Glider Pilot Badge from Crete

[Mike39]

I was very fortunate to have a good friend arrive at home yesterday to show me some items that belonged to her late father in law.
He was a Medical Officer with the 23 Bn 2nd NZEF and a veteran of Greece & Crete where he was eventually taken as a prisoner of war.
As a MO he was in the thick of the conflict at Malame, treating between 500 - 700 Kiwi and German wounded ( according to official records ) and was himself wounded. As a pow, he was taken back to Greece and continued to treat both allied & enemy wounded eventually being sent to work in a hospital in Athens and ultimately ending up in a Stalag in Germany for the duration of the war.
The Glider Pilots badge was amongst the items that he returned with and it is believed to have been given to him by a wounded pilot at Malame during the invasion. There is also his Diary which records names of Kiwi wounded & dead that he treated. His hand writing is difficult to read and given the circumstances this is more than understandable, but I hope to find more information & hopefully a name relating to badge.
Nice to see an item with 100% provenance.

Mike

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[Thomas Durante]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for sharing this badge and the vet's story.

I think this will raise some eyebrows, because the type of badge you show is considered a later-war type of glider badge (and some guys even think they are only postwar reproductions.). It is made from zinc, which is considered more of a later-war metal, and it is hard to imagine that such a badge would have been at such an early battle of the war like the invasion of Kreta in May 1941. That is just very early in the war for such a badge IMO. If the badge was at Kreta, then it must have been produced and awarded in early 1941 or earlier. It is commonly though that zinc wasn't being used at this time for Luftwaffe badge construction, rather it was higher quality metals like nickel silver and brass.

The badge itself matches very well to the other ones known of this type, so really it is just a matter of believing whether this guy got the badge on Crete during the battle as you say, or sometime later in the war.

Looking forward to seeing what some other guys think about this one.

Tom

[Mike39]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for sharing this badge and the vet's story.

I think this will raise some eyebrows, because the type of badge you show is considered a later-war type of glider badge (and some guys even think they are only postwar reproductions.). It is made from zinc, which is considered more of a later-war metal, and it is hard to imagine that such a badge would have been at such an early battle of the war like the invasion of Kreta in May 1941. That is just very early in the war for such a badge IMO. If the badge was at Kreta, then it must have been produced and awarded in early 1941 or earlier. It is commonly though that zinc wasn't being used at this time for Luftwaffe badge construction, rather it was higher quality metals like nickel silver and brass.

The badge itself matches very well to the other ones known of this type, so really it is just a matter of believing whether this guy got the badge on Crete during the battle as you say, or sometime later in the war.

Looking forward to seeing what some other guys think about this one.

Tom

Hi Tom
I hear & understand what your saying & thought the very same thing when I first looked at it. The thing is, the provenance is bullet proof & documented. And as a POW, whats the possibilty of him getting whats considered a late war Glider Pilots badge when the only conflict he was in, which involved FJ troops & Gilder landings, was at Crete ?
The wreath itself is nickle silver construction and the quality of the gablonz is evident as seen in the photo's. But the eagle is of zinc construction which is unusual for this period.


Thanks
Mike

[Stepdale]

Mike,
Take a look at the threads below. I believe yours is zinc, including the wreath, which has held the finish very well. If you read through the threads, quite a few of these were brought back by NZ vets/former POWs who probably looted a warehouse with these and other Gablonz LW badges (RK nightfighters). Yours probably came from the same source, as opposed to being an early one from the Crete campaign. I am a firm believer that these are not postwar, but rather produced in Gablonz very late in the war when many of the factories in Germany proper had been bombed out or overrun.
Dale

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...L+HINGE+GLIDER

Here's the one I bought.
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...gablonz+glider

[Sebastien T]

Hello mike,

Beautiful ball binge glider in great condition. I do agree that the wreagh look like NS. Do you have documents and/or pictures with your provenence...

[Nick Carraway]

I'm with Dale and Tom quite strongly. Wonderful to see an original badge but we should judge the item. This is an original late war zinc badge I dare say did not exist even soon after Kreta.

[DaveNZ]

As a MO he was in the thick of the conflict at Malame, treating between 500 - 700 Kiwi and German wounded ( according to official records ) and was himself wounded. As a pow, he was taken back to Greece and continued to treat both allied & enemy wounded eventually being sent to work in a hospital in Athens and ultimately ending up in a Stalag in Germany for the duration of the war.
The Glider Pilots badge was amongst the items that he returned with and it is believed to have been given to him by a wounded pilot at Malame during the invasion.

Hi

what would the chances be of an allied solider holding onto a German badge while in captivity?

slim verging on impossible I would have thought? werent their possessions closey vetted?

cheers

dave

[vacollector]

Was your friend's late realitive the famed Oberarzt Dr.Weizel? He assumed comand of the 2nd gliders attack company when the commander was killed after landing near Tavronitis on May 24 1941.

[Steven Baumgartner]

Hi

what would the chances be of an allied solider holding onto a German badge while in captivity?

slim verging on impossible I would have thought? werent their possessions closey vetted?

cheers

dave

I can't believe the Germans would allow a POW to possess one of their own badges. Not to mention the pin on the badge could be used as a weapon or for picking a lock.