Normandy KIA Bronze Star to D-Day Army Medic and Double Silver Star Recipient

[starrynights]

Hello everyone, 
 

I recently acquired a posthumous Bronze Star Medal awarded to an Army medic with the 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, who had a remarkable record of gallantry before he was killed in action in Normandy. And I wanted to share what I’ve learned here to help preserve his history.
 

Born in 1918 in Chicago, Illinois, Wilde worked as a skilled meat cutter before joining the Army in 1942. He landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day with the 18th Infantry and served through some of the heaviest fighting of the campaign. On June 17, he performed the heroic actions that led to this Bronze Star. The next day, he was seriously wounded by artillery fire and evacuated to a field hospital, where he died of his wounds on June 28 at the age of only 25.
 

He would later receive a second Bronze Star award from the conversion of his Combat Medical Badge. Interestingly, Wilde could have qualified for a third Bronze Star for D-Day itself, when a general order was drafted to recognize the entire regiment for heroic achievement. However, the order was later revoked when the Army decided it was “inadvisable” to award it to all members of the unit.
 

Wilde had also shown great courage long before Normandy. He earned his first Silver Star near Medjez El Bab, Tunisia, on Christmas Eve 1942 for rescuing wounded soldiers under fire. His second Silver Star, awarded posthumously, recognized similar heroism on June 9, 1944, during the Normandy campaign.
 

Unfortunatley, the general orders for his Silver Star and Bronze Star awards contain only the standard citation wordings, without much detail about the actions themselves. If anyone has additional information, records, or a photograph of Wilde, I would be grateful if you would share them. He gave his life trying to save others, and his courage deserves to be remembered as long as the stories of WWII are told.

 

[starrynights]

Silver Star GOs and other records. 

 

[Martin G]

Amazing amount of information. Really interesting! Thanks a lot for sharing.

[postmedic]

Great writeup and award, thank you for sharing!

[Allan H.]

Great medal and research. It is really odd to me to see the ghosting of some "OCS" brass on the yellow velvet. The insignia must have sat in the box forever....

 

Allan

[starrynights]

On 11/10/2025 at 8:32 AM, Allan H. said:

Great medal and research. It is really odd to me to see the ghosting of some "OCS" brass on the yellow velvet. The insignia must have sat in the box forever....

 

Allan

 

Thanks for the interesting info about the OCS brass! I was wondering what that could be before.

 

It does seem a bit odd. There’s no other person with the same name in WWII enlistment records, but it doesn’t seem likely that Wilde would have attended officer training.

 

Maybe the insignia belonged to another family member and was stored in the box at some point.

 

Interestingly, the pad also has another indentation near the bottom edge. It might have been the same ocs insignia, though it’s hard to tell with the pattern being pretty faint.