PKeating

When the surrendered men of the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteer Force - collectively described as the IRA - were marched away from the GPO and other strongholds like Boland's Bakery, they had to be protected by their guards from a furious mob of Dubliners, many of them wives of men serving on the Western Front. Ironically, many of the 20,000 British soldiers mobilised to put down the Rising were themselves Irishmen and had served in the IVF until their founding leader, John Redmond, the chief advocate of Home Rule, had encouraged them to enlist in the British Army. Of 150,000 Irish Volunteers in 1914, just 11,000 were left by 1916. Less than 2,000 IVF and ICA men are reckoned to have been actively involved in the Rising. Irish public opinion in general was against any armed uprising. Even the leading Irish nationalist broadsheet, the Irish Independent called for the execution of leaders and key players in the revolution. However, British politicians like Lloyd George and Asquith were unconvinced that having the leaders tried under military law was a good idea but allowed the courts martial to go ahead anyway. It was a decision they would regret as the extent of public revulsion in Britain and Ireland at the executions became clear. The appalling circumstances of the execution on 12.5.1916 of James Connolly really tipped the scales and Asquith's government ordered a halt to the executions and further ordered that remaining cases be tried in civilian rather than military courts. Connolly had a gangrenous leg caused by neglect in prison of the wound he had sustained in the GPO and was feverish and delirious when pulled from his deathbed, dragged to the yard, tied to a chair and shot. Some say that the order to fire had to repeated to the members of the firing squad. As a footnote, Sir Roger Casement, the Irish-born former British diplomat who had exposed Belgian excesses in the Congo and who had travelled to Germany in 1915 to try to recruit Irish POWs to a German-backed Irish Legion was hanged for high treason on 3.8.1916 in London, having organised an arms shipment to the rebels from Germany. However, Casement had made his opposition to the Easter Rising very clear, feeling that without direct German aid, it was a doomed enterprise. In the end, though, as a man of honour, he followed the shipment of 20,000 rifles with ammunition to Kerry, being landed from a U-Boot, and was quickly captured. The ship carrying the arms was intercepted by the Royal Navy and scuttled by its captain. The Easter Rising was heroic and well-executed, in Dublin at any rate. However, it was doomed to failure and one could say of its leaders that they were criminally reckless in going ahead with it. On the other hand, the public relations catastrophe provoked by the executions of the rebel leaders and others served to polarise Irish popular sentiment, hitherto unsympathetic to armed rebellion, generating a wave of sympathy for Ireland's 'glorious martyrs' and revulsion for 'cruel Britannia'. It was the beginning of the end of the British Empire, although Ireland would not become a republic until 1948 and is still not quite 'free', depending, of course, on how one views things. PK

To the best of my knowledge and that of people who actually spent time talking with veterans of Heer balloon observation units, no veteran of any balloon observer unit ever recalled being awarded one of these badges or seeing anyone else wearing one. Given the extremely hazardous nature of the job, the fact that these men considered themselves an ?lite and the additional consideration that being 'bounced' by enemy aircraft or having the balloon hit by enemy fire meant that one had to parachute from the balloon cage - a frightening experience, I can tell you, as one who has jumped from balloons quite a few times! - it is reasonable to conclude that such a badge would have merited an award ceremony and such a ceremony would have been recorded on film. Yet we have no photographic records nor any veteran-sourced testimony supporting the assertions by various dealers that these badges were awarded and worn by balloonists. I do not think the situation is likely to change, no matter how many attempts are made to change it with the help of Adobe Photoshop or faked-up documents. PK

That mark looks like the SBW cloverleaf mark applied as a spoof BSW trademark to cast but good quality copies - not intended to deceive - of all sorts of badges made around twenty-five years ago by the Londoner Sean Barry Weske, who now lives in California. The hinge and pin assembly suggest an early Sean Barry copy, before he bought in and began to use the type encountered on 1957-pattern official reissue badges. I could be wrong but that is what this badge resembles as far as I am concerned. Of course, this is not a "copy" as such, because the Seekampfabzeichen was not actually produced. PK

Daniel, I replied to your PM. PK

Ah yes, forgot about Hozier. Quite a character by various accounts! His group was discussed somewhere quite recently, if memory serves me correctly. Here is another reference to Englishmen getting the Iron Cross: This is from an article by Jason Pipes on his Feldgrau website. I have not seen the book in question. Does anyone know if this book is regarded as a credible unit history or not? Has anyone read the book? PK

Thanks Gerd! I don't think he was the first Englishman to receive the EK, as this account states. I believe that the EK was awarded to at least one other Englishman, in the war of 1870, a military surgeon attached to the Prussian Army. Regarding Chapman: Nasty! PK

Oh, no problem. On another tack, wasn't the double-agent Eddy Chapman supposed to have been awarded a KVK2 or something? Anyone? PK

Ah, no, I didn't say that any British Free Corps men were killed in action. Brady and Stringer were Irishmen who served with SS-J?ger-Btl 502, which became SS-Jagdverband "Mitte". This unit was part of Otto Skorzeny's Friedenthal organisation and had nothing to do with the BFC. Stringer was reported KIA on the Oder Front. PK

My fellow Dubliner Paddywhack is referring to James Brady, who took part in the Battle of Berlin but survived to be court-martialled, as a former British soldier, and jailed. His mate, Frank Stringer, was indeed killed in action but in the Schwedt bridgehead on the Oder Front. Brady and Stringer were Royal Irish Fusilier soldiers. Born in Roscommon in 1920, Brady (Army Number 7043207) joined up in 1938. Their battalion was posted to Guernsey in May 1939 and he and his mate Stringer got into serious trouble the following month when they got drunk and beat up a policeman. Brady got eighteen months and Stringer twenty-one months. They must have nearly killed the copper. When war broke out, they petitioned to be allowed to rejoin their regiment but appear to have been ignored so they were obviously considered to be "a right pair". The Germans landed and Brady and Stringer became POWs. They were recruited in 1941 by the Germans to work against the British. To cut the story short, they ended up enlisting in the Waffen-SS in the late summer of 1943, according to Brady's pre-trial statement. Following training, they were sent to J?gerbataillon 502, which became SS-Jagdverband "Mitte". After three weeks in Romania in August 1944 blowing up bridges, their initial training with the Germans having been demolitions-oriented, they took part in the arrest of Admiral Horthy by Skorzeny in Budapest. Both men went with "Miite" to the Oder Front in January 1945. Stringer doesn't appear to have made it out of the Schwedt Bridgehead, according to James Brady's account. Brady and Stringer served in SS-Jagdverband "Mitte" and fought in the Schwedt Bridgehead on the Oder Front. Brady then fought at Oderberg, where he was wounded and evacuated to Grunau, just outside Berlin. As the Soviets moved on Grunau, Brady and other walking wounded were taken into the city. Brady was again wounded. After the capitulation, Brady got out of hospital and made for for the American Zone, reaching it on 26.6.1945. He eventually turned himself into the British in Berlin in September 1946. There was also an attempt by Sir Roger Casement to form an Irish Legion in Germany during WW1. Casement had gone to Germany late in 1915 to organise both the arms shipments for the planned Easter Week uprising and the recruitment of this Irish Legion. In the end, the Irish Legion came to nothing as the handful of recruits were of a very low order indeed. In fact, many of them were consumptive. Casement tried to advise the rebels in Dublin to call off the uprising but was ignored and the rest, as they say, is history. Hitler was never very interested in proposals for an Irish Waffen-SS unit. While he and his henchmen considered the Irish, and Celts in general, to be highly suitable for interbreeding purposes from an Aryan viewpoint, he throught the IRA was a bit of a joke by then and not as much cooperation occurred between hardline Republicans and the Nazi government as Pinewood, Hollywood and authors like Jack Higgins would have people believe. In any case, the Nazis' plans for the island of Ireland would have precluded the Irish nation remaining there: they planned, I believe, to 'absorb' those Irish deemed racially valuable into the Germanic Nation and to turn the whole place into one massive 'reception centre' for Europe's flotsam and jetsam. That madness aside, it wasn't lost on Hitler, on a more prosaic level, that German aircrew downed in the Irish Free State were interned while Allied aircrew tended to turn up in Ulster, thereby escaping internment. Contrary to what some people like to say about Ireland and the Nazis in WW2, the Dublin government was by no means pro-Nazi. Nor were Irish people: roughly a third of combat personnel in the British armed forces during WW2 were volunteers from neutral Ireland, which rather puts the SS-Jagdverband Mitte's two delinquents in their proper perspective... PK

A better view of the Type 1 "extended talon" FSA (Heer) by C E Juncker, the only known factory-engraved aluminium version. Clearly Obergefreiter Sell couldn't or wouldn't extend to an engraved 800 silver private purchase badge. This is the badge that illustrates the cover of Eric Queen's book on the Heer FJ, Red Shines The Sun, published by Roger Bender. The FIK/FIB became part of the Luftwaffe as II./Fallschirmj?ger-Regiment 1 on 1.1.1939 and former Fallschirm-Infanterie Kompanie/Bataillon men wore their Heer badges throughout the war, despite being issued with LW versions in 1943. PK

Not strictly Luftwaffe although the prewar ones were worn by former Heer paras in the Luftwaffe. The three basic types of issue Heer FSA: (L-R) Type 1 and Type 2b (1937/38) in aluminium and Type 3 (1943/44) in feinzink. PK

Nice photo. Note the field stand attached the the top rail of the rear sub-frame, a feature of military-spec M20s. Here are members of I./Fallschirmj?ger-Rgt 2 with a captured BSA M20 after their victory on Leros on 17.11.1943. PK

His EK1 document is signed by Hans Geisler, who commanded X. Fliegerkorps from October 1939 to August 1942. The Black Wound Badge document signature looks like ?von Benda?. Franz von Benda was CO from June to December 1942., taking over from Friedrich Karl Knust, who commanded LG1 from October 1940 to June 1942. The Frontflug Spange in Gold mit Anhanger document is signed by Hans-Werner Freiherr von Buchholtz, who took over from von Benda, commanding LG1 until 2.8.1943. PK

I understand your point entirely. We've had things nicked or lifted or plagiarised and it is annoying! However, I do not think that anyone here has been out of line in the manner in which they have discussed this object. Moreover, the image is in the public domain. If it is a fake or typical of a series of fakes, it is surely a good thing if people are appraised of this so that they do not buy something like this, isn't it? Why would the owner wish to keep it quiet? He will surely be able to get his money back. It is not as if he wishes to hide the fact that it has been condemned as questionable by some people in order to sell it on, is it?

IP? I don't think that is a problem, Rick. Once something like that is posted on any public or commercial forum, old chap, it can be reproduced on another forum as long as its publication falls within the parameters of "fair usage". In fact, even if it has not previously been published anywhere, "fair usage" applies so there is no need for you to worry about the feelings of the owner of this piece. PK

This is GMIC, not WAF. The item has been proposed for discussion and it has been discussed in a civilised manner so why delete the thread? That's pretty disrespectful to the people who have taken the trouble to explore possibilities, Rick. Ground Hog Day... PK

I think you will find that any full time SS service counted towards an SS LS award, although they were suspended when the war began in earnest. The wearer would have been a combattant in WW1. He then serves in WW2, winning the EK2 and qualifying for the Winter War Medal, which places him in Russia in 1941/42. In addition, he was with the armed forces in the late 1930s, as the Flower War Medals show. The Army LS Medals show eight years' service. He then picks up a War Merit Medal and a West Wall Medal. On the face of it, the SS LS Medal doesn't fit. Were there an LS Cross hanging there, it would be more believable. One could envision a WW1 veteran who went on to serve in the Reichsheer and then the Heer, participating in the Austrian and Czechoslovak annexations and the seizure of Prague and then in Russia, picking up the EK2 along the way. The West Wall Medal could either be for garrison service on the Western Defences or for some kind of qualifying work as a civilian after leaving the army following service in Russia. This would explain the War Merit Medal, which is really a civilian award. Let's say that he was a twenty-five year career soldier. He enlists in 1918, sees action before the end, earning the Hindenburg Cross in 1934, and retires in 1943, moving into defence-related work in a civilian or party/paramilitary capacity. However, who is to say that he did not transfer into the SS-VT or one of those units as, say, one of the experienced regular army NCOs or Officers brought in by Hausser and Steiner to train the fledgling SS-VT? Who is to say that he was not with the Allgemeine-SS before 1933, thereby racking up enough points to get the 8-Year medal? Kampfzeit service counted, I think, as double time towards an SS LS award, which is how some members were able to qualify for the 25 Year cross. Unlikely as this bar seems, it is just possible that a man could acquire these awards. Hope this helps, Darrell. Regards, PK

I never knew that. Thanks, John. It is very clear: same artwork, different dies. In other words, this is an extremely scarce badge. PK

What a lovely badge, Eric! Interesting to see that Juncker sourced the eagle for this badge from Assmann. One sees this kind of thing from time to time. P

An amazing group! Interesting to see an Assmann eagle with C E Juncker's hallmark, indicating that they must have sourced the eagles from Assmann for the batch from which this badge came. http://www.majorplm.com/collections/Coll-G...smann-Ivan.html I wanted to link to the images you'll find by following the above link but no links to "dynamic pages" allowed. Thanks for showing us this group. Paratrooper Number 43! You lucky man, Eric! Rare to have the Prague Bar to a Para too. PK

It is amusing that the museum in Berlin still insists that "von der Schulenburg's bullet-holed Ritterkreuz" is the real thing. They obtained the von der Schulenburg group from a dealer in 1989. There have been several discussions on the WAF about this cross. One thing I said at the time was this: I might add, the fact that the cross is a known fake aside, that I find it hard to believe that von der Schulenburg's unit would return such a grim memento to the family. I know of one case where a bloodsoaked soldbuch was sent back to the soldier's mother but as a general rule, no adjutant or clerk would have sent anything covered in blood or bearing the marks of a fatal wound back to a dead soldier's family. This is why, for example, so many KIA soldbucher coming out of families are duplicates. An American collector friend - also a well-established author - received a file of expensively-shot photographs of the medals and badges around the time the cross was spotlighted as a fake. This would have been about three years ago. Being more into Imperial stuff, he showed me the file and I was able to explain to him why the cross could not have belonged to the late von der Schulenburg. I think I saved him a lot of money because he was angling to buy the group in, of course, a "discreet" deal. I think the sale was attempted after the cross had been discussed on an internet forum and exposed as a fake. I have always wondered from which dealer they got the von der Schulenburg group... PK

That's a very interesting photo. The first Parachute Company of the Royal Romanian Airforce was formed on 10.6.1941, with second and third companies formed in 1942 and 1943 respectively. The 3rd Company was the heavy weapons or support company. In 1943, the 4th Parachute Battalion was formed, comprising these three airborne companies, numbered 8, 9 and 10. In 1943, the 4th Parachute Bn received M38/40 FJ helmets, MP40s and related equipment, like the pouches in the photo. The Reconnaissance Platoon were issued with Zundapp KS 600 OHV motorcycles, a machine even the Wehrmacht had trouble acquiring. Interestingly, the Romanian paras jumped Irvin 'chutes, like the British, made under licence in Romania. However, from 1943, they may have used German-made RZ 'chutes. By October 1943, there were just 215 jump-trained battalion members. Field-Marshall Antonescu ordered that the battalion be expanded to a regimental strength of around 2,850. By 23.8.1944, with the Soviets at the gates of Bucharest, the 4th Bn was the only operational sub-unit of the regiment, with 861 fully-trained paratroopers and it took part in the fighting around the city. As for German airborne units in Romania, two companies of Fallschirmj?ger-Btl "Brandenburg" participated in the ill-fated Relief of Bucharest in August 1944, where the German garrison was encircled by pro-Soviet Romanian forces. A spearhead group took control of Otopeni airport at midday on 24.8.1944 and held it until 19:00 hrs, when their comrades were airlanded. I believe that elements of the SS-Jagdverb?nde were involved too although these were not airborne units as such. By 21:00 hrs on 24.8.1944, the encircled German-held areas and HQ were under under German control again and the Romanians promised to allow the German troops to withdraw peacefully to the Yugoslav frontier. However, the Romanians reneged on their promises on 1.9.1944 and allowed the Soviet Army to move against the retreating column. The ORBAT of Fallschirmj?ger-Btl "Brandenburg" was halved in one go as a result and few of any of the Brandenburgers taken prisoner by the Reds ever saw their homelands again. The Romanian Parachute Regiment was ordered disbanded by the country's new masters in February 1945 because the Soviets viewed the Romanian paras as hostile to the new order. PK (Source for info on Romanian airborne forces : http://www.worldwar2.ro/organizare/?article=26)

Sorry, wrong forum. P

Classic example from 1942 to airborne gunner with 7. Fliegerdivision. Rubber stamped Heidrich signature.

The FP Nr L 60068 was used at that time by Stab.u.Eihneit-Fallsch.Pz.J?ger-Abt.5 and L 57957 was used by 1.Kp.20.Mar.Bordflak-Abtl, assuming that I read "57957" correctly. PK