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| Belgian Croix de
Guerre, WWII |
French Croix de
Guerre, WWII |
Luxembourg Croix de Guerre |
Croix de Guerre
Below are photos of the individual awards of Croix de Guerre which different from the unit awards known fourageres of the same names. For more information on fourageres check out "Citations".
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| Belgian Croix de
Guerre, WWII |
French Croix de
Guerre, WWII |
Luxembourg Croix de Guerre |
Belgian
The World War II version of the Belgian Croix de Guerre
differences from the WWI version in the color and design of the ribbon and the A
cipher for King Albert is replaced by King Leopold's ciphers on the palm device.
The Belgian Croix de Guerre could be awarded with a small disc with the Belgian
Lion on it in gold, silver and bronze which represent awards at the Corps,
Divisional and Brigade/Regimental levels respectively. The Palm device denotes
that the recipient was cited in the Belgian Army's Order of the Day. I know of
no US recipients of the any other devices other than the palm.
There is two versions of the palm for WWII, the
difference being King Leopold's ciphers. The first type used until about 1951
looks like this:
Note there is three L's between the brackets, this type was replace in the 1951 / 1952 time period to the following style, which has a stylized "L" centered on the device:
On the surface you may ask, why is the second type of palm listed under the WWII section? There were many late awards of decorations well into the 1950's this combined with the fact that many US service members who were cited during the war did not actually receive their decorations until years after the war. The palm to the Croix de Guerre is normally bronze; silver and gilt palms were used with Belgian orders. A silver palm can be worn on a Belgian Croix de Guerre, it denotes 5 bronze palms. I know of no American who every received a silver palm to the Belgian Croix de Guerre. Please see my Belgian book if your interested in the known US recipients of Belgian decorations & Order during WWII.
French
The WWII version of the French Croix de Guerre differs from the WWI version in the color and design of the ribbon and the date/dates on the reverse of the medal, reflect at least one year during WWII. There are several different variations of this decoration which different date or dates appearing on the reverse. The Croix de Guerre was awarded in four levels in descending order they are with palm, gold star, silver star and lastly bronze star. Representing Army, Corps, Division and Brigade/Regimental levels of the recognition.