Who is your favorite MoH Recipients, V.C. RKT or HotSU, to study about?

Hi Wessex, Erich and Paul, are two Gents whose names come to mind if you need to ask about the LuftWaffe RKTs such as is your guy here. Those two have my eternal gratitude and awe-when it comes to this stuff. :-D

 

Thanks for the kind attention C.Evans. Here is a site about DEMOZAY. It's in French but you can easily read about all his medals and his squadron + pictures etc...He is buried 25km from my home. More to come later. There are many more highly decorated guys like him
DEMOZAY

 

From the Veterans Affairs Canada website: "Here are some of the accounts of the heroics of Canadians who won the Victoria Cross during the Second World War.

• While holding out against the enemy in a bridgehead over the Savio River of Italy in 1944, Private Ernest 'Smokey' Smith single-handedly fought off enemy tanks and infantry, while protecting his wounded comrade. According to his citation: "The Germans thought an entire company did the work of this one man."
• Captain Paul Triquet planned and carried out a daring raid that resulted in the capture of an important junction on the main road to Ortona, which would prove to be the site of a key Allied victory. When his troops were surrounded on all sides, Triquet was heard to yell, "...There is only one safe place - that is on the objective!"
• Reverend Major John Foote, a chaplain with the troops landing in the Dieppe raid of August 1942, risked enemy fire time and again to help rescue wounded soldiers from the bloody beach. He helped treat them medically and evacuate some to landing craft but in the end, rather than leave on a boat himself, he chose to stay with the Canadian soldiers who had to be left behind to be captured by the Germans.
• Lieutenant Robert Gray was a member of the Royal Air Force serving on a British aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean. In August of 1945, he led a courageous bombing mission against a Japanese destroyer in which he successfully hit his target but lost his life in the heroic effort. His was the last Canadian combat death of the Second World War and the last time a Canadian has won the Victoria Cross.
• Captain Frederick Peters braved fierce fire in taking part in a heroic ship assault on harbour defences during Allied landings in Algeria in 1942. His ship reached the enemy jetty disabled and ablaze and went down with its colours still flying. Captain Peters was the only officer to survive the attack and was taken prisoner.
• During the Battle of Hong Kong, the unit that Company Sergeant Major John Osborn was leading became surrounded by the enemy. The Japanese began to throw grenades into the Canadians' defensive positions but Osborn caught several of them and threw them back. Finally one fell where he could not retrieve it in time. Shouting a warning, he threw himself upon the grenade as it exploded, giving his life for his comrades.
• Sergeant Aubrey Cosens won the Victoria Cross for his actions in a battle to push the enemy from a small village in the Hochwald forest of western Germany. Cosens assumed command of his battered platoon and personally cleared the German defenders from three buildings in the midst of intense enemy fire, killing or taking prisoner at least 40 Germans before he himself was killed by a sniper.
• Major David Currie was leading a force that was tasked with cutting off the retreating Germans in the Falaise pocket of France during the Battle of Normandy. At an enemy-held village, he personally led an attack that allowed the Canadians to gain a position there and then. With much personal heroism, he helped the unit hold on against fierce German counter-attacks for three days (combat that saw 800 Germans killed or wounded and 2,100 captured). He then led his men in securing the rest of the village and helped seal off the Falaise pocket. "

- I first read about Douglas Bader in grade school, so while he didn't win the VC his service was exemplary (and colourful!). Also, Audie Murphy was always one of those I admired and tried to learn about.

There were so many whose actions didn't receive the medals and recognition they deserved. I liked the point that regardless of which army there were men who performed acts of valor at the risk of their own lives. For me, Company Sgt Magor John Osborn mentioned above exemplified the laying down of his life to save others. Unfortunately, most that he saved that day either died within the next few days in battle, or endured horrible conditions in Japanese POW camps or as slave labour in Japan, if they survived it.



Michelle

 

the story of rené Mouchotte Legion D'Honneur, Compagnon de la Liberation, Croix de Guerre with 6 palms , DFC, Croix de Guerre from Tcech Republic).

available on Amazon:
"Compiled from the diaries and flying logs left by this gallant Free French pilot, this classic account of his career first appeared in France in 1949 and in English translation in 1956. It covers his 1940 escape from Oran in an unserviceable plane and a combat career that saw him rise to command of a fighter wing at Biggin Hill before his untimely death under the guns of a Fw 190 in 1943".



Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Cerberus Publishing Ltd.; New Ed edition (July 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841450243
• ISBN-13: 978-1841450247

 

Thank you Skipper, Michelle,

Skipper, thanks for that site. I wish I understood more French but ;-))

Michelle, thank you as well. I recognized Smokey Smith, Major Foote and Captain Peters names from some books I read many years ago. I don't remember the titles but I remember these three in particular were mentioned in detail.

I wish there was an English print book about all the Legion of Honor guys as well as the Cross of War guys. Same goes for the Hero of the Soviet Union guys. So much good stuff that needs to be in print; but aint.

 

Mouchotte book's in English and it's well worth reading. I will try and check if there are documents in English about medal recepients . I'll try the Compagnons de la Liberation list first.

 

C.Evans it's going to be a belated Christmas for you:

I found the complete list of the 1038 holders of the Ordre de la Liberation (one of the rarest French distinctions). Amongst these men are Winston Churchill and king George VI.
I believe only 63 of these brave people are still alive.

http://www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_doc/liste_compagnons.pdf

the history of this award is here (in English)
Ordre de la Libération - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll try to get the Legion d'honneur too but that's going to be harder.

 

It's a difficult one in many ways as so much courageos conduct has happened since these awards were first instituted,

As for VC Winners i would have to go with the late Capt Dick Annand 2 DLI , first Army VC of World War 2 , this is for two reasons although his award has been very well documented and was richly deserved Dick was deaf for his entire life as a result of his wounds suffered in the action and yet still gave a lifetime of service and care to others , the second reason was i knew him personally as a friend and i know what a tremendous human being and man of honour he was.

Knights Cross winners is difficult as well but for sheer in your face battlefield courage throughout the war i would have to agree with Carl that SS Unterscharfuhrer Remy Schrynen should get a mention , a man small of stature but a giant on the Battlefield.

Can't not mention my late friend SS Hauptscharfuhrer Sepp Lainer who fought throughout the war until his capture in Normandy at the front with the DF Regt.

Would also include the highly decorated infantryman Helmut Meitzel who fought throughout the war with IR 15 of 29 ID (Mot) from France / Russia / Stalingrad / Italy he won every German bravery award that was availiable and yet is pretty much unknown.

One of the guys who i have met at OdR meetings in Germany is the only living Heer Swords winner Waldermar von Gazen who incredibly won the KC,EL and Swords as a combat level infantry officer in Southern Russia during 1942/43 , he never seems to feature in lists such as this so i include him as well.

Paul

 

Well said Paul, so many brave men from all nationalities are never mentionned.

 

Has to be Audie Murphy. Most decorated US soldier of WW2 and rose from Private to Captain in 4 years. A legend

 

it seems like Audie is getting to be one of our favorite heroes! I'm glad he is still so popular in many countries. Remember I posted pictures of his memorial in France in the Alsace thread a few monts ago.

 

Thank you Skipper, I owe you much gratitude for all of this. ;-))

From another site, im going to see if I can get a list from a member there-who has a list of American, French and British/Commonwealth; recipients of the Hero of the Soviet Union. This stuff is something i've also wanted for many years and never found anything of.....

 

I know its not cool to zombie a thread (especially it being my first post to boot!). This was a really cool thread I came upon while searching for something else, personally I think it would be cool to see it stickied as this is such a great subject of discussion and sharing among friends.

For the MOH as the requisite, Daniel Daly is one of my favorite to read about, granted its quite difficult to find information on him. Being one of the few double medal of honor recipients (and a genuine double recipient, two distinctly seperate engagements; not some of those guys that got 2 for the same action-where they got one from both Army and Navy) he was the total embodiment of what you imagine a hard core leatherneck marine was. Found it interesting and humorous about his first MOH. He was in the stockade (drunk in public or started a bar fight, nothing majorly bad) and later on the same day that they had just let him out of jail they put his first MOH around his neck

I love one of the photos (generally the most seen one) of him getting awarded the Medaillle Militaire and it just being dwarfed by the 2 MOH's around his neck and all the other crosses/medals he had already received by then. I've been working on making a tribute collection of his awards, patches, insignia and EGA's. Recently found the correct patch (since the Marines wore the Indian head of the 2nd Army Div, just placed different colors on the back to differentiate from the 5th, 6th, etc) that he was in to add to my collection:



I'm interested to see who in the forum can make the connection with the Halo wings (added them as a joke for his trademark). Also his ribbons have several special features that aren't present anymore, I made the ribbon rack up to the specifications at the time of his retirement, thus some things are a bit weird. And yes, the MOH ribbon is the real deal, I got it 21 years ago (remember so precisely as a friend was one of the first to receive the POW medal. After the ceremony we went to the PX and he got a couple for me, they had to special order them and they were expensive -$5.00 a piece) way before the SVA was even thought about yet.

There's no question that Murphy deserved the MOH though I find him to be very over hyped up. If it weren't for the lack of a MOH (though he arguably shoud've gotten two - one for Guadalcanal and another for Chosin instead of Navy Crosses) its hard to argue against Chesty Puller being the most highly decorated US soldier. He even got 3 other country's equivalent of the MOH awarded in his service during his service. Even on all his campaign medals he got at least 2 (or more) campaign stars for always being right in the middle of the action (granted some of the medals like the Nicuraguan Campaign doesn't allow the use of citation stars and some of the others).



I've always admired Puller as he was a Marine first, then an officer. Never afraid to be at the front line with his men firing alongside them in a battle; rarely would you have found him in a shack calling out orders (granted his command posts were usually only a couple hundred yards behind the front lines anyways) from the safety of a fortified post half a mile from where the action was.