Lieutenant Walenty Marciniak

[Al-muell]

Recently Purchesed Group - A small, but realy nice one, as it's from my main area of interests: cavalery.
To Lt. Walenty Marciniak, Deputy commander (pollitical-educational affairs) of the 1st Sanitary Squadron of the First Independent Cavalry Division of the Polish Army, who later worked (probably) as a policeman. Born in 1900.
The group consists of:
1.Officer's ID dated 1944 - very similar to the Soviet one - it even has the legend "udostverene Lichnosti" below "Dowód Osobisty" and Eagle on the cover. Unsurprisingly - printed in Moscow.
2.Grunwald Badge with doc, dated 1946.
3."For participation in the capture of Berlin" (Polish) Medal with doc, dated 1968.
4."For participation in fights in defence of the people's rule" medal with doc, dated 1984.
5.Reserve officer booklet
And now, the funny thing about the group - mind that he was a "politruk":
In his reservist's booklet it says that he served in the Army before 1939 for total 10months, 1 month as an NCO. In the Officer's ID there's his photograph with a wound badge (could be from ww2) and two ribbon bars. One is for Cross of merit (unless it's poorly made GPW2), the other one is for ..."For the war of 1918-1920" medal. Yes, this means: Polish-Soviet War. He probably even got his cross of merit for that war, it would explain his promotion to the NCO rank (bofore the war, if a soldier got cross of merit, he was instantly awarded). This would indicate, that the cross of merit was of the third class (bronze), as at that time in the Army gold cross was only for ranks lt. colonel to Marshal, and silver for ranks leutenant to major. All the servicemen of the lower ranks could only get bronze. Unfortunately, the booklets for that awards are not present.

[Al-muell]

Wow! Nice, big groups. Altough chavalier's cross of Polonia Restituta is quite common, The Officer's cross required usually some special merit and it's not as easy to get one, esp. as a part of a group.:thumbsup
I relly like that group with "RP" silver cross of merit. Quite unusula thing to see in Polish groups is soviet VoG worn on it's original suspension, not just the ribbon.

As for the attachmet techniques:
My grandfather and Grandmother got all their awards with a normal pin - once even with a sewing needle, as that was the fastest and cheapest way to attach the award during ceremony. But I have never seen them wearing the awards, so I presume they didn't need special suspensions.

As for Lt. Marciniak's group:
Here are pics of his award docs (Grunwald badge booklet can be seen in the "guide to polish award booklets thread, as it was the best preserved Grunwald badge booklet from 40's that I have) And the first page from his military ID:

[Al-muell]

More of his ID:

(note that the stamp is in both Polish and Russian. Also seems he had a TT pistol, but no Sabre)

More...
(russian pages show mostly the same data as those in polish, so I added scans of only a few of them)

[Al-muell]

And the reservist's booklet, dated 1951. Interestingly, it lists only one award (this page is not scanned): Berlin medal. So unless he got something after 1984 (At the age of 84!), the only things missing from this group are his pre-war awards and the wound badge.