WWII items from my Grandfather
 

Hey guys, do me a favor and take a look at these pics of items from my Grandfather.

The first I believe is his ribbon bar. There are three ribbons on it, the middle one has 3 possibly bronze stars on it but I am not sure what ther represent. It also looks like it was covered with shellac at some point. Is this something guys did to preserve them? Doesn't look like it worked if that was the purpose. Last year for his 89th bday we presented him with ribbons that my mother got ordered based on his service history. He said most of them were never issued to him after the war. The metal bracket and pin on the back are heavily rusted. So is anyone familiar with what happened to this ribbon bar and if any thing can be done with it?

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...pss4zzw7da.jpg

The next is a war souviner he picked up in Germany, it is a compas card he retrieved from the cockpit of a Messerschmitt 262 jet. It was grounded and he got a chance to crawl arround and inside it and picked this up. It was the first jet fighter and it left a lasting impression in him. He wrote what it is and how he got it on the card. It is only about 3" tall so it isn't that big. If anyone has any info on it I would appreciate it.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...psql8u1jno.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...psp0f6ork8.jpg

So thanks for any info you guys can give me and advice on how what to do with that ribbon bar.

Try this website to find out and get new ribbons,

http://www.medalsofamerica.com/?utm_...utm_creative=e


Clyde

Thanks for the link, we did that last year for his birthday so ha has the medals but I just came across this recently and was wondering how it matched up to what we presented him last year. None of them had the three stars on the ribbons.

The Bronze stars mean that he received the award a total of 4 times, and silver is when you receive the award for the 5th time, and then you add Bronze stars again until you hit number 10 and add another silver start etc.........


Clyde

^This. Each star represents an additional time winning the award. My dad was in an AA battery and always talked about seeing the first jet he'd ever seen flying over the lines

I have a friend, a retired Army Col who served in Vietnam, who he has three Bronze and one Silver. Does that mean he was awarded eight times?

No, There is a Bronze Star and a Silver Star by themselves


Clyde

No, like Clyde said, the bronze star and Silver star are medals unto themselves. The copper colored small stars affixed to a ribbon indicate the number of times that medal has been awarded

Very nice momentos, historic and part of your heritage. It's nice to have those as rememberances, he appears to have been a billy bad boy with those ribbons.

Nice!!!!

If it's a campaign ribbon the number of stars indicates the number of campaigns you participated in that theater. If it's an award for merit the gold star is a second award, after 5 awards then it becomes a silver star on the ribbon/medal. Air medals because of the number of combat sorties that some airmen had left little room on the ribbon/medal so they went to using numbers instead. So there! The ribbon you showed with the three campaign stars appears to be the European Theater of Operations and the one on the right appears to be the WWII Victory Medal. Can't distinguish what the far left ribbon is.