A CERTIFICATE FOR THE ROMANIAN INTERALLIED CAPTAIN ERIC M. TRIPNAUX, OMSA 4075

Lt. Col. Alexander J. Laslo (OMSA # 2878) has probably collected more material than anyone about the Interallied Victory Medal, created and distributed at the end of WWI. His research was first published in a invaluable work1 in 1986. Some years later, a new edition was necessary due to the high amount of new information2.

The Interallied Victory Medal can be the single topic of a collection. So it is not surprising that new information can still be discovered on the subject.

I want to set out a certificate or "brevet" for the Rumanian Interallied Victory Medal, which perceptibly differs from the example shown by Lt. Col. Laslo3. The latter was not signed nor attributed. The certificate illustrated here is rather damaged, its original dimensions are 21 cm x31 cm.

The main difference between this example and the Laslo example is the layout of the text. The medal was awarded on August 8th, 1924 to the Sergeant Joan Murarescu. His Highness, King Ferdinand I of Rumania, in whose name the medal was conferred, is mentioned on the document. But the establishment decree (Nr 3390 dated July 20th, 1921) is not refereced anymore. This document is signed by the Colonel commanding the 14th Infantry Regiment and by the General commanding the 7th Infantry Brigade. The circular stamps of both units are printed close to the officers’ signatures.

NOTES

1. Alexander J. Laslo, The Interallied Victory Medals of , Dorado Publishing, Albuquerque New Mexico 1986.

16 The Medal Collector 2. Alexander J. Laslo, Inter Allied Victory Medals of World War I (Second revised edition), Dorado Publishing, Albuquerque New Mexico 1992. 3. Idem, page 82, figure 103.

The Medal Collector 17 THE MEDALS OF GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON, JR. John P. Mull, III, OMSA # 2024

Most members who joined OMSA after the mid 1970’s will not remember the "Famous Chests" series of articles that were written by the late Haskell D. Richardson, OMSA 593. Each of the articles in the series was devoted to a famous person of military importance. The articles would contain a photograph of the person showing his ribbons and/or medals, a duplicate of his ribbon bar, and a brief historical description about the person’s military career.

One of these articles featured the awards of General George S. Patton, Jr. and included a photo of General Patton in his Class-A uniform with his full size medals and foreign awards. Along with this photograph was an outlined sketch of the picture with a typed description of each medal and order. Mr. Richardson had some questions as to what some of the orders and medals were and left these unidentified in his original article. The photograph and sketch have been updated and are included as Figures 5 and 6 in this article.

In follow up correspondence with Mr. Richardson, just before his death, he stated that he had not been able to devote as much time to his research as he had wanted. He felt that there was much more that could be done if a person wanted to devote the time to doing it. Subsequently, this began a five year search for the unknown information. The search lead to a trip to the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Ft. Knox, Kentucky and numerous correspondence with the National Archives document and still photo labs. The information obtained was quite overwhelming. There are photos, documents, personal letters and even some comments by Patton about some of his awards. What is needed now, is the time to compile it all into a book.

However, since this is both the 50th Anniversary of the end of World War II and of Patton’s death, this article is being submitted to allow those interested in General Patton to have a summary of the information available on his awards and to shed some light on what the unknown orders and medals are in the sketch of the photo of him in Figure 6.

After examininig the hundreds of photographs acquired during this

18 The Medal Collector