Grouping, Purple Heart, 1st Sgt. Russell Wilmarth, Co. E, 502nd PIR, 101st Airborne Division, D-Day
Truly amazing genuine WWII US Army grouping, which once belonged to First Sergeant Russell R. Wilmarth, Company E, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, made up of a Purple Heart medal coming in its original case with lapel badge, and a massive corpus of documents:
- registration certificate, dated October 16, 1940;
- 502nd PIR souvenir album of the training period at Fort Benning, 1941;
- sleeping quarters card;
- instruction leaflet issued to student parachutists at Fort Benning in 1942;
- inspection card of some T-5 parachute (back-pack) which saw some heavy use at Fort Benning in 1942;
- program of the 502nd PIR Thanksgiving service at Fort Benning, November 26, 1942;
- large epistolary correspondence, made up of various V-Mail letters sent by the aforementioned paratrooper to his family in 1943-1944;
- lot of War Rations Books issued to the said family;
- rare original print of General Dwight D. Eisenhower's statement, addressed to the 'Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force' on the eve of the invasion of Normandy;
- Newsweek magazine, June 19, 1944 issue, featuring a photograph in which the said GI poses alongside his brothers in arms in Normandy (page 31);
- original telegram sent by the military authorities to his spouse in July 1944, informing her that her husband had been wounded in action on June 14;
- historical booklet dedicated to the 101st Airborne Division, printed in Paris, France in 1945.
A total of seven newspaper clippings related to the itinerary of this paratrooper, in particular his recovery and reconstruction, along with a copy of his Honorable Discharge and service records, as well as a certificate of appreciation awarded by the Department of Treasury in 1976 following his 35 years of Federal Service, complete this exceptional set.
Russell Remington Wilmarth was born on June 15, 1919 in Gloversville, New York and joined the US Army on March 6, 1941 (ASN 32043893). After being awarded his 'jump wings', he went on to serve with Co. E, 502nd PIR, 101st Airborne Division and deployed to Europe in the fall of 1943. He parachuted into Normandy on June 6, 1944 and was subsequently wounded by a piece of shrapnel in his left leg eight days later. Repatriated in August of that year following the amputation of the damaged limb in Britain, he was eventually discharged on May 16, 1945 as a First Sergeant. He passed away on May 21, 1985.
https://fr.findagrave.com/memorial/225106384/russell-remineton-wilmarth
Illustration documents not mentioned above are available in digital format only.
