Group with 3 medals of bravery

[Tal Inbar]

Is on sale at ebay. I met veterans with 2 medals, but 3?

[Auke]

There were also servicemen with 4 or even 5 Medals for Bravery:

[Lapa]

Tal,

As Auke mentioned, it is theoretically possible. In this case, I am not overly keen on the handwriting. Only archive research could confirm if these medals genuinely belong together or not.

Marc

[EricFG]

No Vog (or J)?, No Defense of or Capture of? Fishy, I'd say.
Too bad, too; a legit 3xBM bar would be quite the treat.

[Kirchgoens]

I've seen several medals bars with wartime stuff on them with VoG missing. Maybe it's like in the US Army where some soldiers choose to wear a shortened rack with what they are proudest of or what they have on hand. Maybe Ole Boy lost his VoG, and used what he had on hand? I guess only an award card will tell...

[Soviet]

Am I right to say that the serial numbers are too high for this group to be legit. There are no BM with 6 digit numbers, neither one in the "1.000.000". I guess the guy should have received a Red Star or a Glory later on during the war instead of 3 BMs.

[Eryk]

Going through the complete literature (“Echo’s of War”) available in English on the subject (it’s a benefit of not speaking the source language, not having to fret about going to the library and being burdened with mounds of sources :)) the numbers and their order in the book are questionable:

Award		s/n		Likely Authorization Date?
Bravery		2.057.470	Jan-45
CSM		2.186.452	May-45
Bravery		2.165.838	Jan/Feb-45
Bravery		3.549.605	Aug-44

The first Bravery s/n is within 150 of a number in Schmitt, making it more likely to be in the ‘block’ of awards issued to a given unit. The CSM and second Bravery are not close to numbers in Schmitt – their “likely” dates are simply taken from the award preceding and succeeding them. The third Bravery is preceded and succeeded by awards noted as likely catch up awards – hence the high number and low date.

While nowhere near conclusive the info raises questions. The pattern of authorization dates isn’t logical. The CSM is out of step. And why a catch up award later, when the man was obviously getting noticed at the time for his actions? As well, a catch up award would date to 1944, yet the privileges date in the medal book is 1945.

Anyway, this is sleuthing not really worth the name – Schmitt’s book was probably never meant to be used this way. And there are plenty of examples in the book of a medal being “sandwiched” between two awards but having a wildly different authorization date. So the “out of step” CSM could easily be legit. Most troubling to me is the third, very high numbered Bravery, coming in a range of numbers for catch up awards.

Whatever the case, it’s fun to look up and ponder.

[desantnik]

Originally Posted by Eryk

Anyway, this is sleuthing not really worth the name – Schmitt’s book was probably never meant to be used this way.

Hallelujah! Yes, it was meant to be used this way!

I've since expanded the amount of s/n's by three times, but with millions of awards it will never be complete. Unfortunately, I still can't make a definitive call - there is no red flag or smoking gun.

One of the awards I've pinned down to within 50 #'s, awarded very early '45 by 1 Belorussian Front and although the amount other awards don't seem logical so late in the war (look at when the booklet indicates the first awarding was - APR 45), it's still hard to make a definitive call. It's possible for such an arrangement, but I agree with a comment above - with this many lower awardings you'd expect to see a late war RS or Glory thrown in for variety and if truly 1 Belorussian Front, there should probably be a Warsaw and/or Berlin included.

This combination is possible, but probably not complete or somehow slightly tinkered with.

[Kirchgoens]

My theory: EOW data, as used on a unit basis, is a pretty decent way to do business until you get into the higher serial numbers found with post-war catch-up awards, be they immediately after the war (BM's and CSM's) or years later (OG3's, OPW2's etc).

Here's how I see it: that 3.5 mil number/date combination is misleading. I have four BM's within 400 numbers of each other that can be expanded within my collection to six BM's within a span of 1,000 serial numbers, ALL found in Uzbekistan (all six medals between 3,605,950 mil and 3,606,850 mil). What that tells me is that you might not be able to make unit/"Front" deductions on these later numbered BM's: they probably belonged to Voenkomat (Tashkent, Andijan, Samarkand, etc) or military district (Turkestan) blocks that veterans received when they demobilized. In short, I believe many of these high-number medals are immediate post-war catch-up awards. I've got similar Uzbekistan-found blocks with the Red Star (2.6mil range - maybe military district LS awards?), the OPW2 (700,xxx, 820,xxx, and 880,xxx), and and OG3 (755,xxx and 766,xxx). I really think that some of these were given out from geographical blocks "back at home" for stuff that happened during the war.

Take what I've said here, strip out the CSM number and take the 3.549 mil as an immediate post-war catch-up, and it might actually really make sense in the order you see it above in Eryk's posting.

It's just an idea, and I only have my own regionally-procured serial numbered awards to back it up...

...Brian

[desantnik]

Here are 3 BMs, sequentially #'d.