Relatives of sailor killed in Pearl Harbor receive Purple Heart lost for over 70 years
While helping her father clean out a desk at the Veterans of Foreign War Post in Brockton, Kinsey Lonergan came across a little blue box. She opened it and saw a small purple and gold medal with the name John Russel Johnson engraved on the back, The Boston Globe reported.
The Purple Heart had been awarded to a 23-year-old sailor from Brockton after he died in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Globe reported. More than 70 years after his death, Lonergan and her parents spent two years tracking down Johnson’s relatives, eventually finding his 69-year-old niece Cindy Tangstrom, who had grown up knowing that she lost an uncle in the attack, but knew little about him and nothing about the honor he had received.
“That was nice of them to keep checking until they found us,’’ she told the Globe. “It’s a big honor.’’
Johnson’s relatives will receive the Purple Heart as well as a picture of him and the USS Arizona in a ceremony Monday at the VFW Post in Brockton.
Read the full Globe story here.
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