Original Item. One-of-a-Kind. This is a fantastic medal grouping to Private First Class Millard C. Townsend, Headquarters Company, 142nd Infantry Regiment, 36th Division. Townsend was wounded severely during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive on October 26th, 1918. The grouping comes with Townsend’s boxed Purple Heart as well as his U.S. WWI Victory Medal and a few pages of research.

Townsend’s Purple Heart is numbered 201469, and has a WWII-era brooch, so Townsend was one of the later veterans to have his wound stripe transferred for the medal. The Purple Heart Medal was not authorized until 1932, so prior to this, soldiers only had the wound chevron on their uniform to recognize their wound. The medal comes with its original ribbon, spare brooch ribbon, and pin in its original box.

The Victory Medal has clasps for Meuse-Argonne and the Defensive Sector, which lines up with the combat exploits of the 36th Division in France.

Millard C. Townsend was born on September 2nd, 1888, in Pinelevel, Alabama. He moved to Texas at a young age and enlisted in the Texas National Guard in Abilena, Texas on June 28th, 1917, while living in Anson, Texas. Ge was assigned to Company I of the 7th Texas Infantry, and in October 1917 was assigned to the HQ Company of the 142nd Infantry Regiment. He was promoted to PFC on February 1st, 1918, and went overseas with his company on July 18th, 1918. His unit saw combat in the Meuse Argonne Offensive from October 5-27th, 1918, and he was wounded severely on the second-to-last day. He returned stateside early due to his wounds, arriving back on January 3rd, 1919. He was honorably discharged on February 13th, 1919.

The medal group comes with a couple pages of research showing that his Purple Heart was awarded on April 14th, 1943, which makes sense given the style of his medal.

This is a fantastic medal group ready for further research and display!

The Victory Medal was originally intended to be established by an act of Congress. The bill authorizing the medal never passed, however, thus leaving the military departments to establish it through general orders. The War Department published orders in April 1919, and the Navy in June of the same year.

The front of the bronze medal features a winged Victory holding a shield and sword on the front. The back of the bronze medal features "The Great War For Civilization" in all capital letters curved along the top of the medal. Curved along the bottom of the back of the medal are six stars, three on either side of the center column of seven staffs wrapped in a cord. The top of the staff has a round ball on top and is winged on the side. The staff is on top of a shield that says "U" on the left side of the staff and "S" on the right side of the staff. On the left side of the staff it lists one World War I Allied country per line: France, Italy, Serbia, Japan, Montenegro, Russia, and Greece. On the right side of the staff the Allied country names read: Great Britain, Belgium, Brazil, Portugal, Rumania (spelled with a U instead of an O as it is spelled now), and China.