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Qi, Qi-zhang, The History of the Rise and Fall of the Imperial Navy

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Republic of China, 1998 (in Chinese).

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Answers to Medal Quizzes in the last issue:

Page 26: Pennsylvania

Page 31: Judge (former Lieutenant) John J. Parker

14

In the News

Louis Richard Rocco, 63, who earned the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War, died from lung cancer at his home in San Antonio on October 31, 2002. Rocco was born in Albuquerque but his family moved to Los Ange- les. A high school dropout, he was frequently in trouble with the law and was anested at the age of 16 for armed robbery. An hour before he was to be sentenced for the crime he got an Army recruiting officer to accompany him to court where he convinced the judge to allow him to stay in school if he avoided further trouble with the law. He joined the Army when he turned 17.

In 1970, Rocco volunteered to accompany a medical team whose mission was to evacuate eight severely wounded soldiers. Enroute their helicopter was hit by enemy fire and crashed. He suffered burns to his hands, a fractured hip and wrist, and a badly bruised back. In spite of his wounds he carried three unconscious survivors of the crash to safety through hostile fire. He then gave first aid to the wounded until he collapsed into unconscious- ness. Two days later he and the other surviving mem- bers of the crew were rescued.

Warrant Officer Rocco received the Medal of Honor from President Gerald R. Ford in 1974. The citation read: "His bravery under fire and intense devotion to duty were di- rectly responsible for saving three of his fellow soldiers from certain death. His unparalleled bravery in the face of enemy fire, his complete disregard for his own pain and injuries, and his performance were far above and beyond the call of duty ..... " He was also awarded the Purple Heart.

After rotating from Vietnam he received his general equivalency degree and an associate’s degree. He left the Army in 1978 and eventually became head of the Veterans’ Service Commission in New Mexico. In 1998 he moved to San Antonio where he worked in advocacy groups to keep children from drugs and out of gangs. Often he used his own story to show juveniles the ad- vantages of a military career.

Rocco suspected that his cancer resulted from exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam but before he died told an investigator that it did not bother him anymore and that he did not want to die angry.

From an article in The Washington Post

Submitted by Bill Jones

JOMSA

A German World War I Medal Bar - What it Tells and What it Hides

John A. Colson

the Grenadier Regiment’s 5th Company. From 1889 to

1900 he was assigned to the 10th and 12th Companies

of the same unit. In short, he spent the first 11 years of

his military career as a peacetime garrison junior officer

serving in almost every company of the 1st Grenadier

Regiment.

Figure 1: Medal bar of Colonel Anders

This is the story of a German officer whose service is

revealed by examining the decorations on his medal bar

(Grossordensspange) (Figure 1.) As with most medal

bars from the German Second Empire (1871-1918), the

original owner of the medal bar often is not traceable.

With few exceptions, German medals of that era were

not named. Through research, data bases, expertise from

collectors in various countries and the unique awards

that make up this medal group, a story of a soldier whose

service took him to the far ends of the world starts to

unfold. His name was Ernst Anders.

Ernst Karl Alfred Gottlob Anders (Figure 2) was born

on November 18, 1869 in Schurgast, Silesia. He initially

entered the Army as a one-year volunteer. Shortly before

his 20th birthday, on September 21, 1889, he was

commissioned as a Sekond Leutnant. His first years in

the service were mostly spent in East Prussia. In the

Spring of 1890, he was assigned to the 1 lth Company.of

the Grenadier Regiment King Friedrich III (1st East

Prussian) No.l, headquartered in K6nigsberg, East

Prussia. Off and on, from 1890 to the Spring of 1896 he

was with the 4th, 5th, 13th, and 14th Companies of that

infantry regiment. In the Spring of 1896, he was detailed

as a student to the War College (Kriegsschule). On April

17, 1897, he was promoted to Oberleutnant and by the

Spring of 1898, while still a student, he was assigned to Figure 2: Photo of Colonel Anders (on the right.).

Vol. 54, No. 1 15

It is at this point Anders began his "foreign" service. In

the Autumn of 1900 he was assigned to the 1st East

Asiatic Infantry Regiment (7th Company), East Asiatic

Occupation Brigade in China. I~n October 1901, _whi]~

with this unit he was awarded the Prussian Royal Crown

Order 4th Class with Swords, presumably for service in

bonnection with military activities against the Boxer

Rebellion. He stayed in China until the Spring of 1902.

In Spring 1903, he traveled back to Germany and again

was posted to his home regiment (which now was

assigned a new designator - Grenadier Regiment,

Kronprinz) back with the 4th and then 3rd Company. On

15 September 1904, he was promoted to captain

(Hauptmann).

Later in 1904, Captain Anders again was assigned to a duty station far from his native Germany. On 12 November 1904, he set sail with the steamer Eduard Woerman from Hamburg to German South West Africa, and arrived at Ltiderichtsbucht (today’s Ludericht) on December 9th of that year and was then selected as the commanding officer of the 1 lth Company, 4th B attalion of the 2nd Field Regiment, Southwest Africa Protectorate Troops.

During this period, Anders took part in several engagements. On March 1, 1905, his unit was involved in a clash with natives while in the process of taking Morenga, in the Karras Mountains. Ten days later his unit fought a pitched battle at Narudas against local insurgents, which was in turn followed by fierce clashes at Narus on June 17, 1905. His llth Company suffered six casualties. _Additional engagements followed, to include intense combat in the Oranje Mountains, in the

vicinity of Ramansdrift. ~y.March 20, 1906, while still ~ith the 1 lth Company, he distinguished himself and was awarded the Prussian Red Eagle Order, 4th Class with Swords.

In the Spring of 1907, he was still with the 2nd Field Regiment, but his date of rank as Hauptmann had been backdated to September 15, 1902. Shortly thereafter, he embarked once again for Germany.

From the Spring of 1908 to the Spring of 1913, he was the Commanding Officer of the 7th Company of the Infantry Regiment Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (2nd Magdeburg) No. 27, which was garrisoned in the city of Halberstadt, about 100 miles west-southwest of Berlin.

By this time his medal bar was beginning to take on substance. In addition to the previously mentioned orders,

Anders also had been awarded the Prussian Officer’s 25 Year Long Service Cross (Nhich came early because of credit for seven or perhaps eight ’war’ years), and added the bars Gross-Namaland and Heheroland to his Southwest Africa Campaign Medal.

Figure 3: Soldiers of lIL Seebataillon on maneuvers.

Figure 4: IlL Seebataillon information, June 1914.

Figure 5: Bismark Barracks in Tsingtau.

In the Spring of 1913, he was promoted to Major (February 18) and he again sets sail for the Orient. This trip, however, would have long term, unexpected consequences for him. He was assigned as Staff Major (effectively the Executive Officer) of the 3rd Sea

16 JOMSA