DPRK Award Documents/Citations.

[CtahhR]

First is the award document for the Commemorative Medal "Fatherland Liberation" from 1985 and the second is for the Commemorative Medal "Great Fatherland Liberation War 1950-1953" from 1968 by which time over 300,000 had been awarded. I have blanked all the written information for "political" reasons. These come from a group of One Order and Four Medals to a DPRK Soldier born in 1924.

[Bob]

Anybody here with korean language skills? I have a Order of the National Flag 1st class order issued during the Korean War (low number, soviet manufactured) to a Mongolian Border Guards General (!).

Looking to get a translation of the page which gives the reason for awarding.

Thanks,

Bob

PS - will post scans here eventually as well of course!

[CtahhR]

I can give it a try for you, I taught myself how to read the letter clusters one quiet morning when I was snowed in and it has helped no end since - in understanding DPRK awards etc..

[CtahhR]

Here is a trio of Documents to a man from North Pyongan Province born in 1939 which I have censored.

First is Medal For Military Merits, Awarded 1964 issued 1965
Second is Medal For Merits, Awarded and issued in 1972 for work in publication.
Third is Order Of The National Flag 3rd Class, Awarded and issued in 1992 for work in the damming of a river.

[CtahhR]

Here is a pair to a man from Pyongan born in 1946.

First is a Medal For Merits awarded in 1980 for "Public Service"
Second is a Order Of The National Flag 2nd Class awarded in 1987 for his long service as a foreman of a factory.

[Esteban_cool]

I understand why you censor the information, but then it´ll be very hard -if not impossible- to give an opinion.

[CtahhR]

The DPRK awards documents can be very cheap to purchase (I got 20 for $16) but they are also very often defaced (or at least partially so). When I was sold the lot of 20 documents the dealer that sold me them have no idea there were 5 "sets" amongst the pile as well as some individuals.

Collecting DPRK documents to DPRK citizens is a minefield as not only do the citizens of the DPRK want word to get to the DPRK authorities that certain people's awards have gone to the capitalist world but also many Chinese dealers also do not wish to be associated with them. The documents (altered or unaltered) also do not fair very well in their transit from DPRK to China.

Translation is not easy (specially if someone has played with it or it has got wet) but you'll find that most of them are awarded for production or labour of some sort. The documents I offer with a "condensed" reason for awarding is hopefully shedding some light on the variety of award books and hopefully if someone has one with a defaced date they can match the style to a book I can put a date on for them. The seal of DPRK has not changed since 1948 so that's not much help in dating. The oldest document I currently have was issued in 1962 and the newest is 1993 although one of the booklets issued in 1983 is for a Military Merits medal awarded in 1953.

In my collection I currently also have over 200 plastic Order and Medal cases that I hope to present the variations of when I accumulate a camera - Never mind the Orders, Medals and Badges I have piled up recently.

[amdl614]

Anybody need Korean translation? I am Korean(South Korea, of course), so I can translate it very well. If I translate long sentences, I can make English grammatical error, but I'm pretty sure that there I won't make mistakes in meaning and vocabulary. If there is some error in my translation, you have to fix the grammatical error autonomously.
I collect Soviet awards and North Korean awards(Korean war era mainly). I also sell North Korean/Soviet award in ebay now.

You can contact me to my personal e-mail if you want send the picture in private.

My e-mail : dh8990@naver.com

Please contact me anytime. I will help for your collection. :)

[NKResearcher]

Now with the right ID:

I came across an award booklet for a National Flag Order, Second Class, of 1972 but with the award number given with the Prefix L, the second letter of the Korean alphabet. The only other document I could check for this award was included in the 2009 book by Sessler and McDaniel which gives the award number without prefix. Surprisingly both documents had the same date despite award numbers being about 30,000 apart suggesting lots of them were awarded on Kim Il Sung´s 60th birthday.

I know of several occassions where North Korean officials apparently made mistakes or wrote things they were not supposed to. But did anyone come across another example where these prefixes were also written into the award documents for the order of the national flag? This should have been rather common for the 3rd class. But I could not find any other example.

After comparing the documents presented in this 2009 book I also figured out that all four-digit numbers in the documents were the numbers of the legal document awarding the honor instead of the actual award or booklet number. The official document only used the actual word "legal document number" or "decree number" (정령) from around the early 1990s. The oldest booklet with the legal number was issued in 1975 with the basically all following award documents (at least in Sessler´s book) also giving only this number.

Ironically, in several documents random numbers were added for some mysterious reason. But going through the award documents available in the forum, I could not find any document which used this three or four-digit legal number. Quite an interesting difference.

If anyone came across some of those four-digit numbers or suspects that the original number was tampered with, I would be glad if you let me know. Because I am currently researching North Korea's legal activity over time, I would be very interested in any of those numbers.

Preserving the awardee's anonymity might be a little bit easier as every decree usually gave awards to several people - at times even hundreds - and I would not need the last two digits of the legal number. In fact, I do not need any other information except that number and the year and month if that makes it easier to share this information.

In return, I can offer translating Korean.

[amdl614]

I've found "Award list", the recommendation document. These are from "RG 242 National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized Record Group".
Document form is same with Soviet's.
--
1. Squad Commander, 'Kim Ha Jin'.
In July 26th 1951, huge enemy troops were charged to his position, he organized his squad heroically and defeated enemy wave. 82 of enemy soldiers were shoot dead.
In August 3rd, enemy wave begun, he commanded his troops heroically, 42 of enemy soldiers were shoot dead.
(*name of recommended award was omitted.)

2. '105 Panzer Division' Platoon Commander 'Hong Su Sang'
During the battle on September 3rd ~ 7th 1950, He commended installing communication network, guaranteed perfect communication during the battle. As a result, they were able to demolish two of enemy company. He also rushed in to enemy land and defeated, captured bunch of radios and telephone lines.
Therefore, he recommended to receive "Order of Soldier's Glory 1st class".

2-1 is awardee's profile. He was farmer before military.
--

Sorry for my bad English skill.