France Colonial and Overseas medal

[PKeating]

Aah! Je dirais plutôt la Médaille d'Outre-Mer. The Overseas Medal replaced the Colonial Medal in 1962 and CB does indeed hold it with the clasps mentioned. These do belong in any Médaille Coloniale collection as it is still the original Lemaire design but with a different legend.

PK

[Chris Boonzaier]

Nice! I like pieces with character.

I note on Wikipedia that the notable Chris Boonzaier is someone who holds this medal.

Indeed.... I wonder who put THAT up.... ;-)

I have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting to see if anyone would notice :-))

And please note... it says FAMOUS..... :-)

[PKeating]

Minty variation by J R Gaunt of London with the clasp for Koufra. Rather scarce...

[Veteran]

Minty variation by J R Gaunt of London with the clasp for Koufra. Rather scarce...

Thank you for showing this excellent picture. Never seen the medal & clasp before. HASS mentions the clasp.

Very nice !

Regards

Veteran

[Chris Boonzaier]

Thank you for showing this excellent picture. Never seen the medal & clasp before. HASS mentions the clasp.

Very nice !

Regards

Veteran

Indeed! Very nice piece !

Now you just need the award document!! ;-)

[PKeating]

Thank you, gentlemen! I knew you two would like it! Vétéran will be pleased to learn that I managed to obtain a nice copy of the Hass book...for a considerable price! But it really is the sine qua non for anyone intending to collect the Médaille Coloniale seriously. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw this medal and its clasp.

Chris rightly indicates that the document is the next step, but with around 400 men involved in total, many of them African tirailleurs sénégalais and méharistes, that is going to be a very hard piece of paper to find! I suppose it might be worth a couple of vacations in Senegal and Chad because the chances of finding a document in France must be very, very slim, given that Koufra enjoys holy status in the Free French 'panthéon' and most families of Frenchmen and, I think, légionnaires who were there would be very reluctant to part with a piece of family patrimony of that nature. There again, as you both know, a lot of my modest French documents collection came from garbage containers and plastic bags thrown out by ignorant grandchildren who kept the medals to sell them on, thinking they were the really valuable things, whilst throwing out documents and photographs.

The Italian force suffered three KIA and four WIA during the two-weeks siege, while French losses amounted to four KIA, one of which was European, and twenty-one WIA. When the Italians surrendered to Leclerc at 14:00 hrs on 1.3.1941, they consisted of eleven officers, eighteen NCOs and men and 273 Libyans. By the time the French force reached Koufra on 7.2.1941, after a journey of some 1,700 km, it comprised around a hundred Europeans and 250 colonial troops, mainly from Cameroon and Chad. There were also men from the British Long Range Desert Group, moving south from Cairo, who had escaped from the Italian Sahariana columns, similar to those of the LRDG, and joined up with Leclerc's column coming up from Chad. An additional footnote to the Koufra battle was the presence of a certain Captain Massu, who would later gain notoriety as one of the leaders of the attempted military putsch against President de Gaulle in 1961.

There is another type of Koufra clasp, struck in the oriental style, which may have been produced in Algiers. It is believed that these plain, oblong clasps were produced in London although I have seen no evidence to support this theory and the clasp seems a little thin to be a J R Gaunt item. Gaunt's products, including British, American and French insignia, have always been quite substantial.

PK

Edited March 18, 2010 by PKeating

[PKeating]

Image © site de web 'france-phaleristique'

To clarify further, there are in fact three known types of KOUFRA clasp, including the 'oriental' style produced by the Monnaie de Paris after 1945, and two plain oblong types, of which the one shown above is an example. There is another type with thicker lettering and a stippled field or background. This latter type is believed to post-date January 1944, indicating that the type I have shown is therefore an extremely rare early or '1st pattern' type, not that any of them are exactly common.

PK

Edited March 19, 2010 by PKeating

[Chris Boonzaier]

This reminds me of when I was in Tchad... it shows the stupidness of youth, I wish i could go back and do things a bit differently...

At the French base in N'Djamena there was an old black guy who sat outside the entrance. I think he was half blind. We were all young, full of pss and vinegar, arrogant and everyone trying to be harder than the next guy... so we used to (maybe pointedly)ignore him. An unfortunate lack of respect.

I really regret that now, as he was a fine old warrior, with a cest full of medals. When we first arrived he had them on bits of tattered ribbon and string on his old khaki shirt, when we left 4 months later someone (I suspect one of our officers) had had them mounted for him.

I cannot remember what was on the bar, only remember that there was a Medaille Militaire and about 7 or 8 other medals...

I assume the old guy got a French pension of some sort and was employed on the base in some category...

How I wish I could go back 18 years and take his photo and ask him about his service.... I am sure there was WW2 on his bar as well as colonial service...

In retrospect one of the few regrets I have for wishing had done something I did not at the time....

[PKeating]

Old Warriors...

[Veteran]

Fine picture of a old "tirailleur". A veteran of the campaign in Indochina. Could be the standard-bearer of a Veterans'Association.

Probably taken in the Yard of the Invalides (design of the windows in the back !).

Greetings

Veteran

[TacHel]

That is an AWESOME pic!:jumping:

[PKeating]

From la France Libre to l'État Français: I've shown these elsewhere in this section but the images have disappeared and more information has since come my way. The pair was obtained from the same source in France last year but, as is so often the case, the chineur or picker who found them had not looked for any related documents and the trail is now long-broken, which is a shame as the document for the Médaille du Mérite de l'Afrique Noire is probably ten times rarer than the medal, which is one of the rarest of French medals as it is. The original recipient was said to have served in a camel unit, which indicates méharistes from Chad. Perhaps he was a French NCO.

The Côte des Somalis clasp was originally instituted in 1934 following a native rebellion. The clasp was subsequently awarded to French and native personnel for the rebellion of 1936/37. On 19.9.1941, the Vichy government reinstituted the clasp for military, paramilitary and civil personnel involved in the defence of the colony against British forces in 1940 and 1941. To earn the clasp required six months of unblemished service since 25.6.1940, when French Somalialand had declared itself if not unquestioningly loyal to the new collaborationist French government than at least not absolutely behind the Gaullists in London either.

On 26.12.1941, the Vichy government instituted a new clasp, 1940 - Côte des Somalis - 1941, which is also shown here, as a replacement for the Côte des Somalis clasp to differentiate between recipients who had served during the rebellions of the 1930s and those deemed loyal to the New Order by virtue of their anti-Gaullist stance. It is interesting to note that the Royal Navy allowed Vichy ships through to resupply the garrison in Djibouti, which intensely irritated General de Gaulle, convinced as he was that French Somalialand would rally to his cause if put under sufficient pressure.

Vichy liked to portray the French garrison in the colony as pro-Vichy but as with other outposts of the French Empire, one gets the feeling that they were all playing a waiting game before declaring for one side or the other. In the end, the Royal Navy did impose a blockade in the autumn of 1942 and British and Free French forces occupied Djibouti three months later, in December 1942. The 1940 - Côte des Somalis - 1941 clasp was amongst the Vichy awards outlawed by the January 1944 CLN decree signed in Algiers. However, some men who earned the Côte des Somalis clasp in 1940 and 1941 probably continued to wear it as the CLN were unable to ban it easily because of its previous history.

Sadly, we have no way of knowing if the recipient earned this bar in the 1930s or during WW2 but given that the clasp seems to be of local fabrication in plated brass, the originals from the Monnaie de Paris being crisply struck in silver, it could well be that this clasp was awarded sometime in 1942 for service in the colony after the Franco-German Armistice of June 1940. The award of the Médaille du Mérite de l'Afrique Noire would also support this conjecture. What is particularly nice about this example, struck by the Monnaie de Paris, is that the recipient fashioned himself a little ribbon bar, so he clearly wore his Black Africa Merit Medal on his uniform with pride during WW2. By the way, the medal was awarded to Europeans and Africans alike.

There was a variation of the clasp, again in the 'oriental' style in which the dates 1941-1942 appear after the Côte des Somalis legend. Hass states that this type was destined for French naval and airforce personnel based in Madagascar who participated in the attempts to break through the British blockade.

PK

Edited March 26, 2010 by PKeating

[PKeating]

Up there with the KOUFRA clasp and like the KOUFRA clasp I showed earlier, this BIR HACHEIM 1942 clasp is quite special. Does anyone know why?

[Bernhard H.Holst]

Hello Prosper:

I believe the clasp is notable for the battle of Bir Hacheim in North Africa during which Free French Forces under command of Gen. Koenig broke out of an encirclement by German troops.

Bernhard H. Holst

[Chris Boonzaier]

Nice!!

I remember Liverpool medals had a really nice clasp for Bir H.

I hesitated for weeks... then decided "Right! I will buy it...."

But by then it was gone......

[PKeating]

You should have jumped on it! The clasps with the British spelling are rare but the French-made clasps, with the later spelling, are also quite scarce. Not many were struck, given the relatively low numbers of veterans qualified to wear them. Here's another France Libre ensemble, again on a J R Gaunt medal with what appears to be a post-Liberation AFL clasp by the Paris maker Arthus Bertrand, although some people believe this to be a London striking inspired by that firm's style. I think it confirms precisely to AB products. Nice, though, a London Médaille Coloniale with a Liberation period clasp.

PK

Edited April 8, 2010 by PKeating

[PKeating]

Hello Prosper:

I believe the clasp is notable for the battle of Bir Hacheim in North Africa during which Free French Forces under command of Gen. Koenig broke out of an encirclement by German troops.

Bernhard H. Holst

Certainly, Bernhard! The clasp is on a par with the KOUFRA clasp but is British-made, indicating that it really is an early example, perhaps dating from late 1942, the clasp having been instituted in October 1942.

PK

[PKeating]

Here's another type of wartime BIR HACHEIM 1942 clasp with the British spelling on a London-struck medal with what appears to be a British silk riband. The four clasps are all by the Paris firm of Arthus Bertrand, which indicates that they post-date the Liberation of Paris in August 1944. However, the Decree of January 7 1944, issued in Algiers by the Free French administration, had ordered the spelling modified to 'BIR HAKEIM", for French language-related phonetic reasons yet Arthus Bertrand produced dies with the British spelling and the date of the battle, like the clasp I showed a few posts ago.

Edited April 21, 2010 by PKeating

[PKeating]

Another one for the Free French drawer plus postwar service in Madagascar.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Fezzan? That must be rare? Have never seen one.

[PKeating]

It is quite scarce, Chris. Well-spotted.

From Wikipedia:

From the 5th century BCE to the 5th century of the modern era, the Fezzan was home to the Garamantian Empire, a city state which operated the Trans-Saharan trade routes between the Carthaginians -- and later the Roman Empire -- and Sahelian states of west and central Africa. During the 13th and 14th century, portions of the Fezzan were part of the Kanem Empire, while the Ottoman rulers of North Africa asserted their control over the region in the 17th century.

Beginning in 1911, the Fezzan was occupied by Italy. However, Italy's control of the region was precarious until at least 1923, with the rise of the Italian Fascist regime. The Italians were resisted in their early attempts at conquest by Berber and Arab adherents to the militant Sanusiya Sufi religious order. The Tuareg clans of the region were only ever nominally pacified by European expansion before the Second World War.

Free French troops occupied Murzuk, a chief town of Fezzan, on 16 January 1943, and proceeded to administer Fezzan with a staff stationed in Sabha.[1] But French administration was largely exercised through Fezzan notables of the family of Sayf an Nasr.[1] Disquieting to the tribes in western Fezzan was the administrative attachment of Ghat, and its surrounding area, to French occupied southern Algeria.[1] However, when the French military control ceased in 1951 all of Fezzan became part of the Kingdom of Libya.

The Free French column of some 500 men was commanded by Leclerc and comprised native troops from Chad, Senegal and the camel-mounted Groupe nomade de Tibesti, supported by elements of the British Long Range Desert Group and bombers flown by Free French aircrew. Libya was part of the Italian Empire and General de Gaulle took the view that were the British expelled from Egypt by the Afrika Korps, which looked possible in 1941, Chad would be vital in terms of defending French colonial interests in Africa.

After taking the fort and oasis at Koufra (I posted the extremely rare London-made medal and clasp earlier) in March 1941, elements of Leclerc's column began harassing Italian forces around Murzuk in February 1942. The following December, Leclerc sent in a force of 3,250 men in 1,000 vehicles with twelve aircraft providing air cover to take Murzuk, which they did on 12.1.1943. The column then took Mizda on 22.1.1943 before entering Tripoli in 26.1.1943, having covered 2,575 kilometres of desert since rolling across the border from Chad into Libya. Leclerc's force was taken onto British 8th Army strength as "L-Force" for the rest of the North African war.

The medal itself is a classic Paris mint striking in silver, the hallmark postdating 1913. The Afrique Occidentale Française clasp was instituted in 1901 and awarded up to 1936 for service and various operations in French Equatorial Africa. It was also awarded by the Vichy government from November 1940 for operations in connection with the defence of Dakar between September 23 and 26 1940. However, this clasp bears the hallmark of Albert MARIE Ingénieur, a firm that started life, according to Hass, as A. D. MARIE and ended up as Louis AUBERT, at 14 rue Oberkampf, which is about eight minutes from our Paris flat. So, I would say that the medal and the AOF clasp may date from the late 1920s to the early 1930s.

The Tunisie clasp was instituted in 1894 and this example seems to be a Marius Delande striking. Free France did not issue a Tunisie clasp. The Free French version was 'Tunisie 1942-1943', instituted on 7.1.1944, but the wearer of this medal may have acquired a Tunisie clasp from a retail outlet. Plenty of French soldiers took little liberties with their campaign medals. The Madagascar clasp is an Arthus Bertrand product. Instituted on 26.3.1942, the Fezzan clasp was made by various manufacturers and this one is hard to identify. However, it relates specifically to the operations in February and March 1942, which places the wearer in Leclerc's original column and at Murzuk.

Who was he? A native soldier who served in Tunisia during WW1, putting down insurrections, operations for which the clasp was revived in 1919? A man who then served with one of the great expeditions of the interwar years, earning the AOF clasp, before marching into Libya with Leclerc in 1942 to earn his Fezzan clasp. Or did he earn the AOF clasp at Dakar in 1940 and later end up under Free French command, serving with Leclerc and then, after the war, in Madagascar in 1947?

This is why it is important to drum it into the minds of the house-clearers and disinterested descendants flogging this stuff off to market traders or on eBay that they must look for and recover the frigging paperwork! Even it drives up the prices of these ensembles. I look at this medal and wish I knew the history of the man who wore it, a career covering several possibilities, each one just as fascinating as the last. There again, if African, maybe the papers served to roll a few cigarettes as the veteran sat watching the setting sun, listening to goat bells and his wives bickering as they made him tea and coucous...

And who could blame him for that?

PK

Edited July 20, 2010 by PKeating

[Naxos]

Médaille Coloniale (Maroc) wearer Hermann Gönster

Is it possible to tell the date and unit?

.

Edited December 21, 2010 by Naxos

[Veteran]

Médaille Coloniale (Maroc) wearer Hermann Gönster

Is it possible to tell the date and unit?

.

This man is a corporal possibly Foreign Legion, which the man's name would suggest (but not prove). No other sign or badge is apparent. The Foreign Legion white képi was worn in the late 1930s. The two woolen-chevrons of a corporal on the sleeves would be green.

The period is post-1918 since he is wearing a "fourragère" which could only have been won during WW1. The Colonial medal with MAROC clasp was awarded for combat services between 1914 and 1925.

An educated guess would be 1918-1925 previous to the Riff war. The Foreign Legion was heavily engaged in Morocco during that eriod

Later services were rewarded by clasps MAROC 1925 and MAROC 1925-1926 on the Colonial medal.

Hope this helps.

Veteran

Edited December 21, 2010 by Veteran

[Naxos]

This man is a corporal possibly Foreign Legion, which the man's name would suggest (but not prove). No other sign or badge is apparent. The Foreign Legion white képi was worn in the late 1930s. The two woolen-chevrons of a corporal on the sleeves would be green.

The period is post-1918 since he is wearing a "fourragère" which could only have been won during WW1. The Colonial medal with MAROC clasp was awarded for combat services between 1914 and 1925.

An educated guess would be 1918-1925 previous to the Riff war. The Foreign Legion was heavily engaged in Morocco during that eriod

Later services were rewarded by clasps MAROC 1925 and MAROC 1925-1926 on the Colonial medal.

Hope this helps.

Veteran

Merci bien!

Yes, the corporal is in the Fremdenlegion.

On the back he writes in French/German:

"To remember - Your friend Herm. Gönster"

Edited December 23, 2010 by Naxos

[Irish]

I am posting a collection of Campaign bars and looking for opinions. I purchased these a number of years ago from a fellow that had served overseas in the 1950's. He said he purchased these bars from different shops in France that were still carrying them. They are attached to lengths of Colonial Medal Ribbons for display purposes. What I would like to know is are they original. How long after some of these campaigns could the bars still be purchased. I guess a better question would be are they contemporary to the campaigns, issued in a close proximity of time to the campaigns.

Edited December 23, 2010 by Irish