Military Medals, Ribbons and Pins (WWII Era)

DrZiplock

This past weekend I was out visiting some family when the topic of my Grandfather's service in WWII came up. Grandpa never really liked to speak all that much about it and he passed away in 2000 without giving many details. What we do know is: 1) He was based in Britain for a time 2) He was a top turret gunner on a B17 3) His plane was shot down twice.

Beyond those things, nothing else about his service is known. Not squadron, etc, nada. To me, this is a shame because it's family history and when I was living in England I would have loved to have visited the pubs that he did and all that.

While visiting, my Uncle mentions that he has a small bag that has a number of patches and pins that he found when we were moving my Grandma to a smaller place. So, I took some pictures and am looking to you, H/A to help me ID what they are and what they mean.

Please keep in mind that my Grandfather was the type to trade and collect things, so there are certainly a few things that we know for a fact aren't his, but he collected at some point. IDing those would be great as well.

Without further ado:

The first of something that he likely traded for:

Another trade:

Unknown Patches:

Pretty sure these are rank patches (chevrons, etc...):

The collection of pins:

I know the long bars indicate places served, yes? Don't know what the stars mean. The blue ribbon with gold is, I'm almost positive, a unit citation of some kind.

Close ups:

I'd love to be able to learn more about his service and I figure this is a good place to start. If anyone knows how I would go about digging even deeper, please let me know. Can I contact the VA and would they even release that kind of information?

Thanks in advance for the help, folks.

edit: Oh, COME ON, photobucket! I rotated those pictures but apparently...yea. Dammit. Sorry.

Taranis

The patches appear to be unit patches.

The bars contain ribbons which represent awards received by the individual and the stars specify how many times the award was received.

I'm pretty sure you can contact the VA in order to get them to release his records.

Harakhti

The first unknown patch and the red seahorse belong to 1st Engineer Special Brigade.The 1st ESB monument.

The 2nd set of patches belong to the 5th and 8th Air Force respectively. The Fifth Air Force (IIRC) was based in pacific somewhere but the "Mighty Eighth" ran B17s in Europe and might be the unit your grandfather belonged to. I'm sure someone here who didn't get their history lessons from a video game can fill in details or you can just run a net search.

VeritasVR

Wow, he has a Bronze Star (white:red:white:blue:white:red:white) with a Presidential Unit Citation. That's definitely significant. Not sure what the red:blue:white:red ribbon is thuogh.

DrZiplock

Harakhti: Thanks very much for pointing out the patches! At least it's a start as somewhere to look.

Veritas: I recognized the Presidential Unit Citation, but thanks for confirming. As for the Bronze Star....holy shit. I hadn't even known.

Usagi

Hey Zip, the Army's ribbon order of precedence might be a good place to start

DrZiplock

Alright, the rainbow tips with the red in the middle and the bronze star is the WWII victory medal (with the star indicating combat served)

Tox

DrZiplock wrote:

Pretty sure these are rank patches (chevrons, etc...):

The two on the left are rank patches, indicating a rank of Private (E-2). The top right looks like service bars (I want to say 8 years of service). I'm looking for the bottom right, but can't find it.

The collection of pins:

Top left (single): Bronze Star, below that is World War II Victory Ribbon (with star device)

Top Right (single): Presidential Unit Citation ribbon, below looks like Good Conduct Medal lapel pin

First bar (left to right): Philippine Liberation Ribbon, Asiatic Pacific Campaign Ribbon, ***

Second Bar (left to right): Euro-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Ribbon, American Defense Service Ribbon, Good Conduct Ribbon

All stars are Bronze Star Devices that indicate number of awards (though it's tricky, sometimes they indicate first award, sometimes they indicate second and subsequent awards only).

*** I can't identify this one. It looks like a pink Good Conduct Ribbon.

DrZiplock

:yellow:white:pink/red:white:yellow:blue:white:red:yellow:white:pink/red:yellow: with three stars and a fourth missing is, I think, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal.

(Thanks, Usagi)


edit: Aaaaaand thanks, Tox.

DrZiplock

The first bar and second bar are interesting, if that's true, Tox. I don't know that any of us knew he was in Asia...at all. Wondering if those were scored in a trade or if we just really had zero idea.

Either way, thanks very much for that rather excellent breakdown.

VeritasVR

Tox wrote:

I can't identify this one. It looks like a pink Good Conduct Ribbon.

My grandfather's GCR looks pink too because the color faded over time.

Usagi

DrZiplock wrote:

The first bar and second bar are interesting, if that's true, Tox. I don't know that any of us knew he was in Asia...at all. Wondering if those were scored in a trade or if we just really had zero idea.

Either way, thanks very much for that rather excellent breakdown.

If you're interested, I think you or your parents can request his military service records (info over here)

DrZiplock

The lapel pin has blue between the white before it gets to the red center.

Still make it a GCR?

DrZiplock

Usagi wrote:

DrZiplock wrote:

The first bar and second bar are interesting, if that's true, Tox. I don't know that any of us knew he was in Asia...at all. Wondering if those were scored in a trade or if we just really had zero idea.

Either way, thanks very much for that rather excellent breakdown.

If you're interested, I think you or your parents can request his military service records (info over here)

Very interested. Thanks for sharing this. I'll have a conversation with my mom and grandmother tonight. Grandma never really wanted to get into it, but she's 86 now and this is family history.

Gilbert0

The first 2 (the trades) are definatly Canadian (one is even labelled that way) but other than that, I don't know anything. I have to do this with my grandpa's stuff as he served in the Canadian Navy.

edit - You could MAYBE get some information from the Canadian Legion about when / where they are. http://www.legion.ca/Home/contact_e.cfm

Evigilant

The first and second are from the same organization. The 1st patch is from the Royal Canadian Legion, what once was the British Empire Service League Canadian Legion (the 2nd patch). They are an ex-services organization, similar to our VFW organization in USA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Canadian_Legion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire_Services_League

Aioua

Found the last patch! Us 10th Army.
And a pic of the patch!

Fuck yeah google image search. I had to feed it this image and the keyword "army" to get it.

TraceofToxin

I'm part of the 8th AF out of Barksdale AFB, LA. There's an 8th AF museum there if you're interested in contacting them.

As a previous poster stated, check with the VA about getting his records released.

Tox

VeritasVR wrote:

Tox wrote:

I can't identify this one. It looks like a pink Good Conduct Ribbon.

My grandfather's GCR looks pink too because the color faded over time.

This was my first instinct as well, but there's another GCR right below it, so either the ribbons aren't right (having both two GCRs and not having them right next to each other), or the one I thought was a GCR isn't, which leaves us right back where we were.

DrZiplock wrote:

The lapel pin has blue between the white before it gets to the red center.

Still make it a GCR?

This one?

If so, then no, it's not a GCR, because the GCR has no blue in it. Does it look exactly like any of the ribbons (specifically, the two on the right end of the rows of three)? If that's the case, the lapel pin (and matching ribbon) are not GCRs, which would alleviate some of the mystery here.

John Matrix

A note about the Bronze Star - they were also issued for good performance, not just heroism in battle. If your grandfather's was issued for heroism there would be a bronze "V" for valor on the front of the ribbon. Those 5th and 8th air force patches are great. That was an excellent catch on the ESB, I thought it was a Combined Operations patch. Those were the Commandos blowing up and sabotaging German installations all along the European coast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Operations_Headquarters

DrZiplock

TraceofToxin wrote:

I'm part of the 8th AF out of Barksdale AFB, LA. There's an 8th AF museum there if you're interested in contacting them.

As a previous poster stated, check with the VA about getting his records released.

Sadly, he never registered with any VA organization. Just something that he wasn't all that interested in. But just want to say thanks to everyone who has helped and replied. Much obliged, really.

As for the lapel pin that isn't a GCR, yea...I don't see it matching any of the other ribbons there so that one will remain a bit of a mystery.

TraceofToxin

DrZiplock wrote:

Sadly, he never registered with any VA organization. Just something that he wasn't all that interested in. But just want to say thanks to everyone who has helped and replied. Much obliged, really.

The VA should have his military records regardless of whether he registered or not.

DrZiplock

Good to know.

Thanks!

VeritasVR

John Matrix wrote:

A note about the Bronze Star - they were also issued for good performance, not just heroism in battle. If your grandfather's was issued for heroism there would be a bronze "V" for valor on the front of the ribbon.

"The first Valor devices were authorized in 1944 as an attachment to the Bronze Star. Since then, the Valor device is authorized to medals which are awarded both for combat and non-combat actions." from the Wiki article. It was retroactively awarded: "First awarded 4 February 1944 (Retroactive through 7 December 1941)." from the Wiki article.

He definitely could have been awarded it for heroism.

Also, your lapel pin does not have blue. It's a GCR.

DrZiplock

It doesn't show in the photo but yes, the space between the white stripes on the lapel pin is blue...or maybe black, but certainly not red. Still could be a GCR for all I know, but yes, it's blue.

Aioua

DrZiplock wrote:

It doesn't show in the photo but yes, the space between the white stripes on the lapel pin is blue...or maybe black, but certainly not red. Still could be a GCR for all I know, but yes, it's blue.

Maybe it's just dirty or oxidized or something like that? It seems odd he'd have a lapel pin without a matching ribbon.

DrZiplock

Not if he traded it for something, which it's rather apparent that he enjoyed doing.