dickiewaver" because they have insulted me for dissing their guru dealer and their Friday worship patterns, I am not guilty of anything at all because these people do not legally exist, as such. They do not use their real names. Interesting legal point. Of course, were I to find out who they really were and harm them, I would be guilty of assault or murder. But making a threat on the internet to someone whose real identity is unknown is a bit of non-starter in terms of lodging a complaint with the FBI, as these idiots os often threaten. The other amusing one is when a dealer or an eBay shark threatens to sue for copyright infringement if the images of whatever fake they happen to be peddling are used to illustrate a thread warning people about such fakes. In fact, the dealer who used the "Dangermouse" handle to which Colin refers tried this ploy at one point. He started plastering copyright notices across his images. Fine! I put copyright notices on images from his website downloaded before this, just to wind him up, and went into overdrive. It comes under "Fair Use", you see. One can also argue that images used to promote goods for retail purposes are in the public domain, as long as you don't profit financially from reusing them. Anyway, naming and shaming certainly happens and there really are no legal ramifications, as long as one observes basic rules of engagement by keeping to the facts, exercising care in how one phrases things and avoiding common abuse etc etc... PK