NavyFCO

Thank you. Please credit the family or his daughter, as I credited it.

Thanks for the clarification. Both of those photos were ones I posted on the web and both were "borrowed" for that website without my permission. The original photo of Col Wohner is the one that's in bad shape. I did the editing that is present on the photo in your book as well as the photos here on GMIC, WAF, and in my JOMSA article.

Just got your book and I think it's very good. I encourage people to buy a copy as it's a good reference value for the money. My only contention with the book is it would have been nice to have seen proper photo credits for several of the photos. This particular one, of John Wohner, came to me from the family. No one else has had the opportunity to scan or otherwise image this photo - it is a one-off portrait that I scanned at their house. In my JOMSA article, I credited the family for the photo. On here, I credited the family for the photo AND had a watermark on the photo, that appears to be removed. A simple "thank you" to me for posting the photo originally, or particularly, a "thank you" to the Wohner family would have been very nice since the photo has not been posted anywhere without attribution...except in your book. Even an "unknown source" or "posted on the GMIC forum" or "out of the JOMSA magazine" would have been a better credit than no credit at all. Is it a big deal? No. But should you give credit when writing? Absolutely.

Quite interesting! That's the second Army Medal of Honor recipient I know of who received a Soviet order. What's also interesting is that the version of Medal of Honor he's wearing was phased out (supposedly) before he earned his...but there you go...evidence to the contrary!

Thanks! Yes...I'm thinking V. A. Gittins, but it could be a variant of that, depending on how they transliterated it into Cyrillic. The Air Marshal above him was Sanders, who was a pretty famous leader in the RAF during the war. I haven't been able to find Gittins yet though... Also, I think he was a Squadron Leader by rank instead of Major (his equivalent in the Soviet Air Force). So, Squadron Leader V. A. Gittins... Well...that was an easy search! I wonder if this document was one of the three mentioned in the auction and was misplaced? And from the national library of Australia...

Fascinating! I didn't have record of the Royal Air Force recipients in my newspaper clippings for that Ukaz! Is there any way to see a scan of that entire page? Thank you so much!!!

Thanks Paul! That is super helpful!

All: As a non-collector of British awards (I stopped collecting them in 1996...) I'm pretty much hopeless when it comes to researching them. Case in point is this Military Medal named to 6850 PTE E. LAKE 25/NORTH'D FUS. From what I've gotten off Ancestry.com, he's entitled to this medal, and the BWM/VM pair (unfortunately the seller didn't have the latter). I'd love to find out what and or how he earned his Military Medal. I tried looking in the London Gazette, but nothing's there about it - or perhaps I missed it. Any help would be MOST appreciated! Dave

For a second, I thought this was one of my old groups! I'm totally away from making calls on medals (though they seem to be okay to my untrained eye) but the documents look okay to me. If you're confident in the medals being legit, then I think it's a nice group. I sold mine in 2006, so I have no clue of the current value, unfortunately.

Thanks guys! I truly do appreciate the assistance. I quite literally am clueless when it comes to anything Imperial German related. I collected TR at one time, but that was 30+ years ago, so even with that, I'm very rusty! I bought these in a bag of what I believed to be all WW2 to modern US military ribbons from the estate auction of a fellow who bought his militaria at local flea markets for about 50 years. I was quite surprised when I pulled these out of the bag! Luckily, I've been able to break even on my cost by selling the US ribbons in the bag, so these are pretty much "gravy" on top of that. Since there's some question on the bars, I'll post them up on eBay and let the bidders make their own decision(s) on them. If I can get maybe $5-$10 a bar, I'll be a very happy camper! Thanks again for your help, it is most appreciated! If you're ever looking for help with US or Soviet militaria, I'd be happy to reciprocate where I can! Dave

All: I'm pretty much 100% out of my area of knowledge when it comes to German stuff, particularly Imperial German. I just got these ribbon bars in a batch lot of ribbons. I can ID the WW2 ones for the most part, but the Imperial ones...aside from the Iron Cross (of course) I'm pretty much a loss at. My questions: are any of these ribbon bars "interesting" or unusual ones? Or are they all kind of common? I think the bigger Imperial one is pretty interesting with the devices...but that's just because I'm not familiar with them. Thanks in advance for any help! Dave

Hi Paul- Thanks! Any idea what his order book number is? That's the number that matches the one in the coupon book. Dave

Just got this off eBay. I was kind of surprised I was the only bidder, but whatever (not complaining!) I've seen many of these for US recipients, but this is the first to a British recipient I've ever encountered. The date and value of this coupon book matches that of a March 1944 awarding of four Orders of the Red Star to British merchant marine recipients: Captain John Black, Senior Officer (Engineering) John Mammery, Senior Officer John A. S. Cook, and First Officer (Engineering) V. L. L. Laurie (the names are transliterated from Cyrillic...they might actually be different). So this belonged to one of those four men. It would be awesome to find out who it belonged to of the four! It appears the coupons were used all the way through 1947 - until the Soviets discontinued the use of the award coupon pension. Thought you might all enjoy this! Dave

Prices on Red Banners have gone all over the place...I could see this selling as low as $200 or as high as $300. Hope that helps! Dave

I don't like how the gold looks on the award. Might just be the size I'm looking at the photo, but it seems that the gold was washed over some damage in the center of the medallion?