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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Interesting things I found in my Great Grandfather's WWI bag


brandbll

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5 hours ago, Matlock1418 said:

Never truer words.

:-) M

Here's the other thing, I don't know if he was actually in the klan. Having a patch doesn't mean he was necessarily in the klan. At one point I had a copy of Mein Kampf. If I died and someone was cleaning out my stuff I'd hope they don't automatically go, "Geez, this guy must have been a Nazi." I'd hope they'd see I had a billion other books about WWII and do the math on why I had it.

 

Unfortunately, as of now, I don't have any physical thing that would relate to that patch one way or another. 

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Back to the mystery patch.  Here is a letter from 1918 detailing the marking of Santa Fe Divisional stores cleverly using different coloured quadrants on the parent crosshair badge.  It looks to me that your relatives patch is 138th Infantry with 2/4 blue and 2/4 yellow configuration which should narrow down the search.  On that, I'm sure the Kansas National Guard Museum will have some more info.  I take it your relatives medal(s) are nowhere to be found?

27457107_SantaFeDivisionPatches.jpg.bc6d71a5e507718520214e3d9155c98a.jpg

 

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....... and if you havn't already been to this site it's well worth a visit.  First class quality research. 

 

WW I Shoulder & Helmet Insignia of the 35th Division, AEF - (1917-1919) WORLD WAR ONE, RUSSIAN INTERVENTION - U.S. Militaria Forum

 

Fascinating use of unit identification stencils on helmets and respirator haversacks.

 

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9 hours ago, TullochArd said:

Back to the mystery patch.  Here is a letter from 1918 detailing the marking of Santa Fe Divisional stores cleverly using different coloured quadrants on the parent crosshair badge.  It looks to me that your relatives patch is 138th Infantry with 2/4 blue and 2/4 yellow configuration which should narrow down the search.  On that, I'm sure the Kansas National Guard Museum will have some more info.  I take it your relatives medal(s) are nowhere to be found?

Santa Fe Division Patches.jpg

Yeah he was f company in the 138th, I should have put that on my first post. I think my dad might have the victory medal still.

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I can't assist whatsoever but will follow this thread. Yet another revelation for me was where the two halves of the dog tag went. I've long since understood the principle of the split dog tag but had never considered that placing one half in the deceased soldiers mouth would hugely increase the chances of future identification given the geometric strength of a skull, a stroke of genius in my book.

 

Simon

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2 hours ago, mancpal said:

I can't assist whatsoever but will follow this thread. Yet another revelation for me was where the two halves of the dog tag went. I've long since understood the principle of the split dog tag but had never considered that placing one half in the deceased soldiers mouth would hugely increase the chances of future identification given the geometric strength of a skull, a stroke of genius in my book.

 

Simon, the story of the identity disc (or part of) being routinely placed in the soldiers mouth after death is in extremely old myth. It exists in a number of different versions, gets applied to different nationalities, is so well know it's been depicted in film - and like all good myths any attempt to track it back to a source that can be authenticated with any degree of reliability comes up with nothing. Probably the best known version concerns the notch found on WW2 era American identity discs, which Snopes has covered in the past in the relevant article below:

 

Dog Tag Notch | Snopes.com

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Even with the legendary German efficiency I had doubts that such a system could be workable, particularly in the heat of battle. Perhaps what's left of my riddled brain preferred the romance to the truth (wouldn't be the first).

 

Simon

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On 13/04/2021 at 00:18, AOK4 said:

 

Most probably not (he was quite old to have been posted to the guard). I have asked before, but is there anything on the back of the dog tag?

 

I doubt many people in Germany would be interested in the dog tag of their relative (if you can ever find relatives, as Chudzinski was from what is nowadays Poland).

 

So there was something on the back, here is the picture.

 

I also got that little metal tin open. It's a mirror! 

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20210413_203003.jpg.472f559c142a6c085eace1dfb7222967.jpg

 

 

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So here was the other thing i received, just hadn't opened it up yet because it's a pain to get back in the bag.

1. Dress coat (I'm guessing)

2. Two pairs of pants.

3. Two hats. One is obviously party of the uniform, I have no idea what that larger one is. Is that from the military or is that some weird hat from back home.

4. Me modeling the weird hat.

20210413_204800.jpg.1819df9dc8c0cf95320603648804db6f.jpg

20210413_205101.jpg.e7cb4adde3629466fdf7b9467d10b899.jpg

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20210413_205549.jpg.2a907655cde3b219cdc1a2dee021598e.jpg

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, AOK4 said:

And there we have the proof: he belonged to the 6th company Infantry Regiment 450 as charlie2 had already said.

http://des.genealogy.net/search/show/8043352

(birthdate given as 10 April 1880)

 

Jan

So I thought we were looking at October for a birthday and now it's April. Do we know which one it actually is? Which record is the most reliable out of line the three that we have? 

 

I'm not going to lie, im secretly hoping for the April bday because that is my bday too!

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Think I found out about the hat. M1907 winter hat. Such an odd design. Suppose maybe it was easier to make the way they did it, but really odd the way it sticks up at the top.

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