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Family's artifacts slash mystery


mvmhm
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A couple days before Christmas, we were given a box of medals and a number of photographs - all from one family, that the woman didn't want to "just throw away". I didn't take a picture of the box, but it was well worn and almost completely wrapped in strapping tape that has filament inside it...which by now has deteriorated to the point that the tape has about turned to dust, leaving only the fuzzy remains of the filament. Every side has "MEDALS" written in large letters. Along with those are an album of WWI photo from a sailor, some photos from 5 brothers who served in WWII, one of a 1950's - early 1960's Marine enlisted man, and one of the woman's son who served during Operation DESERT STORM. Now you know what I know. Obviously this will take some time to sort out. I'll start with the WWI portion....this is the only part of the group that I have the name of the person that goes with the medal and photo. The sailor served aboard the USS Conyngham from 1917 to 1918, 0perating around Ireland. He was a Motor Machinist Mate First Class. Here's his well worn Victory Medal....and a photo of the ship with it's dates.

 

 

Mark sends

 

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..and to further complicate things...this guy's name doesn't match any of the other five...and the marine...his photo is about 11X14...taken before 1963 as the photographer's address has no zipcode....

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Now here's where things get really dorked up...the DFC is straight WWII...medal is slot brooch, ribbon bar is pinned back etc. The Silver Star and case are WWII (slot brooch) but with a 1960s era ribbon bar. The three Bronze Star have WWII cases, but the medals have LI-GI marks with 1960s era ribbon bars (the first two are heavily soiled from the foam padding that was in the cases).

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...lastly, a 50-star interment flag with case and instruction sheet...three National Defense Service Medals and a Vietnam Service Medal...all dated 1967/1968, and two Army Good Conduct Medals in their plastic wrap and in 1950's era hard plastic cases...in the bottom of the box I also found a yellowed Army aviation decal, about 3X5 inches in size...which leads me to believe one of the boys stayed in the military, or there's "another" as yet un-named individual who earned some of these....and so it goes.

 

 

Mark sends

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Super cool! What a fun search! Well, the two pictures in your post number 6 . . . I would totally say they are two of the boys in the family picture - the left in #6 being the guy sitting to the sailor's right (left side of front center in the picture) and the pic of the guy with the cigarette being the boy in the back center of the family pic!

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...another part of the mystery is this photo of an Aviation Machinist..which didn't come out until 1923...

. Sailor is Aviation Ordinanceman.
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PacificGunner

I would say that the photo of the AAC guy on the left in post 6 is the same guy standing in the center of the family photo, based off of the AAC officer uniform he is wearing and they appear to have the same facial structure. I can't quite make out what kind of wings he has pinned on the uniform. As for the guy on the right in post 6 with the cigarette I would say he is the guy in the sitting on the left in the photo (right of the sailor) based off of their same rank, and he also has rather large distinguishable eyebrows. I'm not sure about the AAC guy with the B-15 jacket and the scarf, I was going to guess that he would be the guy standing on the left side of the photo with the CBI patch and aircrew wings, but they do not appear to have similar facial features.

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Right. I should have mentioned that the pilot is the officer in the group photo, and the soldier with cigarette is also in the photo. It's the guy in the B15 that doesn't match up....the main issue i have is trying to determine if any of the medals (like the DFC) belonged to any of the men in the group photo...and based on the Vietnam era medals, I'm more and more convinced that there's another guy from this family, but who's picture wasn't included. Maybe the Marine got out for a bit, then came back in, but in the Army....

 

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PacificGunner

Right. I should have mentioned that the pilot is the officer in the group photo, and the soldier with cigarette is also in the photo. It's the guy in the B15 that doesn't match up....the main issue i have is trying to determine if any of the medals (like the DFC) belonged to any of the men in the group photo...and based on the Vietnam era medals, I'm more and more convinced that there's another guy from this family, but who's picture wasn't included. Maybe the Marine got out for a bit, then came back in, but in the Army....

 

Mark sends

It is quite possible that some of the later medals belong to the Army Air Corps officer. I have bought and sold several groups from aviators who started out as Second Lieutenants in the AAC during World War II and retired as generals in the 1970s. The officer could have chosen the same path and could have served during several wars and earned his medals then. Also consider that the medals could be reissues from a later time period. I have had several WWII groupings which included 1980s produced medals from vets who requested them in the 1980s due to different circumstances such as they were misplaced, stolen, or were simply never issued during the war. If you find out the history of these individuals in the photos, you should be able to narrow the options down.

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  • 1 month later...

A fellow forum member posted that the Archives now have award cards on line, so I immediately found the awards for Lt Fischer. I sent an email to the Air Force Historical research Agency and in a day I had the citation for one of the Air Medals...the others will come as soon as they're located. He got his first Air medal for completing five missions. He was assigned to the 67th Bombardment Squadron, 44th Bombardment Group (H) flying B-24's out of England.

 

 

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Very intriguing project, those digitized award cards have proven invaluable these past couple weeks. The photograph collection is quite interesting, I find the one showing the H.M.S. Olympic in "dazzle" camouflage especially so.

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I've already gotten copies of all the GO's I asked for, with the exception of the DFC...but since the GO gave me his unit, I was able to cross reference that with the 8th Air Force Museum to discover he was a co-pilot who flew 35 missions between 1943-1944 - including two on D-Day, as well as the names of the planes he flew. Obviously his DFC was his tour completion decoration.

 

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