Brian Buck Posted 16 February , 2003 Share Posted 16 February , 2003 Seeking information on the reason for the award of the Croix de Guerre to George Smith (1894 – 1943), Royal Navy, service number J10537. He served on the monitor Prince Eugene with the Dover Patrol in the Great War. It is understood that the French President presented the CdG at Chatham but the date is not known. George Smith was also awarded the DSM in 1917 and his grandson has the citation from the London Gazette and would be grateful for information on the CdG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robwilliams Posted 16 February , 2003 Share Posted 16 February , 2003 Brian, You may not find anything. Have you tried the London Gazette? Though with foreign awards, not all of them made it into the Gazette. Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin Posted 17 February , 2003 Share Posted 17 February , 2003 Brian, The Croix de Guerre was awarded by the French for MiD,s and from the bits i have gleaned along the way alot of the time another medal was awarded i.e M.M...M.C...D.C.M,ect, so i would say it is a strong possibilty that he recieved the CdeG for the same action or actions that he recieved the DSM. Various Stars, Palms ect go with this medal helping you determine where the dispatch originated from. If you use your search engine and search for Croix de Guerre it will come up with the info. Regards Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Harland Posted 20 February , 2003 Share Posted 20 February , 2003 Is the Croix French or Belgian ( just to add to the confusion). My Grandfather got a Belgian one at the end of the war, and it would appear that it was part of the general distribution to the Divison. There is certainly no citation to go with it. From the varios divisional histories associated with 12 HLI, it would appear that a number of personnel of all ranks were awarded Croix at the end of the war. It is perhaps notable that 12HLI saw its last action in the Battle of the Lys and was thuis closely associated with the Belgian forces at that time. I have no idea if there are any gazette lists, but would be interested if you find any. Regards Adam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin Posted 20 February , 2003 Share Posted 20 February , 2003 Adam Yes a lot did come up with the rations.If you look on the Gazette World War1.site and do a search you should come up with your Grandfather. Regards Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Buck Posted 21 February , 2003 Author Share Posted 21 February , 2003 Thanks for all the replies - very helpful. My enquiry is for a friend of my son. I did search Gazettes Online but one of the problems is 'Smith'!! I also did CdG (It is a French one, according to legend presented by the French President at Chatham) and there are about 19 issues to go through. From your replies it seems as though there may not be a citation but perhaps someone can tell me if all CdGs will have been gazetted - even those that 'came up with the rations'? Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staffsyeoman Posted 22 February , 2003 Share Posted 22 February , 2003 A problem I find is that these awards were often made on a 'quota' basis, e.g. x Division was given so many to distribute by GHQ via the French (in this case) and did so on their own cognisance. There were exchanges of awards between the Allies on a regular basis, as exemplified by Russian awards to troops with no connection to the Russians, nowhere near a Russian soldier and so on. More often than not, the recipient would not know why they got a foreign award, and there are precious few references to individual deeds. Unfortunately, there is more often than not no truth in long cherished stories of a service performed of direct relevance to France/Russia/Belgium, etc. That's not to demean a piece of signal recognition - it still is. There were some 600 foreign awards to the MGC - the largest single being the Belgian CdeG (230). 172 French CdeGs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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