The French government gives out the Legion of Honour awards, to both French [1] and foreign [2] nationals, based on a recipient's exemplary services rendered to France, or to the causes supported by France. This award is divided into five distinct categories (in ascending order [3] ), i.e. three ranks: Knight, Officer, Commander, and two titles: Grand Officer and Grand Cross. Knight is the most common and is awarded for either at least 20 years of public service or acts of military or civil bravery. [3] The rest of the categories have a quota for the number of years of service in the category below before they can be awarded. The Officer rank requires a minimum of eight years as a Knight, and the Commander, the highest civilian category for a non-French citizen, requires a minimum of five years as an Officer. The Grand Officer and the Grand Cross are awarded only to French citizens, and each requires three years' service in their respective immediately lower rank. [4] The awards are traditionally published and promoted on 14 July. [5]
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The following is a non-exhaustive list of recipients of the Legion of Honour awards, since the first ceremony in May 1803. [3] 2,550 individuals can be awarded the insignia every year. [5] The total number of awards is close to 1 million [6] (estimated at 900,000 in 2021, [5] including over 3,000 Grand Cross recipients [7] ), with some 92,000 recipients alive today. [8] Only until 2008 was gender parity achieved amongst the yearly list of recipients, with the total number of women recipients since the award's establishment being only 59 at the end of the second French empire and only 26,000 in 2021. [5]
| Recipient | Dates (birth – death) | General work & reason for the recognition | Award category (date) |
|---|---|---|---|
| James Waddell | 1873 [9] – 1954 | Highly decorated New Zealand World War I. Recognised for: - Knight: His bravery in leading his battalion in a costly attack against Turkish trenches on 21 June 1915 (Knight) Officer: His actions during the Battle of the Somme where his personal example helped carry an attack on the village of Belloy-en-Santerre | Knight (4 July 1915) [10] [11] Officer (10 June 1917) [12] Commander (1920) |
| Youssef Wahba Pasha | 1852 – 1934 | Prime Minister of Egypt | TBA[ citation needed ] |
| Mourad Wahba Pasha | 1879 – 1972 | Egyptian politician and high court judge | TBA[ citation needed ] |
| Sadek Wahba Pasha | 1966 – Present | American economist and investor | TBA[ citation needed ] |
| Magdi Wahba | 1925 – 1991 | Egyptian university professor | TBA[ citation needed ] |
| Mark Wainberg | 1900 – 1985 [13] [14] | Leading Canadian AIDS Researcher. Recognised for his HIV/AIDS research | Knight [15] |
| Nancy Wake | 1912 – 2011 | Resistance Commander in WW2, highly decorated allied servicewoman. Recognised for her wartime Service | Knight (1970) Officer (1988) [16] |
| Malvin E. Walker | American Army Officer World War II | TBA[ citation needed ] | |
| Sean Walsh | 79th Armoured Division (Royal Merchant Navy) Cork, Ireland and Canada. D Day December 1941 | TBA[ citation needed ] | |
| Herbert Ward | 1863 – 1919 | Sculptor and Red Cross officer during World War I. | Officer (1911) [17] |
| Rose Warfman [18] | 1916 – 2016 | French survivor of Auschwitz and member of the French Resistance. Recognised for her work in the French Resistance. | Knight (10 February 1959) Officer (10 April 2009) |
| Oswald Watt [19] [20] | 1878 - 1921 | Australian aviator and businessman. Recognised for crash-landing in no man's land and succeeded in making it back to French lines with valuable intelligence under intense fire from German positions. | TBA[ citation needed ] |
| John Webber | 1751 [21] – 1793 | Telegrapher in British Navy during D-Day Landings on Sword Beach awarded Medal | TBA (27 May 2015)[ citation needed ] |
| Nicholas Fox Weber | American cultural historian and foundation director | TBA[ citation needed ] | |
| Herman Armour Webster | 1878 - 1970 | American cultural historian and foundation director, artist and French windmill preservationist [22] | Knight (1926) Officer (1956) [23] |
| Ben Weider | 1923 – 2008 [24] [25] | Soldier, author, historian (Napoleonic history), fitness proponent, benefactor of the arts, and entrepreneur. [26] Recognised for his research into Napoleon's death. [24] | Knight [27] (12 October 2000) [28] |
| Léon Weil | 1896 – 2006 | One of the last two surviving veterans of the battle of Val-de-Marne in the World War I | |
| Arnold Weinstock | 1924 – 2002 | English industrialist and businessman (Formed the General Electric Company) | |
| Pierre Weiss | 1865 – 1940 | French physicist specialized in magnetism (He developed the domain theory of ferromagnetism) | |
| David Weisstub | 1944–Present | Philippe Pinel professor of legal psychiatry and biomedical ethics at the Université de Montréal | |
| Wladyslaw Wejtko | 1859 – 1933 | Imperial Russian Army general of Polish descent (He fought on the side of the Second Polish Republic as a major-general in Józef Piłsudski's forces during the Polish-Soviet War) | |
| Arsène Wenger | 1949–Present | Arsenal Football Club Manager (2002) | |
| William Westmoreland | 1914 – 2005 | United States Army general (A commander of United States forces during the Vietnam War, subsequently serving as Chief of Staff of the United States Army). | |
| Maxime Weygand | 1867 – 1965 | French military commander in World War I and World War II. | |
| Joseph Weyland | 1943–Present | Luxemburg diplomat | |
| Edith Wharton | 1862 – 1937 | American novelist, short story writer, and designer. | |
| Earle Wheeler | 1908 – 1975 | United States Army general (who served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army and then as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, holding the latter position during the Vietnam War). | |
| Belle Armstrong Whitney | 1861 – 1922 | American writer and "fashion expert", based in Paris. | Knight [29] |
| Bolesław Wieniawa-Długoszowski | 1881 – 1942 | Polish general, adjutant to Chief of State Józef Piłsudski, politician, freemason, diplomat, poet, artist and formally for one day the President of the Republic of Poland. | |
| Elie Wiesel | 1928 – 2016 | Holocaust survivor and author and Nobel Laureate | |
| Simon Wiesenthal | 1908 – 2005 | Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. | |
| Harvey Ladew Williams, Jr. | 1900 – 1986 | International businessman | |
| Arthur Knyvet Wilson | 1842 – 1921 | A Royal Navy officer (He served in the Anglo-Egyptian War and then the Mahdist War being awarded the Victoria Cross during the Battle of El Teb) | |
| Henry Hughes Wilson | 1864 – 1922 | One of the most senior British Army staff officers of the World War I and was briefly an Irish unionist politician. | |
| Ronald Wilson [30] | Member of regiment of Royal Engineers | TBA (2018) | |
| Jean-Pierre Wimille | 1908 – 1949 | Grand Prix motor racing driver and a member of the French Resistance during World War II. | |
| Edwin B. Winans (U.S. Army general) | 1869 – 1947 | United States Army officer who attained the rank of major general. | |
| Wong Kar Wai | 1958–Present | Hong Kong film director. | |
| Evelyn Wood (British Army officer) | 1838 – 1919 | British Army officer. | |
| Klaus Wowereit | 1953–Present | German politician (Social Democratic Party,(SPD) / Governing Mayor of Berlin). | |
| Orville Wright | 1871 – 1948 | One of the American aviation pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful motor-operated airplane. | |
| Wilbur Wright | 1867 – 1912 | One of the American aviation pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful motor-operated airplane. | |
| Katharine Wright | 1874 – 1929 | Younger sister of aviation pioneers Wilbur and Orville Wright, with whom she worked closely. | |
| Severin Wunderman | |||
| Reinhold Würth | 1935–Present | German billionaire businessman and art collector. |
