Seventy-nine years after he disappeared on a mission somewhere over Africa, Private John T. O’Brien’s Purple Heart has gone home.
In a brief ceremony Tuesday, members of the Sharon Springs American Legion presented Private O’Brien’s Purple Heart, along with a letter from then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to Laverne Winnie, his step-grandson.
The letters and papers were discovered in a home in Hyndsville earlier this year and the new owner reached out to the Legion to see if members could find Private O’Brien.
“He thought the Purple Heart should stay in the family,” said Legion member Tony Desmond, who then sent out a call looking for help.
The call went to historian Pete Lindemann, who helped put the pieces together and who was there for Tuesday’s presentation.
Mr. Lindeman’s research found that the last anyone saw of 26-year-old Private John T. O’Brien was on July 10, 1943, the day he and thousands of other paratroopers dropped into Sicily.
His body was never recovered and the Army listed him as missing in action; a year and a day later, on July 11, 1944, he was declared dead and his family was presented with the Purple Heart.
There’s a marker in the Woodlawn National Cemetery in Elmira for Private O’Brien.
“It shows his date of death as July 10, 1943—the last day anyone saw the hero,” Mr. Lindemann said.
“We just thought it was something his family should have,” Mr. Desmond said. “It’s part of history not a lot of people know anymore.”
Now that he has it, Mr. Winnie said he’ll make sure the pieces of family history stay where they belong—with family; when he’s gone, he said, they’ll go to his son.