Item Description
Original Items. One-of-a-Kind Group. This is the tremendous uniform & ephemera grouping of Private First Class Emmett Warren Snyder, Company F, 5th Ranger Battalion, who was present on D-Day and was wounded a staggering four times during the war, on September 4th & December 4th, 1944, and February 19th and 28th, 1945, earning him the Purple Heart Medal with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters along with the Bronze Star Medal. The group includes his Ike Jacket with his laundry number and a gorgeous theater-made patch, his engraved Purple Heart Medal (government reissue), and a great deal of veterans’ ephemera.
This grouping includes:
- Snyder’s WWII Ike Jacket with a gorgeous Theater-made 5th Ranger Battalion patch on the left shoulder, PFC chevrons on both sleeves, three overseas stripes on the left cuff, US & Infantry collar discs, a Presidential Unit Citation over the right breast pocket, and his Combat Infantryman Badge with a 4-place ribbon bar over the left breast. The ribbon bar has the Bronze Star, Purple Heart with 3 OLCs, Good Conduct Medal, and European-African-Middle Eastern campaign medal with four campaign stars. The interior of the jacket bears laundry number S6416, which is Snyder’s laundry number, fully identifying it to him.
- Snyder’s Purple Heart Medal in its Presentation case. There are two Purple Heart medals in the box, one is not engraved and has two Oak Leaf Clusters, and the other has 3 clusters and is engraved “EMMETT W SNYDER”, but this is certainly a later Government Reissue of the medal, likely the one Snyder wore when he went back overseas in the 1990s. The box also has the ribbon and pin.
- Snyder’s 1994 D-Day Allied invasion 50th Anniversary T-shirt, Size Medium.
- Snyder’s post-war Veteran’s Ranger white “varsity jacket” with the 5th Bn insignia on the front over D-DAY 6 JUNE 1944 NORMANDY, FRANCE. By Dunbrooke, Size Medium. He can actually be seen wearing this jacket overseas in one of the photographs.
- 8½ x 11” wooden plaque for the Symbolism of Battle Honors Flag for the Ranger Battalions Association WWII. Mounted to hang.
- Snyder’s 50th Anniversary guest tag and his 1993 Nashville convention nametag.
- 2004 and 2005 National Rangers Reunion books, very long with great material.
- Pack of modern photographs of Snyder’s trip back overseas in the 1990s. Includes a photo showing Snyder shaking hands with Ronald Reagan, and some photos of him overseas standing next to barbed wire with his Purple Heart on his chest. Also some photos of the landscapes and then likely from his funeral.
- French beret cover, made in Paris.
- Snyder’s Disabled Veteran License plate from Texas.
- Some ranger magazines, a copy of “The Boys of Pointe du Hoc”, other Army magazines, booklets, other veterans ephemera.
- A folder of printed research including his discharge paperwork.
- Extra set of collar discs.
Emmett Warren Snyder was born on March 9th, 1923 in Clark’s Mills, Pennsylvania. He was inducted into the draft on February 15th, 1943 at Pittsburgh, and entered the service on February 22nd. His occupational specialty was as a Light Machine Gunner, Rifleman, and Messenger, and he was made a Thompson Submachine gun expert in October of 1943. He left for Europe on January 7th, 1944, taking part in the Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, and Central Europe campaigns. Snyder landed on D-Day and took part in the entire campaign.
Topkick militaria, this is a known uniform, the DI are from the end of the war when he was transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division before returning home. While overseas, Snyder was wounded a staggering four times during the war, on September 4th & December 4th, 1944, and February 19th and 28th, 1945, earning him the Purple Heart Medal with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters along with the Bronze Star Medal. We couldn’t find much on the nature of his wounds but we did find one hospital card admission file noting his wounds as caused by artillery shell fragments. Snyder returned to the U.S. on September 11th, 1945 and was discharged on September 19th. Snyder was very active in Veterans’ organizations post-war, and even went back to Normandy for the 50th Anniversary of D-Day in 1994, and the grouping includes many photos of him there. Snyder passed away two years later on September 17th, 1996 at the age of 73.
This is a phenomenal WWII Rangers group to a 4-time-wounded D-Day veteran. Comes ready for further research and display.
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