Legion of Merit.

[Georg14]

 

 

Good evening, Gentlemen. Few, may be naive questions:
Legion of Merit Legionnaire – earliest medals were made of silver?, quantity of them ?  How many medals were numbered ?  Are somewhere lists of awarded foreigners (Soviet's WW2) ? Thanks.

 

[Rogi]

I've seen a couple of the Soviet Legions of Merit (in museums and in some private collections) although I havn't been fortunate enough to stumble upon any lists of these orders to who they were awarded to etc.

The citation on most of these that I've seen comes on a much nicer and decorated onion skin (it appears thicker in quality to the usual onion skin citation) paper.

[JBFloyd]

Al Gleim,the premier researcher of US Army awards, published a list of 321 awards of the Legion of Merit in all grades to Soviet personnel. However, some facts have to be considered when using this list:

1. It only covers the War Department and lower Army headquarters' awards published in General Orders.

2. There are obvious duplications, where awards were made at the US Mission in Moscow, for example, but were repeated in War Department General Orders.

3. Numerous awards were made in the field and may never have been recorded

4. Not all General Orders survived and probably can never be recovered.

In 1947, the US Army reported that, between 7 December 1941 and 30 June 1947, it had made 242 awards of the Legion of Merit to the USSR (1 chief commander, 11 commander, 18 officer, and 88 legionnaire.

So, you can see that the official numbers don't add up. I own four sets of Legion of Merit documents to Red Army personnel. Two came from War Department General Orders and two came from division-level General Orders, but all the certificates were signed by the Secretary of War and the citations by the president. So, it's very easy to count those twice.

[Georg14]

Thank You very much! So, left to find out  "earliest medals were made of silver?, quantity ?  " also there were double side enameled of them(Officer/Legionnaire).

[Georg14]

And...  "a list of 321 awards of the Legion of Merit in all grades to Soviet personnel." , where it's possible to find this list, is it in the network? Thanks.

[NavyFCO]

Here's a very thorough thread on here about them:

 

[Georg14]

Many thanks. But is there any information about how many were silver medals and their manufacturers?

[NavyFCO]

This is one Legion of Merit that was awarded in 1943 from the stocks of the Military Mission to Moscow. It is a sterling medal.

The vast majority of Legions of Merit found in the US that are with the Soviet certificates were "mated" sets...when all of the citations and certificates came from Russia in the early 90s, they were only the documents, the medals did not come with them. Medals have been added to them by collectors and dealers over time. I have only seen a small handful of "real" medal and document sets, and all of those have come out of Russia.

Out of curiosity, what is the reason for your question? Have you found a Legion of Merit to a Soviet officer?

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[Georg14]

I casually have got a silver(?) LoM(Officer/Legionnaire) without ribbon(and number, of course) in poor condition. According to the seller, it belonged to the Soviet officer, but his name he don't know. All of LoMs that I saw were mаde of gilded brass. US awards was not my theme, that why I'm interested in this question.  Thanks.

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[NavyFCO]

Looks like a standard wartime Legion of Merit. Unfortunately, without a name, there's no way to say it belonged to anyone, Soviet, US, or otherwise (even with a name, but without some other sort of provenance, it's still just a name and a wartime issue LOM.) There was nothing "special" about LOM awards to foreign officers...they were exactly the same as the ones issued to US personnel. In this condition, and missing the ribbon and brooch, I'd say it's worth about $30 US.

Hope that helps!