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 | Hi, my grandfather recently passed away at over 100. We found a box with items from his service. He served in the USCG on a frigate that was pulled into service with the Navy in the Pacific. He was what effectively seemed to be a captains aide but I'm not sure of the correct title. He typed logs, reports, etc as a main job, and was a ship/plane/kamikaze spotter during engagements. I've been able to ID the ribbons and pins by reviewing previous posts on the sub and ribbon charts except the bottom left. To check myself (top row) upside down Phillipine Liberation ribbon with star, Asiatic Pacific ribbon with three campaign stars, American campaign ribbon (bottom row) unknown, and WWII victory. The unknown one is heavily faded but best seems to align to the Navy Distinguished Service ribbon? It gives hints of purple/blue and yellow, but I have a hard time believing this is correct given there's been less than 14000 recipients. The red star he received from a trade with a Russian soldier. He was a 100wpm typist and was taken off his ship in the Aleutians to translate dictionaries for the ship transfer to the Russians. He told it as he was taken off of the ship in the middle of the night and wasn't logged off the ship, which aligns to the secret nature of the ship transfer. He was later brought together with some enlisted American and Russians. No one could communicate but he spoke up and asked if anyone knew French, which he was fluent. One Russian could and they started to a conversation eventually acting as translators for the other enlisted men. Apparently, leaders got wind of this and he ended up acting as a translator with this Russian in higher level officer meetings. At the end, they traded a few items and he ended up with the red star pictured here. He didn't talk much of his experiences but enjoyed telling this story. Anyways, if anyone could please help with the unknown ribbon it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! submitted by /u/steel_city86 [link] [comments] |
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