US Army medal entitlement - WW2

[Connor123]

I must admit to being completely out of my depth here when it comes to American medals (considering I’m from the UK) but I have recently come across a record (in the form of a petition for naturalisation) for one of my Irish Uncles that showed he served in the US Army briefly from the 25th November 1942 until the 18th May 1943, after which I found his enlistment card which gave me a little more information and then finally after that I saw on the American archives website that you could send in an application for his medals and his service record (if anything remains of it) as long as you are Next of Kin which I promptly did as nephew considering he died unmarried and without any children. All of which happened in the space of about 30 minutes! 

Now onto the main point of my post, in his brief time in the army (just under 6 months) would he have had time to complete his training and be deployed to earn any other medals other than the Victory Medal and the Honourable Service Lapel Button or not? Or is there no way of knowing until the medals arrive whenever that will be? I have ruled out the POW Medal as he is not on the list I found at the archives and both the American Campaign Medal and Good Conduct Medal as they both required at least a years service unless I’m wrong and there is a clause saying they will be issued early if medically discharged which I’m guessing he was due to his age, nearly 38 given his birthday is 6th July 1905 and I’m pretty certain I read somewhere while seeing if I could find any extra info that service members over the age of 38 would be considered ‘unsuitable’.

 

The man in question is my Uncle Patrick John Kennedy, Service No: 32644376, US Army who served from the 25th November 1942 until the 18th May 1943.

I hope one of you could help as it would satisfy my curiosity until whatever medals he did earn arrive here in the UK,

 

Regards, 

 

Connor

[Connor123]

Anybody have any ideas? 

[aerialbridge]

Hi Connor and welcome.   If he were in the Navy, which is my collecting area I could be more help.   From my only Army WWII medal group, I can tell you that soldier who was 18 was inducted on 24 October 1942 at New York City, reported for infantry training camp on November 16, 1942 and completed his training as an infantry rifleman on 13 February 1943.   So I believe basic training was 3 mos, add in 2 or 3 weeks from induction to reporting for that.    So that would leave your ancestor an extra 2 mos. until his discharge to potentially have been shipped somewhere.   Again, no expert but I'd surmise that given his relatively old age at 37 as you noted, and that it wouldn't be typical to be enlisted for such a short time, he probably never was sent overseas, unless he was sent over and suffered some enlistment ending injury shortly after that.   Hopefully his file, or some of it survived the 7/73 fire at NARA that destroyed 80% of Army personnel records from the beginning of the last century to 1964 and you'll get some answers.

[Allan H.]

Connor,

 

My assumption is that your family member would have qualified for the American Campaign and World War II Victory medals. He would not have been in service long enough for a Good Conduct medal.

 

Allan

[Connor123]

10 hours ago, aerialbridge said:

Hi Connor and welcome.   If he were in the Navy, which is my collecting area I could be more help.   From my only Army WWII medal group, I can tell you that soldier who was 18 was inducted on 24 October 1942 at New York City, reported for infantry training camp on November 16, 1942 and completed his training as an infantry rifleman on 13 February 1943.   So I believe basic training was 3 mos, add in 2 or 3 weeks from induction to reporting for that.    So that would leave your ancestor an extra 2 mos. until his discharge to potentially have been shipped somewhere.   Again, no expert but I'd surmise that given his relatively old age at 37 as you noted, and that it wouldn't be typical to be enlisted for such a short time, he probably never was sent overseas, unless he was sent over and suffered some enlistment ending injury shortly after that.   Hopefully his file, or some of it survived the 7/73 fire at NARA that destroyed 80% of Army personnel records from the beginning of the last century to 1964 and you'll get some answers.

 

5 hours ago, Allan H. said:

Connor,

 

My assumption is that your family member would have qualified for the American Campaign and World War II Victory medals. He would not have been in service long enough for a Good Conduct medal.

 

Allan

Thank you very much, both of you, for your replies, it is very much appreciated. While I had some spare time earlier I found two hospital admissions for him on ‘Ancestry’ which gave me a bit of a better insight into his service. The first one is as follows: 

 

Name: Patrick J Kennedy

 

Gender: Male

 

Race: White/Mexican (White)

 

Rank: Enlisted Man

 

Admission Age: 35

 

Birth Date: Abt. 1908

 

Birth Place: USA

 

Admission Date: Apr 1943

 

Admission Place: Camp Carson, Colorado Springs, Colorado

 

Discharge Date: May 1943

 

Military Branch: Medical Department 

 

Diagnosis: Ulcer, duodenal or jejunal

 

Injured in Line of Duty: Not in Line of Duty, existed prior to entry into service 

 

Type of Discharge: Disch for disability in LOD, Sec II [may also incl Disch for Disab (not LOD & existed prior to svc) or Cert if Disab Disch, Misconduct for part of Feb, March & Apr (1943) disp cases]

 

Length of service: 5-6 months

 

Service Number: 32644376

 

This correlates exactly with his petition for citizenship (dated October 1944) saying that he was discharged from service on 18th May 1943 as I said in my original post. It also gives extra info about the camp he was at etc. The second admission to hospital is strangely dated February 1944 for an ingrown toenail which is strange because this is dated 9 months after his supposed discharge...

 

Name: Patrick J Kennedy

 

Admission Date: Feb 1944

 

Discharge Date: 1944

 

Diagnosis: Unguis incarnatus 

 

Type of Discharge: Duty

 

Length of service: No entry made

 

Service Number: 32644376

 

I don’t know if he was possibly readmitted to the Army after his stomach ulcers had gone away but why would it say that he was discharged May 1943 on his naturalisation application... I certainly don’t know. What I have confirmed for certain is that he definitely did not get the Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal from what I can tell as none of the divisions/units etc. That were trained at Camp Carson went to that theatre of war, only to Europe. But if he did serve from Nov 1942 until at least Feb 1944 without going overseas (which I doubt he did) then at least American Campaign and Victory Medal and if he served until at least Apr 1944 with no misconduct then the Good Conduct Medal as well. 

 

I think I’ve got that right although a second opinion is more than welcome. Once again, thanks for your replies and opinions on the matter, it is much appreciated.

 

Regards,

 

Connor 

[Allan H.]

Connor,

 

As an honorably discharged soldier, he would have had access to medical care through the Veterans' Administration, so that is probably the reason for the post-discharge medical notation. The other possibility is that he stated that the ingrown toenail was a service related injury, which again, would have entitled him to government medical care.

 

Allan

[Connor123]

8 hours ago, Allan H. said:

Connor,

 

As an honorably discharged soldier, he would have had access to medical care through the Veterans' Administration, so that is probably the reason for the post-discharge medical notation. The other possibility is that he stated that the ingrown toenail was a service related injury, which again, would have entitled him to government medical care.

 

Allan

Thank you, once again, for your replies. I would presume that the injury happened  in the ‘Line of Duty’ if you will merely off the fact that it says under type of discharge ‘duty’ although that obviously cannot be confirmed. If he did get the injury in the ‘Line of Duty’ from what I can tell that would have also retrospectively given him entitlement to the Good Conduct Medal I would’ve have thought as there is a bit of the criteria I saw that said something along the lines of an initial award of the Good Conduct Medal can be made if the soldier received an injury in the Line of Duty. How you can get an Ingrown Toetail in the Line of Duty though ido not know.

 

I think at this point however I am just throwing wild speculations out there. I’m going to stick my bets on him being entitled to either American Campaign and Victory Medals or just a sole Victory Medal, with possibly a Good Conduct Medal if I’ve read the regs right.

 

Regards,

 

Connor

[Allan H.]

Connor, if he was in the service and spent 30 days in during the war, he would earn an American Campaign medal. He would have had to have served one year to receive the Good Conduct. 

 

Allan