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Kriegsmarine items


Davejb

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Gents , I need a bit of help here. My uncle was a Royal Marine in WW2 attached to Z force, which he explained to me was a unit that dealt with the safe harbouring of German ships at wars end. He, along with many others brought the Prinz Eugen back to Emdon? Harbour. It was still being crewed by the Kriegsmarine, overseen by Z Force. A number a German sailors and officers wanted to give their items away to the Royal Marines as they considered them part of naval forces, and also,(please forgive me, the American members on here) they did,nt want the Americans ,who were due to take over the ship, to just come in and take everything in sight. Anyway, an Officer gave my uncle a Km Dagger with belt, hangers,and a Pea Green waterproof jacket, also a couple of others gave him two lugers, two rifle cleaning kits, a couple of cap tallies,a white roll neck heavy duty jumper with a large KM eagle on the front, But heres my question... Along with these items he was given a small cap eagle and a KM cap wreath, but these two items are in white cotton thread on black background. Does anyone know what branch of KM these would have been, They are completely genuine items and I have them on display along with my uncles medals. Any help would be appreciated.. As for the other items, I now only have the rifle cleaning kits, the KM dagger without belt and hangers and the two cap insignias, all the rest was either lost over the years, given to other members of the family, or worn by my Dad to go to work in,ie the Km jacket and the Jumper minus the eagle which he threw away, all before I came along I might add, one of the lugers ,my Dad gave to a mate of his, the other I have no idea, I would like to show these to you but I do not possess a camera nor the know how nor the equipment to post piccys, Thanks guys, I hope you can help

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Is there no KM collectors on here, I would really like to get this sorted out once and for all, its been bugging me for years, its obvious that these two items belong on a visored cap but what type and what branch of KM as the threads are white rather than yellow, also the eagle is smaller than the regular one, more like a M43 sized eagle, the wreath is normal size

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Cheers mate, I,ve looked at most sites etc but I,ve either missed it somewhere or its something to do with the ships Administration on board, I just cant find anything on them, yet they are genuine items actually from the ship and its frustrating the hell out of me, I thought at first that the eagle was just a generic forage cap one but they were both given as a set and the wreath is KM design yet white thread.

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Oh I just found a site that had all Km insignias on it , there is a White bullion wreath for an officers cap within the Administration of the Km, but the eagle is silver metal......... therefore it stands to reason that a lower rank, possibly NCOs, had ordinary white thread eagles and wreaths for their visor caps, I,m wondering if this is it, to me it sounds too coincidental and also more than probable, its just a case of confirmation now

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  • Major General

Without photos it's difficult to confirm, but reading this I immediately thought 'Administration'.

Admin officers had silver bullion or celleon artificial bullion badges, so it follows that O/r might be in white for early war, or grey for late war, thread.I'd also imagine these may be a bit scarcer than normal badges, although please don't quote me on that.

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Thanks for that , its amazing that after all these years of not finding anything it just pops up right in front of you, I could,nt see the wood for the trees, but it does make sense, I believe that all major warships had admin personnel on board, but it has been a right headache until now, i just wish the damn cap was with them, instead they will remain in the display case with my uncles medals and his hand written account of how he came by all the items, with the KM dagger above them

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I would agree that its administration service and probably for the Bordmutze (sidecap). I can only find officers at the moment but will keep looking. :)

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Thanks Mav, but where would the wreath go on a side cap, its too big, its definately a visored cap insignia that goes on the front and I suspect the eagle above it,

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The wreath would definitely be for a visored cap. The eagle for the bordmutze would be smaller than the visored cap eagle similar to the m43 cap eagle.

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