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3-star Gen. flag - commanded Americal Div WWII


Bob Hudson
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Picked this up from the family last night. He commanded the Americal Division in the Philippines and accepted the Japanese forces surrender at Cebu. He received his third star in post-war when he became commander US Forces Austria. To help establish provenance, I took a photo of his son with the flag:

 

1.jpg

 

Father:

 

wmsr.jpg

 

Son:

 

wmjr.jpg

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Great piece! Did he have any other of his father's items?

 

Not that he would get rid of: he's moving from a large house on Coronado to a much smaller place in Michigan and is taking along medals, photos, and some other items. Apparently he got rid of some other stuff a while back, but found this while cleaning out a storage area in the house. His father--in-law was also a USMA graduate (Class of 1920) and I got a bunch of his stuff including documents from his time on MacArthur's GHQ staff in WWII, a batch of Tiffany Bronze insignia, and some USMA items.

 

Now for the Lt. General. there was this smaller flag, on used on automobiles I believe:

 

10.jpg

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Here's the provenance sheet for this:

 

camp 57.jpeg

 

The backside of the provenance sheet has the photos and bio info for father and son shown above.

 

Now this flag actually was presented to Gen. Arnold in retirement, based on the date stamped onside the sleeve:

 

7.jpg

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What an extremely neat item with a great history behind it. Seems like a lot of rare items are starting to pop up on a regular basis. Might have something to do with the children of WWII vets hitting retirement age.

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What an extremely neat item with a great history behind it. Seems like a lot of rare items are starting to pop up on a regular basis. Might have something to do with the children of WWII vets hitting retirement age.

 

 

Exactly - so often I hear tales of how they can't find anyone in the younger generations to take the stuff, or they narrow it down to a couple of medals and get rid of the rest.

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I am available as a person to take permeant care of medals with no homes! Please mention my name FS.

 

Forget the medals: you should have seen the original handwritten letter of surrender (in English) from the Japanese general at Cebu, described as "One of the first large scale surrenders in the Pacific" at http://anthro151.blogspot.com/2010/10/japanese-surrender.html

 

Here's Gen. Arnold accepting the surrender (his son said the family had the Japanese general's sword for many years until they returned it to his family in Japan):

 

cebu.jpg

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Forget the medals: you should have seen the original handwritten letter of surrender (in English) from the Japanese general at Cebu, described as "One of the first large scale surrenders in the Pacific" at http://anthro151.blo...-surrender.html

 

Here's Gen. Arnold accepting the surrender (his son said the family had the Japanese general's sword for many years until they returned it to his family in Japan):

 

post-214-0-29614900-1352444661.jpg

 

I agree, that is a story unto itself!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Charlie Flick

Neat flag. This is the flag that is to be used indoors, typically in the GO's office. The fringe tells us that. GO flags used in the field do not have the fringe. I don't have the Army Reg. handy here but GOs are entitled to receive a number of items when they make BG rank including license plates, a GO pistol, holster and belt rig, flags, stationery, etc. Promotions after BG provide for similar items with the appropriate rank displayed.

 

Here is a link with more info from the Institute of Heraldry.

 

http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/UniformedServices/Flags/Gen_Officer_Flags.aspx

 

Regards,

Charlie

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