Bronze Star Advice?

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Came across a Bronze Star along with the certificate and mimeograph of the citation.
I feel compelled to make an effort to find a family member to return it to. Does anyone have any advice on where to begin this quest?
The metal is for service in Korea (early on August -December 1950) Also included are several photos , news paper clippings referencing the individual in WWII and Korea (also indicating the receipt of a Bronze Star in WWII), a Japanese newspaper announcing Truman's Ousting of Macarthur, a mimeographed full after action report for the 127 infantry from the Leyte campaign, along with the transcript of an interview with Japanese
officers post surrender.
In my opinion if he has descendants the proper place for the personal items is with them.

Information

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[browningautorifle]

If you have a service number, you should be able to find where it belongs.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

If you have a service number, you should be able to find where it belongs.

I do have the service number. Where do I begin?

---------- Post added at 10:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:51 AM ----------

Steve762:
I fear you may be correct. Have seen it many times as well. On the upside it affords me the oppertunity to buy some things that otherwise would not be avaliable. Dads war trophy K-98 is bad enough but photos & a Bronze Star?
May be banging my head but I need to at least try. Perhaps just perhaps it was lost and not discarded.

[Paul S.]

Start an Internet search starting by Googling the name. Then try Ancestry.com if you have it. Ancestry has catalogued Census data, military records, birth and death certificates and obituaries. You may get lucky and successful with little effort.

[30Three]

Trying to find the family relatives is a very noble effort; however I would make sure they appreciate why you are doing it and that they appreciate the medal. You don't want to find it at the next militaria sale you attend!

[Sentryduty]

This topic does raise a discussion point I had sadly come to realize during my last years in the army while working for my Regiment's Museum Manager.

These sorts of things show up very commonly, all sorts of honours and awards, medals, challenge coins, documentation, collections and effects, personal things that any soldier or veteran would have prized greatly. It is usually with their passing, but other times due to theft or loss, that these items enter circulation of the private market. If the next of kin have not been made aware of the relevance of these items prior to the passing of the soldier, often they will see them as trinkets and sell them off based on the price of a similar Ebay auction they find, a real tragedy.

What else can be done to preserve history? Some might think that "grand-dad's old war stuff" would be safe in a museum, forever protected and maintained in his memory by the museum staff. While this seems logical, in reality, many museums are undersized, underfunded, understaffed and in danger of closure, relocation, and theft of their own. Unless the relic is of particular interest to that museum, many donations will find their way into long term storage, and eventually sold off, or worse yet, disposed of as garbage because of unfortunate circumstances or misunderstandings.

I have seen the long term storage collections of the TMM and handled some of the priceless artifacts there, absolute treasures, but without direct historical relevance to the museum they will almost certainly, at best, languish in storage.

When military historical artifacts are found in the wild (private market) sometimes the person that will be the best caretaker of that item is the one willing to spend their money to purchase it. Any person that does so, is at least in some way keeping the memory of that soldier and his history alive.

Sometimes valuables are lost and need to be reunited, but most often, they enter the market because there is no one left that cares.

[Aragorn243]

To be honest, if I came across such an item I would put everything together, preserve it and keep it. It is my opinion that most of these things wind up this way precisely because no one else cared. I see them at auctions quite a bit. In all my flea market and yard sale travels, I have yet to come across something like this that is military (that wasn't already in the hands of a dealer selling it) but I have run into numerous items my wife and I just can't believe they are getting rid of. I buy books by the dozens every week and a good quarter of them have "Merry Christmas Dad, from the Kids, 1998" or something similar. I already told the story of a very significant Civil War item which was given to me over the kids because the owners knew I would appreciate it and the kids would sell it or trash it as soon as they got the opportunity. It's possible someone out there would want it but odds are slim. My wife would like to have her Dad's things but we have already assumed they were thrown out and are now in a landfill somewhere. His second wife was putting his stuff out in the trash for years. Fishing lures, pipes, zippo lighters. She was too stupid to know the stuff was worth money. She had me sell off her Nancy Drew books on ebay but not his stuff. Freaking fishing lures would have put her Nancy Drew books to shame.

[Flying10uk]

I have purchased various British service medals over the years from antique/junk shops etc and stalls at various military fairs etc but not a great number. As has been indicated above these items have normally come into the market place because the family or decedents of the original owner have no interest in the item. When I've purchased more than one item (service medal) that has been awarded to the same person I do keep them together and would never split them up. With the British WW1 service medals there is normally a name and service number engraved on the edge of the medal which I believe was done as a matter of course for WW1 British awards but not for WW2. Although I don't know the original owners of the medals and have no family connection to them, I still find it interesting to look up the Serviceman's details/service records on the Ancestry Website. With WW1 British service records you have about a 50/50 chance of success because the building where the records were stored in London during WW2 was bombed and some records were lost/damaged.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Having such a compulsion to preserve historical items from my ancestors it is difficult to imagine casting off items like this. You seem to either have it or not. The sentimentality gene. I find the Leyte after action report to be extremely interesting.
Oh well I will continue to appreciate the service of LTC Robert Schwartz even if I determine he has no surviving relatives. It feels good to wander here among those who share my interest in such things.
Perhaps I can post some details here on the odd chance someone should stumble upon it.

Here is an item from the folder.

[AZshot]

Every item on this forum that is collected belonged to someone at some time. And millions of men served in WWII and Korea, so there are millions of items. Sometimes the service member himself gets rid of the items, even awards, for whatever reason. On my ship, I saw a senior petty officer throw his good conduct award over the side, right during the ceremony where he had just received it! Some men were shell shocked by the wars, and didn't like getting medals when their friends were dying. Some were given posthumously, yet there are no living relatives. Finally, I often hear "that [gun, medal or issued item] should be in a museum somewhere! Well guess what? I went to an auction of a very big AAF museum, that was selling off the uniforms families had bequeathed to them years before! Basically, it's nice to get a medal back to someone, but I'd say a service ring or something found at a wreck site is more important than a random medal.