WW2 Naval Engineer - Radio Operator badge

[George]

Hi everyone!

It's my first post here, so, first, I am glad I have found your community!

I am a collector of WW2 items with a focus in the fronts of the Balkans and the Mediterranean. This piece is the latest addition to my collection, but the information I have found about it is very limited.

So far, I know that it is a WW2 era "Naval Engineer - Radio Operator badge" and I have seen examples of a hollow-back, stamped, "silver" badge and an officers' grade solid, metal and enamel one.

My questions are, were there just these two grades or was there a third, bronze one, such as mine? Or is mine an unfinished example? Was it a specialty badge issued to every man or was it an award with specific criteria?

There is no pin on the back of my example, are the drilled holes possibly a way of attaching it sewn to a uniform... or was it just a way of... destroying it?

And finally, (I know, too many questions, but info on it seems to be very scarce) is it considered a rare badge?

Thank you very much for your time and any info,

Regards,
George

[von Danitz]

Hello and welcome!

This is a soldier's breastplate of the Engineer-Pioneer Troops from the post-World War I period. Three letters are clearly read: И, С and B- Инженерно-Сапьорни Войски - Injenerno-Sapiorni Voiski- Engineering Sapper Troops. To this corps are the radio operators and our small fleet. But it cannot be said with certainty that the sign is of a Navy radio operator! It could be on a sapper-pontooner!

The officer's sign looks like this:


Hope this helps.

[George]

Thank you for your quick and very helpful reply! So, it is a badge instituted post WW1, was it still being issued during WW2 or had it been declared obsolete by then?

Regards,
George

[George]

In the meantime, I found this thread:

http://forum.boinaslava.net/showthread.php?t=6582&page=2&highlight=%EF%E8%EE%ED%E5%F0%ED%E8%F2%E5%2C+%F1%E0%EF%FC%EE%F0%F1%EA%E8%F2%E5%2C+%E8%ED%E6%E5%ED%E5%F0%ED%E8%F2%E5+%F7%E0%F1%F2%E8

From what I could gather after having it translated, the badge is referred in Petrov's book as a 1923-1946 piece, but it is debated that the initials make sense for a brief period between February 1942 and November 1943?

I hope I am not tiring you with my questions, but I would like to research this piece as much as possible and the language barrier does not help...

[von Danitz]

It is the second letter of the three - C, whether to read as Signal, but it means Sapper. If read as a Signal, it would refer to a later period, because then the radio troops were telegraph troops, not signal ones. Signal troops arrive much later. The badge is firmly engineer-sapper, many people in Bulgaria also confuse it, and read wrong engineer-signal.

[George]

Thanks again for the clarification!

Regards,
George

[dibo]

I disagree

The theory that Трудовак has in the old thread mentioned above makes perfect sense. From Bulgarian's army organizational point of view this badge must be from the 02.1942-11.1943, when is the only period that Engineer-Communication Troops (Инженерно-свързочни войски) existed jointly under this name.

A short translation of what Трудовак wrote 15 years ago:
The badge can be in three degrees: bronze, silver (blue enamel) and gold plated (blue enamel). Period in the books is 1923-1946
In the center the abbreviation ИСВ can be read. If you take into account the symbolics (winged railway wheel, anchor, pick and shovel, gear wheel and the thunderbolts) must be read as Engineering-Communication Troops. Here some questions arise.
First. Until the end of 1927 in the Bulgarian army officially the term Communication is not used. The communication in the army are made by the telegraph units (that contain telephone and radiotelegraph units). Order 226a for change in the organization in the army that enters into force on 01.02.1928 for the first time introduces officially the term communication. This means the badge can not be before 1928.
Second. Until 1927 as separate troops only the Engineers exist, and the General Staff has Engineering inspection (the Communication troops are thus attached to the Engineers). With Order 85 from 02.03.1938 the Communication troops are separated as "independent type of land troops". In the General Staff a new Communication Troops Inspector is created (gen. Todor Piskov until 10.1940).
Third. In 1942 a new reorganization is made. With Order 43 from 12.02. the Communication troops are merged again with the Engineers. The documents now officially use "инженерно-свързочни войски" (ИСВ - Engineer-Communication troops). This merge is competed in 1943. Order 460 from 30.11.1943 decrees "From 1 november this year Engineer-Communication troops to be separated into two independent troops..."
(Source: Mlechenkov M., The Communication troops of Bulgaria 1878-1944)

The short history of the Communication troops of Bulgaria in the period 1878-1944 can be found here:

http://forum.boinaslava.net/showthread.php?t=7802&p=211675&viewfull=1#post211675

regarding the fleet:

http://forum.boinaslava.net/showthread.php?t=7802&p=211734&viewfull=1#post211734

Translation of the fleet part:
The Black Sea unit from 1919 has a radiotelegraph company with 78 men and 3 stations. These three stations - one is in Varna, one in Burgas and one at the fleet headquarters. This company in different names exist until 1941, when is enlarged into a "drujina" (Bulgarian term of the period for a battalion). The White sea unit formed in 1941 has 2 communication platoons.

The fleet was separate from the army and had its own training organizations of course, but all radio operators, etc. were taken from the State School for Telegraphs and Posts, which was reestablished in Sofia in 1923:

http://www.utp.bg/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/DV_22_01_1923-2.pdf

It had dual role supplying trained communication specialists for the civil administration of the state and the Army. The school was officially militarized in 1941:

http://www.utp.bg/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/DV_12_03_1941-3.pdf

I have somewhere in my library a book about this school and I have a vague memory of reading that those who have successfully finished it and later mobilized received badges as specialists.

Engineer-Sapper troops is a Soviet WW2 terminology, which later after 1945 found its way into the Bulgarian language during the mass influx of translated Soviet books about WW2. Whoever reads Bulgarian can check this good explanation by Трудовак:

http://forum.boinaslava.net/showthread.php?t=6582&p=111160&viewfull=1#post111160

[dibo]

Here are some more examples of the badge:

https://balkan.auction/bg/auction/3334706

https://balkan.auction/bg/auction/2693710

[George]

Thank you for your detailed reply, dibo!

So, among other things, I understand that it was a specialty badge and not an award. I also guess, given the debate, that there is not enough photographic evidence of the badge in wear.

Here is a silver badge I found, with no enamel, though.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/521010250637778034/

And another.

https://www.emedals.com/a-second-war-bulgarian-naval-engineer-radio-operator-officer-s-badge