Pearl Harbor survivor dog tags

[twining540]

Very excited to say the least to have found these on ebay. They belonged to Aaron Carl Cox who enlisted in the Navy on November 4th 1940. He was received onboard the USS West Virginia on January 11th 1941. He was present at Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941. He was made available to the emergency pooling officer and transferred to the Salt Lake City on December 8th 1941, which as I recall was an escort on the Doolittle raids. It appears that at the end of the war he was again transferred to the USS Wasp for the duration of his enlistment, which is why there is a tag engraved USS Wasp. Its kind of interesting to me that the single thumbprint dog tag is dated December 1941, did he loose his dog tags during the attack on Pearl and have a new set issued? Just speculation, I thought that it is a odd coincidence. Nevertheless I am extremely excited to have a dog tag dated December 1941 to a Pearl Harbor survivor.

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[twining540]

[RustyCanteen]

Talk about rare.

[firefighter]

Nice group of tags.If your talking about the 'T-12-41' that is a tetnus shot date.

[twining540]

I wasn't sure when tags were issued, if they were issued in close proximity to the tetnus shot date or not? Dog tags are a new field of collecting for me.

[Morlok]

Very nice score! Did you sneak these below the radar, or was there a bidding war?! I would think these would have been on quite a few watch lists! Either way, if you are just starting to collect dog tags, I would say your collection just became the envy of many "veteran" dog tag collectors!! Very well done!!

[RustyCanteen]

It's worth noting that Bob Hudson posted document or link showing that the stamping machines were actually delayed in reaching their destination. The "12-41" tag looks like it could be hand stamped from what I see.

[twining540]

Looking at the single tag a bit closer, it definitely looks hand stamped to me. The S in USN, has a light double stamping, and some numbers/letters are struck deaper and not in a perfect line. I'm not sure if there is any significance to it or not, but it is slightly dished in on the back and not flat. I am assuming that the hand stamped dog tags are not as common.

[lovmilinsig]

Very nice score .

 

Ed

[Warren]

I have an early Navy dog tag as well. He was in the 10th class at Corpus Christi NAS in Oct '41. Was a flight instructor and trained Aviation Cadets in '42 & '43. Assigned to a VC squadron in early '44 and was a carrier pilot flying FM-2's in '45 in the Battle of Okinawa and splashed three enemy planes on April 12th...the day President Roosevelt died.

 

[HunterB]

Cool