Need help ID'ing the subject of this painting

[Gary Cain]

Hello friends, just as the header states, I need help with this guy. I have exhausted my archive and found nothing.

 

Many thanks for any help you guys can give me!

 

Gary

[Gary Cain]

2

Hello friends, just as the header states, I need help with this guy. I have exhausted my archive and found nothing.

 

Many thanks for any help you guys can give me!

 

Gary

[Gary Cain]

3

2

[Bob Hudson]

Without at least a last name, that's going to be next to impossible.

 

I got lucky though on a portrait of a Marine that has been hanging in a local second store (for four years they said).

 

 

I had been eying it for over a year when, at a local estate sale, I saw a similar sized painting of a woman, in the same style, with the same style signature. I asked the estate sale operator who it was and she said it was her late brother-in-law's wife. "Was he a Marine," I asked?

 

So that's how I found out he was LtCol Thomas R. Belzer who was in the Pacific War and then in China after he war (the painting has Tientsen in the signature). The second hand store (they liquidate estates) had the painting priced at $90 but a while back removed the tag so I thought that when I had a few extra bucks I'd offer them $45. Well, the other day the painting had been removed from the wall to being stacked against furniture on the floor. I asked about it, and the clerk said, "that's been here four years and we need to get rid of it." How much? $18, she said.

 

Had I not stumbled across that estate sale I never would have found out the subject's name (oh and at the sale I paid $10 for a portrait of him b a Marine combat artist on Guam as his 12th Marines were getting ready for Iwo Jima).

 

If your guy was a four striper or above, there might be some slight hope of stumbling across a photo during an extensive web search for Naval aviator photos, but as a Lieutenant Commander you'd really have to get lucky. But you never know. I thought I'd never know that Marine's ID.

[Gary Cain]

I'm hoping it won't be impossible. The ribbons should help I just don't have the list of recipients for the banana wars.

[R Leonard]

Interesting collection on his chest. Wings . . I'll get back to that.

 

Perhaps a NMCEM, okay quite a few issued for service in various expeditions and landings in China, Central America, and the Carribbean areas up through 1931; after that it was only awarded for the Panay Incident in 1937 and for the defense of Wake Island in December 1941 (and Wake's out for this gent, no "W" device). On the other hand, this could be a Mexican Service Medal which was awarded for service on certain ships between 1914 and 1917, mostly in the vicinity of Vera Cruz.

 

Middle first row I cannot really identify, but I suspect it is a poorly rendered Haitian Campaign Medal which was awarded from 1915 to 1920.

 

Obviously the third top row ribbon is the WW One Victory Medal . . . which makes the first, be it MCEM or MSM and a HCM make sense in terms of one's service.

 

The second row also lends some clues, American Defense Service Medal, an Asia Pacific Campaign Medal w/star for 2d campaign, but NO American Campaign Medal, that's a little odd. And then the ringer, a GCM with stars for 2d and 3d awards, err, enlistments.

 

And a Naval Aviator.

 

Here's my guess. You are looking for someone who joined up sometime in early 1914. Served at least one enlistments and then went to flight school and became an NAP. Had at least two other enlistments as an NAP and was probably promoted to Warrant Officer. With the outbreak of WWII, the Navy began commissioning enlisted and warrant NAPs, so this gent probably had a number of years service as a Warrant which meant when commissioned, his commissioned rank was higher. The lack of a WWII victory medal would lead me to believe that this painting was made during the war.

 

My guess is that your man is one of these guys (rank at time designated an aviator. all before the end of August 1921):

CMM(A) Chas P. Brenner

CMM(A) Kenneth D. Franklin

CMM(A)Anthony Iannucci

CMM(A) Leo C. Sullivan

CMM George N. Tibbetts

CMM(A) Jacob W. Utley

CMM(A) Thomas P. Wilkinson

CMM(A) Francis C. Barb

CMM(G) John W. Green

CMM(A) Clarence I. Kessler

CMM(A) R. B. Lawrence

CMM(A) Francis E. Ormsbee

CMM(A) Eugene T. Rhoads

CMM(A) Bert Strand

CMM(A) Harry A. Rossier

CMM(A) N. Wayne L. Carleto

CCM(A) Chas. I. Elliott

CGM(A) Ralph A. Jury

CCM(A) Herbert L. Hoobler

CE(G) William B. Livingston

CQM(A) Owen J. O’Connor

CGM George N. Strode

CEL(A) Clyde O. Switzer

BTSN(A) Lamont C. Fisher

CCM(A) Cecil H. Gurley

CEL® Claude G. Alexander

CGM(A) Henry Brenner

CQM(A) William August Clutne

CQM Owen J. Darling

CCM(A) Garrett H. Gibson

BM2c Harvey A. Griesy

CEL® Arthur E. LaPorte

CGM(A) Cyrus L. Sylvester

GM1c(A) W. T. Sweeny

CBM Stephen J. Williamson

BTSN William L. Buckley

MACH William L. Coleman

CMM(A) L. E. Crowl

CQM(D) Horace M. Finch

CBM S. R. Soulby

CQM(A) G. K. Wilkinson.

CQM(A) Harold H. Karr

NM1C(A) Robert E. Lee

CBM(A) Edwin Niramaier

CQM(A) Francis E. Lovejoy

CQM(A) Walter L. Seiler

CQM(A) Clarence Woods

CE® Claud G. Alexander

CMM(A) Francis C. Barb

CMM(A) Floyd Bennett

CMM(A) Patrick J. Byrne

CBM(A) Wayne L. Carleton

CQM(A) William A. Cluthe

CQM(A) Owen M. Darling

CCM(A) Charles I. Elliott

CMM(A) Lawrence C. Fisher

CMM(A) Kenneth D. Franklin

CMM(A) Paul E. Graham

BM2C Harvey A. Griesy

CCM(A) Herbert L. Hoobler

CCM(A) Cecil H. Insley

CMM(A) C. I. Kesler

CE® Arthur E. LaPorte

CMM(A) K. B. Lawrence

CQM(A) Owen J. O’Conner

CMM(A) Frank E. Ormsbee

Ch.Ptr.(A) Allen K. Peterson

CMM(A) Eugene S. Rhoads

CMM(A) Harry A. Rossier

CMM(A) John H. Stinson

CMM(A) Leo C. Sullivan

CMM(A) George N. Tibbetts

CMbl(A) Jacob W. Utley

CMM(A) Thomas P. Wilkinson

CBM(A) S. J. Williamson

CE(G)A John J. Demshock

CMM(A) H. T. Baker

CMM James W. Buckley

CGM William L. Elmore

CE(G) Herbert B. Griggs

MM1C C. H. Grobe

MM1C(A) R. F. Gustafson

CMM(A) William F. Hill

CMM(A) Willard B. Jackson

MM1C(A) C. D. Kirkeby

CE Frank M. Linder

MM1C N. B. McPeak

MM2C E. L. Markham

GM1C R. J. Merritt

CMM Joseph H. Miller

CMM M. C. McLean

QM1C Enoch B. McIntosh

CMM John J. O’Brien

CY Felix F. Preeg

CY Charles B. Raney

CMM John E. Rawlings

MM1C L. W. Stultz

CQM(D) Charlie Steelman

CMM(A) Frederick J. Tobin

ACMM Walter J. Andrews

AMM1C Stephen Dunn

ACMM Edwin George Frank

AMM1C Elliott J. Flynn

AMM1C Edward A. Heinz

ACMM Herman J. Holdredge

ACMM Charley E. Krueger

AMM1C Leo G. Muller

ACMM Sidney N. Smith

CGM Cyrus L. Sylvester

ACR John J. Harrigan

 

Hope that narrows it down for you a bit.