Stogieman Posted September 23, 2009 Posted September 23, 2009 Willy Lau spent his entire career in one regiment (IR133), participated in almost every major battle of WW1, picked up an impressive rack of decorations yet never received a wound that qualified him for a Wound Badge! I'm sure many of you saw this flash by a website last week... I simply could not resist the chance to keep watch over this one for awhile. I can count on one hand the number of groups like this (complete!) that have turned up in the last 10 years. Combine that with the extraordinary rarity of his Honor Cross with Swords (~1500 awards).... well, no regrets!
Stogieman Posted September 23, 2009 Author Posted September 23, 2009 His medal & ribbon bar. beautifully preserved despite being wrapped in the original tissue, on the original cotton pad, in the original box:
Stogieman Posted September 23, 2009 Author Posted September 23, 2009 Every award is neatly entered in his Militar=Pass. Pay a special note the Dienstauzeichen 3.Kl and the award date! The Twins are reasonable certain that this is the first documented instance of a Saxon war-time LSM award. The medal is not in the group and I assume he may have never received the actual medal.... Also of note, he received an EK2 in 1914 yet it was 1916 before he received his first Saxon decoration!
Stogieman Posted September 23, 2009 Author Posted September 23, 2009 His rather scarce document for the Saxon-Meiningen War Merit Medal, amongst the very first batch awarded in 1915.
Stogieman Posted September 23, 2009 Author Posted September 23, 2009 And.... his extremely scarce document for the Saxon Honor Cross with Swords. This award (to me at least) is one of the ones like an NCEK2; you simply must find a mounted one to know you have one of the rare awarded examples.
Wild Card Posted September 23, 2009 Posted September 23, 2009 Yes! Thank you for this thread. Until seeing this, I never had a real understanding or appreciation of the Saxon Honor Cross with Swords. I certainly do now. Best wishes, Wild Card
Guest Rick Research Posted September 23, 2009 Posted September 23, 2009 Erhard Roth counted 1,974 Ehrenkreuz Xs. I've rummaged out the 23,000 SMMs Rolls and looked to see if the Urkunde code "Nr. 32, 306 I" correlated to anything and... it doesn't. Lau is in the very first batch of Saxon IR 133 awards listed, under date of 14 May 1915. He's on Roll Page 224 (these were just gigantic blank ledgers used for this purpose-- not that there were 223 pages ahead of him), and the cryptic processing notation there says "Blatt 167 d. A. III"-- So, like the equally mysterious numbers we've observed on HOH3X Urkunden, no help in finding things with those. BTW, a number of IR 133 awards listed as 01.05.15 are found much later in the first volume of the Roll. They are rather higgledy-piggeldy and entered in batches when somebody turned them in to the Orders Chancery, NOT in strict chronological order. :beer:
Deruelle Posted September 23, 2009 Posted September 23, 2009 Very nice group Rick It's rare to find documents medal and ribbon bar in this condition. Great Christophe
Beau Newman Posted September 23, 2009 Posted September 23, 2009 Here's his cousin. Perhaps another 133rd Regt. group. Alas, unnamed with none of the beautiful documentation as in Stogieman's group: The Sax VK w/Swords has always been a bit of an enigma. Reputedly, it was an "interim" award between the FA Medal and the MSH Medal but, not a prerequisite to the Mil. St. Henry. If that was the case, why so few awards? I have the feeling that this was likely a "meritorious service" type award awarded to NCO's for outstanding leadership while the MSH medal was awarded for acts of bravery. Any thoughts?
Guest Rick Research Posted September 23, 2009 Posted September 23, 2009 Almost guaranteed to be, Beau. :jumping:
Leutwein Posted September 24, 2009 Posted September 24, 2009 Nice nice And here we have a photo of a bravery man with nearly the same combination. His name was Feldwebel Hahn! Took also part on some rebellions in German-Southwestafrica 1903-08 Mounted on the bar (all pre-1914-awards!!!): Friedrich-August-Medaille in silver for GSWA(!) Militärehrenzeichen II. for GSWA Kolonialdenkm. perhaps for his action during the Bondelzwart-rebellion 1903/04 Deutsch-Südwestafrika-Denkm. with 5 (?) battle claps and the saxon DA for 15 years in the buttonhole his WW1-awards EK II SAEZX Sachsen-Meinigen War merit medal Seems to be a great estate. I have only this photo, unfortunately Best wishes Karsten
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