hucks216

Unfortunately I have not been able to positively identify the signature of the Company Cdr on the Eastern Front Medal citation.

The Infantry Assault Badge In Bronze citation is signed by Oberst Kohler. He would be killed in action in December 1942 during the bitter and heavy fighting in the Luchesa Valley while commanding a GD Kampfgruppe.

Next up we have his Wound Badge In Black citation signed by Oberstleutnant Foellmer of GD's Replacement Btl organisation. He was originally the commanding officer of Infantry Ers.Btl 99 (mot.) in 1940 that acted as a replacement unit for GD before & during the French Campaign in 1940 and was eventually absorbed into Grossdeutschland.

This is a more recent addition to the collection then the Pz.Rgt GD Officers citation grouping and one of my favourite acquisitions of the year. The grouping consists of 4 citations, a wound tag, insignia and a handful of photos for a soldier who served as a Sturmboot Pionier in Infantry Rgt Grossdeutschland and stayed with that unit all through its various reorganisations, eventually being evacuated from the East in April 1945 as a member of Pz.Pi.Btl GD due to injury. I was thrilled to get this set as the EK II citation bears the very rarely seen signature of Grossdeutschland's first official commander - Oberst/Generalmajor Wilhelm-Hunald von Stockhausen.

It certainly has that 'been there' look to it. Lovely item.

And the EK I citation bearing the seemingly obligatory GD signature of Generalleutnant Walter Hoernlein. Major Fischer's Soldbuch, Driving Instructors Licenses and post-war papers reside in another collection and the owner has kindly shared the scans of them with me (as I have done likewise with these citations) and from the Soldbuch it shows that after leaving GD Major Fischer went on to serve with GD's replacement organisation at Cottbus and also with Technische-Lehrgruppe Panzer-Lehrgaenge 'Tiger'.

And while with Grossdeutschland he also won the EK I. This notification is signed by a currently unidentified Adjutant.

As a major he was then reassigned and this took him to the Panzer Regiment for the Grossdeutschland Panzer-Grenadier Division where he received the Panzer Assault Badge In Silver with the citation bearing the signature of the famed 'Panzer Count', Oberst Hyazinth Graf von Strachwitz.

He was then promoted to Major (Ing) in September 1942 and this citation bears the counter-signature of Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel.

Following on from that we now have his EK II citation which he received while serving with Pz.Rgt 203 and this is my particular favourite of the group as it bears the rarely seen hand signed version of General Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt's signature. His signature is more usually seen as a facsimile on the citations for the Demjanskschild .

Next we have his KvK II Kl mit Schwertern citation awarded in 1941 while he was with Pz.Jag.Abt 27 (17 Pz.Div) and is signed by Generalleutnant Hans-Jurgen von Arnim.

Thought that I would share this large grouping that has been in my collection for a while now. It consists of 6 citations & one note for a Hauptmann/Major who served with Pz.Rgt 203 and then Pz.Rgt Grossdeutschland. What I particularly liked about this group and was one of the main reasons for buying it is that it contains a whole host of renowned hand signed signatures, including one that is rarely seen unless it is the facsimile version. To start we have his promotion citation for promotion to Hauptmann in 1939 and is signed by Generalfeldmarschall von Brauchitsch.

For Cholm he was serving with Jagdkommando 8 (as shown in the first entry in Section C on Pg 4) rather than Jager Btl 8 although the latter was formed from the first 4 Kompanies of the former later in 1942. You can see the OOB (which shows Jagdkdo 8) listed for XXXIX AK in the entry dated 22nd January 1942.... http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gliederungen/Korps/XXXIXKorps.htm

I don't think that is entirely true. I know absolutely nothing on this subject but there were plenty of hammer & sickle/red star insignia to be seen when I was aboard a Russian destroyer in 2006. Even the cap a member of the crew gave me (see above) still retains the red star with hammer & sickle insignia.

Thank you for that Gordon. I got that one from a sailor on a Sovremenny class destroyer in 1993.

Very nice grouping - it seems quite common for Kriegsmarine citations to have the man's unit pencilled in near the top, as seen by the marking of U-66 just under the writing at the top. Very thoughtful of them! Also interesting to think that just 2 months after signing the EK citation Lutjens would be at sea on the Bismarck.

Pity it is such a wide ranging entry. The P-47 & P-51 did carry rockets (I believe 3 under each wing), as did the Typhoon with 4 under each wing (and sometimes 6).

Possible interesting date on the Wound Badge citation. Is there any mention on the Lazarett pages of the soldbuch to show what his injury was? I'm just curious as the date on the citation for the mans wounding is 23rd December 1944 and I believe this was the first day of clear skies since the start of the German offensive which allowed the Allied aircraft to take off and play a part so I was just wondering if he was wounded by some form of air attack.(I've also posted this question on GCA for the Wound Badge citation).

Very nice group and worth the wait. Hopefully you will be able to uncover what other boat(s) he served on.

For your first point, 1 in 10 of the UK forces in Afghanistan are Royal Navy personnel, not bad for a country with no coastline. And the majority of US fast jet air ops over that country are from the aircraft carrier sitting in the Indian Ocean .As things stand the UK has just a handful of fast jets operating there. Have an aircraft carrier sitting in the Indian Ocean and you can have 40 or 50 strike aircraft available (refering to the future carriers). As for the Type 45, it doesn't matter how good the ship is or isn't, it can only take on a limited number of aircraft due to the size of its silo (which can not be reloaded at sea) and shooting in salvoes - and that is not including the possibility of the system not working when it is most wanted as happened to Seawolf during the Falklands Conflict in 1982, and 28 years later Sea Wolf still has defects - no system, no matter how good, works 100% of the time and Sea Viper has yet to be tested in anything but good weather.

Wound Codes: 33 - Freezing related disorders 31a - Bulletwounds 25 - Skin and connective tissue problems 31a - Bulletwounds 31b - Handgrenade, mortar, artillery (shrapnel) It looks like he was undergoing hospital treatment for 3 months for the frostbite injury from 30th December 1941 to 30th March 1942. He then spent just over 3 months out of the hospital before re-entering the Lazarett system for another 4 months with gunshot wounds.

The problem with relying on other countries is that it is assuming too much - what happens if a cause that the UK supports isn't one that fits in with an Allies agenda? Completely hypothetical - for the past few years the Spanish Navy have been operating their Harrier wing from one of our carriers (which is true), but what would happen if the Falklands conflict flared up again and we asked Spain for support with regards to embarking their Harrier wing on Illustrious? Would a Hispanic country in Europe help the UK in a conflict against another Hispanic country or remain neutral? During the Argentina sabre ratling last year the current US President was less than luke warm in his support for the UK's stand over the Islands, and Uruguay are also supporting Argentina. Now that the UK is drilling for oil off the Falklands coastline tensions are growing not subsiding and it wouldn't matter if the British Army was a million strong, without a Carrier Strike Force and a Fleet to transport them there and protect them from air attack / support their operations ashore it would be impossible to retake the Islands.

I have no doubt that if it were cheaper to cancel the carriers then at least one of them, and possibly both, would be cancelled. But I also think if that had of happened they would of still scraped Ark Royal and her Harriers, after all if you have no carriers in the future what is the point in having them now? There is no doubt that these Defence cuts were budget driven rather than an attempt to make the Forces a more efficient fighting force. And it didn't help that the previous Labour government decided to slow down the building of the new carriers to save money in the very short term which in actual fact pushed the cost up by £650m in the long term.

And further to my last - with the scraping of the Harrier what is going to happen to all the Fleet Air Arm fixed wing engineers, armourers etc and pilots? If those trades fall into the bracket for the 5,000 that are being made unemployed where is the experience going to come from in 10 years time, especially at the Senior Rate (NCO) level? And it isn't just the Ark - all 4 Type 22 frigates are going, Illustrious or Ocean are possibles to be mothballed, either Bulwark or Albion are to be mothballed and so is one of the RFA Bay class landing ships. And if no other wars flare up in the meantime, come 2015 the Army will have no major overseas commitments apart from approx 1000 troops down the Falklands while the Navy will still be expected to maintain standing patrols in the Falklands, Med, Indian Ocean, Gulf, Falklands & West Indies which is stretching the fleet now let alone with fewer ships in a few years time.

Not only Ark Royal but all the Harriers are being scrapped with immediate effect so the Royal Navy will not have a strike capability (or any fleet air defence capability) until 2020. HMS Queen Elizabeth is due in service in 2016 but fitted only for helicopters and when HMS Prince Of Wales comes into service in 2019/20 she will be fitted for aircraft and Queen Elizabeth will be mothballed and possibly sold after just 3 or 4 years service. And 4 frigates are to be taken out of service in the next 10 years bringing the Destroyer/Frigate figure down to just 19 in service. If I lived in the Falklands I would be very worried for the next 10 years. It doesn't matter which party is in government, the Navy has always been the easiest target and usually comes out of the Defence shake-up worse then the other forces. Meanwhile the UK donates £1 Billion to India per year as foreign aid while that country builds 2 aircraft carriers and buys the MiGs to go on them, not to mention their other fleet building projects.