MEET THE AUTHORS
Robert W. Bergstrom was born in Ogden, Utah as a "Navy Brat" and lived in different duty stations until his dad retired. He grew up in Inglewood, Washington (close to Seattle) and graduated with a Forest Management degree from Washington State University in Pullman, Washington in 1982. He is married and has two teenage sons in Vancouver, Washington where he works for the Bonneville Power Administration as a Contracting Officer. While working for the United States Forest Service he fought forest fires and was a forester. Once he was treed by a bear with three cubs for five hours. Bob really became interested in medals after he went through the long process of obtaining his father’s medals from the Navy.
Lonny Borts graduated from the NYU College of
Engineering and attended Rennselear Polytechnic
Institute for graduate studies. He worked for the
Grumman Corporation for 33 years, retiring as an
Engineering Specialist in Airborne Surveillance Systems.
His interest in ribbons dates from World War II, and he is an active lecturer and author, having written three books
as well as numerous articles for the OMRS Journal and
JOMSA (including its predecessor, The Medal Collector).
He has lectured and presented competitive displays
at previous OMSA Conventions, winning a Bronze
Display Medal in 2007. Lonny serves as consultant to
the three Naval Services, is Awards Program Director
of Vanguard Industries, the major supplier of military
uniform accessories, and is Curator of Awards and
Decorations at the Liberty Bell Military Museum in
Melbourne, Florida. Highlighting these activities were
his efforts in designing the Coast Guard "E" Ribbon and
Kosovo Campaign Medal. He has also created displays
of military ribbons for museums, military bases and naval
facilities. For these efforts, Lormy has been decorated by
OMSA and the Royal Life Saving Society of Canada for
distinguished services in researching and cataloguing
worldwide ribbons.
Ed Emering is a Chicago-based author, researcher
and collector. He is a frequent contributor to JOMSA
on a wide variety of topics and last year received
two OMSA Commendation Medals for his OMSA
monographs. Ed also maintains the free research site
(www.themedalhound.com), which welcomes comments
and submissions.
James K. Hitch is a retired Army officer with a logistics
specialty and is currently employed in a family agricultural
business. He has been a member of OMSA for 50 years
and presently serves the Society as its Treasurer. His
collecting interests are British regimental, Army Service
Corps and its predecessors, and British animal life saving
medals. He has presented Convention seminars on both
of these collecting interests.
Owain Raw-Rees was born in Aberystwyth, Wales,
educated at Christ College, Brecon, and read theology
at Worchester College, Oxford. Subsequently he was
commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers. On leaving
the Army he has pursued a career in insurance and has
lived in the Middle East since 1989. His interest in awards
began during his military service and upon moving
to the Middle East he specialized in the awards of the
Arab world. He has had a number of articles published
in The Journal of the Orders and Medals Research
Society of Great Britain and the Journal of the Orders
and Medals Society of America and has been awarded
six Literary Medals by the latter. He is a holder of the
Qu’aiti Sultanate’s Order of Excellence; an Honorary
Life Member of the Association of Round Tables; and Chairman of the Riyadh Group for British Business.
Glenn "Marty" Stein has researched and written about
polar history and worldwide polar awards over the last
25 years. His primary objective has been to interest and
educate the public in polar history- which he sees as vital
if people of today and the future are going to appreciate
and preserve not only human cultural and historical
sites, but the vast variety of plant and animal life in
the polar regions. He is a life member of the American
Polar Society, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society,
and Orders and Medals Research Society. A regular
contributor to specialist journals, in 2006 Stein became
the Polar Historian for the International Polar Year 2007-
2008 website (www.ipy.org).
OMSA CONVENTION 2009
August 13-August 16, 2009.
Amway Grand Plaza Hotel
and the
Devoss Place Convention Center
187 Monroe NW
Grand Rapids, Michigan
616-776-6400
2 JOMSA
UNITED STATES AWARDS OF WOI~)LD WAI( II TI-IA"F NEVEl~ HAPPENED
LONNY BORTS
Introduction
This article is the result of two trips made by the author
to The Institute of Heraldry and the Navy’s Awards and
Special Projects Branch in Washington a number of years
ago. It was originally part of a much larger presentation
made at a recent OMSA Convention in Philadelphia
and is presented here for the information (and possible
amusement) of the OMSA membership as a whole.
the Purple Heart and Silver Star medals for use by all the
Naval Services and countless awards to civilians. But, as
revealed during the author’s research into the Navy and
The Institute of Heraldry archives, many other forces
were at work behind the scenes during World War II
to further reward military participants for their actions
and services. In the following pages, a number of these
activities, most of which never saw the light of day, will
be described and discussed below:
Through World War II, the rationale behind the creation
of new awards for the United States military was usually
quite clear as evidenced by the establishment of the
following decorations and service ribbons during and
immediately after that conflict:
Legion of Merit Navy and Marine Corps Medal
Bronze Star
Air Medal Army Commendation Ribbon (later Medal)
Navy Commendation Ribbon (later Medal) Army Good Conduct Medal Reserve Special Commendation Ribbon
Navy Presidential Unit Citation
Army Distinguished Unit Badge (later Presidential
Unit Citation) Navy Unit Commendation Army Meritorious Unit Commendation (sleeve
insignia only, later issued in ribbon form)
American Defense Service Medal Women’s Army Corps Service Medal American Campaign Medal Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
World War II Victory Medal Army of Occupation Medal
Navy Occupation Service Medal Marine Corps Reserve Ribbon
It should be noted that this list excludes three medals
issued for service in the years prior to the war, ten awards
of the United States Merchant Marine, the extension of
A FOURTH Area Campaign Medal
Let’s start with an illustration of how a seemingly obscure
item can lead to an interesting revelation. In this instance,
it was the lowly comma that started the ball rolling in a
confidential War Department merno that first promulgated
the World War II "Theater Campaign" ribbons (Figures
1 and 2). In at least three places the text refers to the
"African-Middle Eastern" and "European" Theaters
separated by the magic comma, leading to the suspicion
that the memo had actually authorized TWO ribbons
where only one was known before. This was later verified
when lists of the areas bounded by each campaign ribbon
(Figure 3), a map of the affected areas (Figure 4) and
descriptions of the campaign ribbons themselves (Figure
5) were uncovered in both Navy and TIOH archives.
The ribbon configurations are very familiar with
the obvious use of predominantly green and brown
colorations to represent Europe and Africa/Middle-East
areas respectively.
But in spite of all of the documentation found, the two
ribbons were combined and replaced almost immediately
by the now-familiar European-African-Middle Eastern
Campaign ribbon before the end of 1942. However, no
written rationale was ever found to explain the change
nor the reversal of the near-edge stripes representing
the German (white-black-white) and Italian (red-white-
green) flag colors in the final ribbon design.
Vol. 60, No. 1 3
ooP’[
Disposition
Personnel D1vi$1on,
American, L~ropean, African Middle ~st ~ Asiatic Pacific theater campaign medal ribbons. Date: September i0, 1942.
FOR:
(Col. Minus, Oloth& Equip. Sec.)
S/W di~pcts:
IIIiIIIII
=See Enlarged
J Area Below
I~I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I III I
di=tributton en app.~oprlate number of ~nertcau, ~ropean, Afrtcau-~dle .e East and Aslatlo-Pa~fic theater campaign me~al ribbons of the deslga and~ in the colors, outli~ed in the attached sketch (Tab A). ¯
11. That these~rib~one be procured and distributed in the follo~- _m
i~g order of priori~: Asta~io-~acific, African-Middle ~aet, R~ropean American theaters, rmespectivel¥~ I
¯
111. That withowt dela~ an appropri~te numbe~’ of these ribbons be forwarded, without ~quest, to the 0omm~der-in-Chief, Southwest Pacific and the Conm~mdin~ .~enerals, European, Ohi~a-Buz~a-In&la~ Afrlca-Middle ~ast, South Pacific ~heaters, the F~stern, Western and Caribbean Defense
¯
¯
IIiIIIIIIiIIIIIIIiIiIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Figure 1: War Department inetno of September 10, 1942 directing the distribution of the four area campaign ribbons. The part enclosed with in the red dotted lines is enlarged in Figure 2.
in the foll urop,
Figure 2: Enlarged portion of War Department memo of September 10, 1942 highlighting the all-important commas.
4 JOMSA