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Let's see some mounted groups


wolfman
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Medals group of LCDR James L. Anderson - KIA - August 1972

Grumman E-2B Hawkeye #151705

VAW-115 - USS Midway (CVA-41)

Crashed into the Pacific 80km south east of Miyazaki, Japan

 

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Here is another Marine Aviator group with service in Vietnam. Since there is no way to identify the recipient, your guess is as good as mine as to whether he is a fixed wing pilot or a helo pilot? What do you think?

 

 

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Grandfather's. USMC WWI. 2/5 at Belleau Wood and 1/5 thereafter. 1970's replacement set, mounted.

that's an awesome combination...and a Belleau Marine to boot!

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A bar mounted set of decorations to Col. John A. McAlister, USMC. McAlister earned two Silver Stars on Wake Island before being captured. (As far as I can tell he was the only Marine to earn two decorations on Wake.) His Bronze Star was for his POW escape from China in 1945. (A whole book was written about their experiences by one of the other men who escaped with him.) The LoM and Purple Heart were both earned as XO of the 1st Marines during the Korean War. It’s interesting that McAlister never wore the gold star on the ribbon of the Silver Star or the V on the LoM ribbon. However in the photo below he does have these devices on his ribbon bar set.

 

It’s on my “to do” list to start a separate thread on Col. McAlister and his amazing story.

 

 

 

 

 

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McAlister as a full colonel after Korea, wearing only the ribbons for his decorations. (Not even the Expeditionary ribbon with silver W!) This photo makes me think that he probably only wore his full size decorations, as shown above, and never had all of his medals bar mounted.

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Well, damn, Adam, I was going to post a couple of USMC bars here myself, but you just overshadowed them preemptively...

 

Great bar

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Well, I was poking around the moto room today and it's been a mess for a couple months now as I try to thin out, and I found this stack I forgot I had bought a few months back. Sadly missing one of the pins, but a great, named bar with 2nd award bar on the GCM

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another one I got sometime in late 2012...to a Marine who went mustang, A-Prefixed GCM, Reserve medal, and NAVCOMM

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Why does that look so familiar?

 

It is a stunning bar, love the early mounted ones

 

Pictures of both RADM Yates Stirling Jr's (1872-1948, USNA 1892) (his father was also a RADM) stunning full sized medals and his miniatures were previously posted more than a year ago by their presumptive owners, two different members. I'm most probably a minority of one on this, but I'd rather own Stirling's full-sized Sampson, Navy Cross group than the recently publicized, high profile Sampson, DSM group to another rear admiral, Nathan Crook Twining- that sold for $20,000 with the $10,000 Specially Meritorious Service medal this past 1/18/14. Putting the monetary value of the medals aside, there's really no comparing the historical significance of the two naval careers. And again, I'm probably a minority view, but the history of the medal recipient's service matters as much to me as the rarity of the piece of bronze, silver, gold, etc.

 

The man was a visionary strategist and a prolific naval author. Hopefully, Stirling's significant career, controversies and all, will be laid out here one day since it's a story worth telling. If nothing more, than that he was writing about the inevitability of a Japanese attack on the US since the teens. I've got a nice group photo of him and a letter he wrote on behalf of one of my officers to the flag officer selection board in the 30's that I'll be posting in the future.

 

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11319105

 

 

 

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Here is my favorite mounted group. This group is to Lt. Ernest V. Samdstrom who was awarded the Navy Expeditionary Medal for the being a member of a landing force ashore, in Honolulu, from USS Adams, July, 1889.

Dick

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Dick, your early GCM, Expeditions mounted group to Ernest Sandstrom is superb. Have you had an opportunity to order his file from St. Louis? It looks like he didn't receive a Sampson medal- do you know where he did his service during the Span Am. War? I've read that Navy regulations prohibited receiving both the Sampson Medal and West Indies Campaign Medal for the same period of duty, yet we've seen numerous groups and receipts that document receipt of both medals. Perhaps one of the experts such as Adam, can clarify how that worked.

 

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