Foreign Medals

[Nacho]

Can anyone explain to me how pilots would recieve medals from other countries? For instance a French pilot gets a medal from Belgium of England. How is that done. Do they need to do something for the other country to obtain a foreing medal or how is it done.

[Doc]

There have been many discussions of this issue on the Great War Forum (Great War Forum (Powered by Invision Power Board)) in the past. Bottom line is that it varied. Some people were actually assigned to foreign forces or served as liaison to such forces, and earned medals for that service (e.g. US pilots in the Lafayette Esquadrille who earned French medals). In the majority of cases, though, it seems that the governments involved agreed to exchange blocks of medals which then were doled out by the receiving government to "deserving" personnel. It is quite common to find that these people then received medals from a foreign government without having actually performed any direct service or specifically identified act for that foreign government, other than service in a friendly military during a war. In a relatively few cases, one government became aware of an extremely deserving person from another Army and then awarded that person medals directly-- in these cases, it is common to wonder "what for", other than generally recognisable actions or performance supporting the common goal of victory. That is not a satisfactory answer, I know, but it is the best way I have been able to figure it out. Doc

[Jim]

Countries often awarded medals directly to soldiers from other countries when they felt that the soldier or his unit performed some noteworthy service that benefitted the medal awarding country. You did not need to be attached to any units of the country who was doing the awarding. For example, the French "Legion of Honor" medal

was awarded to about 55,000 men during the Great War, of which about 20,000 were awarded to to troops of other countries for having fought in France in their own armies. Then in 1998, France awarded this medal to every soldier from any allied country who had spent any time during the war in France and who was still alive.

Or another example is that in Germany and Austria medals were given sparingly in the early years of the war but as it wore on medals were given more freely not only to soldiers of the awarding country's army but also to soldiers of allied armies, and especially to officers who did not want to be outdone by their comrades in having a chest full.

[Billy9]

I know for sure thatsome decorations were given out after a hard fire fight, or some other big event. The reason I know is that while servive with the Marines in WWII after a big fire fight we had on Okinawa, we got word the the company was to receive two Silver Start and 10 Bronze Stars, I was one of the NCO's that was involved in making the decisioin of who get them. We had to sit down and mention those whom we thought might rate them then presented our list to the autyhorities.

Bill