One of my main aims in this blog is to try and find out why my Grandfather was awarded the his two Belgian medals, La Croix de Guerre and La Décoration Militaire.
I have now found the award of the medal in four different publications but none of them gave a reason for the award.
An article in Flight magazine on the history of 48 Squadron says that only 2 Croix de Guerres were award to men of the Squadron. The other Croix de Guerre was awarded at the same time to the pilot Lt. Norman Hunt. Hunt was not awarded La Décoration Militaire but instead was awarded the Chevaliers de l'Ordre de Leopold II which is practically a knighthood in Belgium.
I've asked on the Great War Forum for suggestions on where to find the citations and general opinion is that there unlikely to be one. A likely scenario is that Belgian government made the decorations available and the British Military Authorities made the decision on who to give them to.
So Reginald and Hunt might have just been chosen to represent the Squadron in accepting these decorations, but why these two men.
Was it a random choice or was there something special about them that pushed them to the front?
Is it a coincidence that a pilot and an observer in a Squadron are both awarded La Croix de Guerre?
Were they flying together on a patrol when some extraordinary event occurred?
No comments:
Post a Comment