Third Party Press

KIA ID disc

Peter U

Moderator
Staff member
This summer I was able to add several new pieces to my collection, mainly Soldbucher that I will show this autumn and winter but in this thread I want to show a little gem, a relic of WW1 that entered my collection this week.
It is the Id disc of a Belgian soldier that was KIA 104 years ago, Oscar Deroisy (°1888) was KIA on August 18 1914 during the battle of Sint Margerite Houtem.
It was the fourteenth day of the war for the Belgian army and things were not looking good, fortress Liege had fallen and the German army in its race towards Paris, was poring in to Belgium in full force; the Belgian army leadership had come to the conclusion that it wouldn't any longer engage large concentrations of the German army, the small Belgian army was no match for the larger German army. It was out manned and out gunned and going in to open battle with the best divisions of the German army would mean the complete destruction of the Belgian field army.
In this context the Belgian army decided to give up the defence line on the narrow Ghete River (halfway between Brussels and Liege) and to withdraw to the national redoubt: fortress Antwerp.
The 2 & 22th Line Regiments got the task to cover the retreat, for several hours they would have to face an entire German Army Corps; the unit of Oscar Deroisy, the first company of the second battalion of the 22th Line Regiment was ordered to defend the line in the hamlet of Neerlinter.
For more then two hours, the 150 men of his company held the line against a force 10 times stronger then them, units of the German 18th ID (Commanded by von Kluge), eventually only 30 men made it back to the friendly lines.
The Germans were furious about the resistance they encountered on that day and as a result they murdered civilians and POW's, for example in Neerlinter they looted and burned down 72 of the 120 houses of the village.
Oscar Deroisy was initially buried in a field grave in Neerlinter, later he was moved to the military cemetery in Sint Margerite Houtem and eventually he was exhumed and reburied in his home town: Ransart.
I presume his family got his ID disc when his remains were brought home.
 

Attachments

  • DSC00532 (2).jpg
    DSC00532 (2).jpg
    205.8 KB · Views: 50
  • DSC00533 (2).JPG
    DSC00533 (2).JPG
    214.3 KB · Views: 34
A picture I found online of Oelbrandt Josephus an EM of the first company of the first battalion of the 22th Line Regiment, he was seriously wounded in the same battle Oscar Deroisy was KIA, it gives a good impression of the uniform he would have worn on that day.
 

Attachments

  • Oelbrandt-1.png
    Oelbrandt-1.png
    184.4 KB · Views: 51
After the war, when the Belgian army wrote his official history, the battle of Sint Margerite Houtem became the symbol for sacrifice for king and country.
In 1923, according to Belgian standards, a rather large memorial was erected, it still stands to day and a copy of it also is on display in the Belgian army museum in Brussels.
 

Attachments

  • 448px-RMM_Brussel_Lintersepoort_monument_Tienen.jpg
    448px-RMM_Brussel_Lintersepoort_monument_Tienen.jpg
    57.9 KB · Views: 33
  • 170902.jpg
    170902.jpg
    169.5 KB · Views: 26
  • 16235923447_049b166a14_b.jpg
    16235923447_049b166a14_b.jpg
    144.4 KB · Views: 25
  • oorlogsmonument.jpg
    oorlogsmonument.jpg
    44.6 KB · Views: 22
Great stuff Peter. Award and doc?


Here you go Hambone.

The award document and the two medals he was awarded posthumously in June 1921.


These two medals are a good example on how the Belgian medals system fails in my opinion, because both these medals also can be awarded as long service medals and they were.
You need the citation that comes with them to know if they were awarded for an act of bravery/self sacrifice or long service.
So if you see a picture of a Belgian WW1 veteran wearing his medals in for example 1930, it is impossible to say if he was awarded them for knocking out a MG post or for 4 years of good service, pretty sad I think for those that got the Croix de Guerre for an act of valor.
 

Attachments

  • DSC00534.jpg
    DSC00534.jpg
    281.9 KB · Views: 19

Military Rifle Journal
Back
Top