Warbird Information Exchange

I have a friend that bought a Distinguished Flying Cross and it has a name on the back. He has contacted the National Archives and they sent him letter saying they have no information for that person.

The informatin in vague but.

John M. Raws, possibly from Illinois who served in the USAAF in WW2 & was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

If anyone here has any information, please let me know.

Thanks
Z

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Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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Go to www.dfcsociety.org as they have a roster of award recipients as well as a contact.

I don't see Mr. Raws' name on the list however. Hope this helps.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Zane,

It may be difficult trying to find info on this person. I've done similar genealogy searches for WWII vets to verify their awards. The big problem is that many of the military service records for WWII were destroyed in the 1973 fire at the National Personal Records Center in St. Louis. It's been estimated that 80% of the Army records for personnel discharged between 1912 and 1960 were lost!

You can do an online request to see if they have this person's records. Just use the following link:

http://www.archives.gov/st-louis/milita ... -1973.html

Best of luck in your search!

John

There is no master list of awardees for the DFC...the DFC society has a list of *members*, and is trying to compile a list of all DFC recips, but that's a pretty insurmountable task.

The engraving on the back is interesting...current-day DFCs aren't engraved with the recip's name unless he goes and has it done for himself (or his unit decides to pop for having it done fir him-- Not sure how they were awarded back in the day, though.). Interestingly, with most medals that are awarded these days the recip doesn't even actually get the physical medal!! The unit pins one on his uniform at the ceremony, and he's given the citation and certificate...then after the ceremony, he has to give the actual medal back!! I only physically have two medals that I've ever been awarded -- the first one, and one that was I "forced" the squadron resource advisor to actually buy to pin on me and for me to keep, heh heh. Bribery.

Best advice is what was suggested above: check nat'l archives for this gent's military record.

interesting - the Wendover museum has a 509th CG air medal - actually 2 for the same guy. One is engraved and the other is not - he thought he had lost them and was able to obtain replacements many many years ago. The original does not have his name engraved whereas the copy does.

That stupid St. Louis fire! My grandfather served with the 190th Combat engineers in the CBI. He has run into issues with his combat record and not being able to obtain an "official" record due to loss in that fire.

Tom P.

Can you get your friend to send you pictures of the engraving as well as the brooch to post?

In WWII there was no set standard for medals. For instance the Purple Heart was generally only engraved when the soldier was KIA and the medal was sent back to his family. Other medals the soldier would go out and get it engraved. For campaign medals it wasn't uncommon to recieve a paper that said you were eligible for that medal and if you wanted it, it was up to you to get it from the PX.

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When all is said and done more is said than done.

As some have mentioned before it's not uncommon to have to go out and purchase the medal yourself these days. Some wise words of advice were given to me by my platoon sergeant when I got to my first assignment. He said that when it comes to medals and awards...the actual medal and certificate means nothing. What's important are the award orders. If you lose the medal and certificate you can always get them replaced so long as you have a copy of the original orders.

John

I will see what I can do.

Thanks guys.

_________________
Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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I have scanned all of mine, and have them backed up on a thumb drive in my safe, along with scans of all my other important docs (birth cert, marriage cert, house title, etc).

I had a friend who lost EVERYTHING in hurricane Katrina, and when he was evacuating Keesler AFB he had a thumb drive like this in his "hit and run" kit. He also had scans of his flight logbook, bank statements, insurance policy, and all other order of things that he would have literally lost forever if it weren't backed up.

I don't think the military keeps a master database of the orders and citations for those medals, so even if you have the orders awarding it, you won't be able to re-create the citation only the certificate.

My father received three (one orig plus two OLC) and the medal is not engraved on the back.. nor is he on the 'Honor Roll' for the DFC Society.. I didn't check but I imagine I can find a lot of gaps in just 355 FG DFC recipients alone.

Regards,

Bill Marshall

The DFC Society webpage list members reciepients who've sub,itted their info.
Only KIA, MIA and POWs (if the medal was awarded after their downing and forwarded to their Next of kin) had unawarded decorations engraved be presentation to their families. The Army unually had only first name initial last name on 1 line. AAF usually had 3 lines
has for example:
1Lt
John C. Smith
A.C.
Centered of course.
Navy and MC varied in their presentation.
This is a great site with nice examples.
http://www.purplehearts.net/index.html

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Don't touch my junk!!

Ok here are the pics of the Medal. Who knows. After looking at the link Jack posted is probably a private engraving.

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Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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I would have to agree with you and say that it is privately engraved (which isn't a bad thing.) I was going to post that link too.

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When all is said and done more is said than done.