List of Légion d'honneur recipients by name (W)

The French government gives out the Legion of Honour awards, to both FrenchLégion Code, article 16. and foreignLes étrangers qui se seront signalés par les services qu'ils ont rendus à la France ou aux causes qu'elle soutient, Légion Code, art. 128. 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), 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. 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. Alt URL The awards are traditionally published and promoted on 14 July.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of recipients of the Legion of Honour awards, since the first ceremony in May 1803. 2,550 individuals can be awarded the insignia every year. The total number of awards is close to 1 million (estimated at 900,000 in 2021, including over 3,000 Grand Cross recipients), with some 92,000 recipients alive today. 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.

RecipientDates(birth – death) General work & reason for the recognitionAward category (date) James Waddell 1873 – 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)Officer (10 June 1917)Commander (1920) Youssef Wahba Pasha 1852 – 1934 Prime Minister of Egypt TBA Mourad Wahba Pasha 1879 – 1972 Egyptian politician and high court judge TBA Sadek Wahba Pasha 1966 – Present American economist and investor TBA Magdi Wahba 1925 – 1991 Egyptian university professor TBA Mark Wainberg 1900 – 1985 Alt URL Leading Canadian AIDS Researcher. Recognised for his HIV/AIDS research Knight(1980) Nancy Wake 1912 – 2011 Resistance Commander in WW2, highly decorated allied servicewoman. Recognised for her wartime Service Knight (1970)Officer (1988) Malvin E. Walker American Army Officer World War II TBA Sean Walsh 79th Armoured Division (Royal Merchant Navy) Cork, Ireland and Canada. D Day December 1941 TBA Herbert Ward 1863 – 1919 Sculptor and Red Cross officer during World War I. Officer (1911) Rose Warfman 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 WattCutlack, The Australian Flying Corps, pp. 41–42 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 John Webber 1751 – 1793 Telegrapher in British Navy during D-Day Landings on Sword Beach awarded Medal TBA (27 May 2015) Nicholas Fox Weber American cultural historian and foundation director TBA Herman Armour Webster 1878 - 1970 American cultural historian and foundation director, artist and French windmill preservationistThe original invitation to become an officier of the Légion d'honneur as well as a photograph of the ceremony are in the Herman A. Webster Collection, Smithsonian Archives of American Art Knight (1926)Officer (1956) Ben Weider1923 – 2008 Soldier, author, historian (Napoleonic history), fitness proponent, benefactor of the arts, and entrepreneur. Alt URL Recognised for his research into Napoleon's death. Knight Alt URL (12 October 2000) 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 Alt URL 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, author, and Nobel Laureate Marion Wiesel 1931 – 2025 Holocaust survivor, translator, and philanthropist Simon Wiesenthal 1908 – 2005 Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. Harvey Ladew Williams, Jr. 1900 – 1986 International businessman Arthur Knyvet Wilson 1842 – 1921Royal 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 Member of regiment of Royal Engineers TBA (2018) Jean-Pierre Wimille 1908 – 1949 Grand Prix motor racing driver and 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 for the 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.

List of Légion d'honneur recipients by name (W)

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