PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Dear Fellow OMSA Search. These past issues will be available in a “members- Members: only” section; but, to ensure that the value of being a member is not diminished, we will hold back the last three If you haven’t registered years of the Journal from the website. Consequently, if for the OMSA Convention we launch the digitized members-only section later this in Milwaukee, it is not too year, you would have access to Journals through 2009. late. Please do it now! The Expect to hear more on this project in the coming months. registration form can be found in the March-April Latest News on the Stolen Valor Act: On June 3, 2013, issue of JOMSA and at President Obama signed the Stolen Valor Act of 2013. www.omsa.org. This new legislation corrects that portion of United States law relating to military awards that the Supreme Court As a result of the success of decided was unconstitutional in the Alvarez case. You will the first OMSA Convention remember that Alvarez falsely claimed that he had been Auction, conducted last year in Dallas, every member awarded the . While this was untrue, the who attends the convention in Milwaukee will receive Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment prevented a voucher worth $25 toward the purchase of OMSA Alvarez from being convicted for lying about having publications. The voucher must be used at the convention, been awarded our highest military decoration. After the and is good for any, and all, publications. If Steve Court’s generally unpopular decision, Representative Joe Watts, our Publications Manager, runs out of a book or Heck introduced legislation to “fix” the Alvarez problem; monograph that you want to purchase, he will mail it to the amendment being that anyone who, with “fraudulent you, post-free, after the convention. The other benefit ... intent to obtain money, property, or other tangible for those attending the Convention, again being made benefit ... holds oneself out to be a recipient of a [specific] possible by the success of last year’s auction, is that decoration or medal” is guilty of a misdemeanor. every registrant will receive a drink ticket good for one alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage at the Thursday Representative Heck’s bill had 127 co-sponsors in the evening cocktail party. House and passed without amendment in the Senate. There was no argument about the desire for this legislative Our newest monograph will be out by the time you read fix. The specific decorations, medals, and badges that this and will be available for sale at the convention. are covered by the new law are: the Medals of Honor, Longtime member and former Board member Bill Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, Air Force Emerson has done a masterful job in producing a second Cross, , , Combat Infantryman edition of Tony Margrave’s superb Medals for Service Badge, , Combat Medical Badge, in Mexico and on the Mexican Border. Bill, assisted by Combat Action Ribbon, and Combat Action Medal. other OMSA members, added 21 more medals to the existing text. The completely revised monograph includes The law will have no effect on OMSA, or our hobby, many new color photographs of state and local medals. since in collecting (and buying and selling and trading) There also is much new information in the monograph, United States awards, we don’t claim to be recipients nor including a table identifying all national guard units called do we have any fraudulent intent to obtain something to duty and showing where they served, a table showing of value. Note that, for the first time, the law makes it a the location of Regular Army units on the Mexican crime to claim to have a combat-related badge in order border, and a synopsis of national guard division service to obtain something of value. This new Act only amends in the American Expeditionary Force. The hardcover existing law; it does not replace it, which means that the monograph measures 8 x 10 inches and runs to almost prohibition against selling, buying or trading the Medal of 200 pages. Contact Steve Watts directly if you want a Honor is still in effect. Note also that the law only covers copy or pick one up at the convention. “tangible” things (and not items of “intangible” value).

Finally, your Board has authorized our website team Please do not hesitate to contact me by email (or phone) to proceed with digitizing the past 50-plus years of the if you have any questions or concerns. Journal, which we will then post on the OMSA website. The plan for each issue of the Journal to be searchable Best to all, Fred using commercially available tools like Google Site-

2 JOMSA MEET THE AUTHORS Fred Borch has been an OMSA member for more than ancient Comtat Venaissin (papal lands), near Avignon. 25 years and is now serving as OMSA president. He He is a member of many cultural associations concerned was recently awarded a Fulbright to the Netherlands for with history and heritage and with the Archaeological 2012-2013 and was a Visiting Professor at the University Museum in Le Pegue. Specialising in phaleristics (the of Leiden. study of medals), he is the author of many publications on this theme. In collaboration with Daniel Werba, he Tim Brown is a practicing lawyer in Austin, Texas, has recently published a book on the awards given by with a specialty in water rights. As an undergraduate in the French Dioceses, which has received an award from history, he developed and has long held a fascination the Académie Francaise (Prix Comte de Saint-Priest for Austria. This is his third article in the Journal and d’Urgel). Henri Veyradier is a rector of one of the last a second paper that was presented at the annual OMSA brotherhoods of Penitents in France, a knight of the convention. Tim is a frequent speaker at legal seminars Palmes Académiques, the Mérite Agricole, the l’Ordre du where a written paper is always expected. For the benefit Mérite, and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of members who cannot attend the OMSA convention, of Jerusalem. Tim urges those persons presenting seminar topics to present their presentations in writing for the benefit of all the members to enjoy. WOULD YOU LIKE Ed Emering is an award-winning Chicago-based author of historical books and articles and a photographer. He has contributed over 50 articles to JOMSA and has authored TO SEE YOUR numerous books, including four OMSA monographs (the last of which was published in December 2012). Ed also BIOGRAPHY maintains “The Medal Hound” (www.themedalhound. com), an ever-expanding free research service for medal ON THIS PAGE? collectors with interests in those areas covered by the site.

Stephen J. Shaw has been an OMSA member since 1996. He resides in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and is a retired middle-school teacher. He served on active duty for four SEND AN ARTICLE and a half years with the United States Marine Corps and 20 years with the Pennsylvania National Guard, retiring TO JOMSA as a Command Sergeant Major. His main interests are the Spanish Civil War and Iron Crosses. He is a volunteer TODAY! with the Lancaster County Red Rose Honor Guard which renders military funeral honors for those who served their country. He has had articles published in JOMSA and the Token and Medals Society Magazine. PLAN NOW TO ATTEND Daniel E. Speir is an attorney in Kansas City, Missouri and a retired judge advocate in the United States Army Reserve. He retired in January, 2012 after 30 years as OMSA 2013 a reserve police officer with the Kansas City Police Department. His collecting interests include campaign medals of the world from 1820 to 1945. AUGUST 8 - 11, 2013 Henri Veyradier was born in 1952 in Aubenas in the Ardech, south-eastern France. He has a degree in history from the University of Grenoble and teaches CROWNE PLAZA this subject in various academic institutions. He lives in MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN Valéas, the capital of the Enclave des Papes, part of the

Vol. 64, No. 4 (July-August 2013) 3 DECORATIONS AND MEDALS TO PRISONERS OF WAR: A FASCINATING STORY OF EVOLVING VIEWS AND PEOPLE

FRED L. BORCH

Introduction were taken prisoner by the Germans in the 19 months that the AEF was in combat.3 Less than 30 years later, Over the last 100 years, there has been an evolution in the Germans, Italians and Japanese took another 130,201 thinking about prisoners of war (POWs) in the United American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines prisoner States armed forces, an evolution that has been reflected and 14,072 died in captivity before the war ended in 1945. in the ever-increasing number of decorations and medals awarded to those men and women who have been While there was no doubt that most of them conducted captured by the enemy and held as POWs. This article themselves honorably, being a POW was still seen to be first looks at the evolution in views about POWs over an “undesirable status,” at least by the War Department. the last 100 years, an evolution that culminated in the For example, when the father of a POW held in Germany creation of a POW medal. It then looks at decorations and wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt in late 1944, asking if the medals awarded to Americans held as combat captives U.S. was going “to award some sort of ribbon or other in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold memento or medal signifying a soldier was a POW,” the War, Operation Desert Storm, the Balkans, Iraq and answer from the Army was “no.” 4 Afghanistan. By the end of the war, however, the idea that some POWs Evolving Views on Prisoners of War deserved to be decorated for their time in captivity was beginning to take hold, especially in the Navy. This One hundred years ago, on the eve of World War I, the almost certainly reflected the fact that Navy POWs had prevailing view in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps suffered horrific torture and maltreatment at the hands of was that while being taken prisoner was not necessarily the Japanese in the Pacific. But soldiers taken prisoner dishonorable, it was not quite honorable either. No in the Philippines after the fall of Corregidor also had one doubted that men who were seriously wounded in suffered terribly, so just why the Army did not change its combat, and could no longer resist much less fight, should views on POWs is somewhat of a mystery. surrender and be taken prisoner. But the services did not want to take any actions that encouraged soldiers, sailors, In any event, this divergence of views on POWs was airmen and Marines to give up fighting too soon. After all, manifested in the award of the Purple Heart to them. As if there was no stigma attached to being captured in battle, long as the Purple Heart was an Army-only award, that the thinking went, might a man in uniform decide not to service controlled the eligibility for the decoration. But risk getting injured or killed? As the military historian in 1942, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the S.L.A. Marshall put it: the idea in war is “generally Navy its own authority to award the Purple Heart to sea directed to making the other fellow quit.” It follows service personnel, the Navy was free to establish its own that honoring those who had been captured “would be award criteria, unfettered by the Army. detrimental to morale and a great disservice to Americans who fought valiantly to avoid being captured.” 1 And so it did. A July 1944 letter from the Navy Board of Decorations and Medals announced that “in view of what As a practical matter, however, such concerns about is commonly known regarding treatment of prisoners of POWs were of little interest, as not manh Army, Navy war by our enemies, the Board feels very strongly that and Marine Corps personnel had been captured on the personnel who die in captivity from any stated cause battlefield since the Civil War. While a small number of should be posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.”5 In soldiers had been taken prisoner by Filipino guerillas short, even if the Japanese were to report that an American during the Philippine Insurrection, their time in captivity sailor in a POW camp had died “of natural causes,” the had been very short, and apparently honorable.2 Navy would award a Purple Heart to his next-of-kin. By the end of World War II, the Navy Board of Decorations The deployment to France of an American Expeditionary and Awards also had decided that all sea service personnel Force (AEF) of over one million “Doughboys” in World who had been beaten or tortured or otherwise injured War I, however, changed this situation: 4,480 Americans while POWs would be awarded the Purple Heart.

4 JOMSA