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Military burial flag rescued by local movers
RADNOR – When 2nd Lt. Gerald Hamilton was moved from a temporary military cemetery in Germany to his final resting place at the U.S. Military Cemetery in Margraten, Belgium, in 1949, a 48-star American flag draped his casket. h Gerald had been an Army flight officer in World War II, flying paratroopers into Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge. Just weeks before V-E Day on March 24, 1945, Gerald’s plane was shot down after releasing paratroopers into Germany. He and his copilot were later killed in action near Weisel. He was 26 years old.
With no wife or children, the flag was sent back to Marion for Gerald’s parents to keep.
The flag was delivered in a cardboard box bound with Army green tape and emblazoned with an official U.S. Army Post Office stamp. Making its way across the Atlantic Ocean, the box eventually arrived at his parents’ Marion County home.
Gerald’s military honors were treasured by his family for years. The flag, along with Gerald’s Army Air Medal and Purple Heart, were eventually passed down to his youngest brother, Vern, who later left all of Gerald’s belongings to his grandson, William. Everything, that is, except the flag. It wouldn’t be found for more than three decades, tucked inside a closet in Radnor.
This past spring, William Hamilton hired some movers to help clean out his mother’s home of 62 years to prepare for her move into a senior living facility.
Brodie Miller, a mover with Westerville-based Two Men and a Truck, was cleaning out a closet in an upstairs bedroom when he found a box at the back of a deep shelf that caught his attention.
He pulled down the box and as soon as he saw it, stamped with the date Sept. 23, 1949, Miller said he knew what was inside. So he brought the box downstairs to give to Hamilton.
Finding the flag was a complete shock, Hamilton said. Only his father would’ve known about the flag, he said, and because the box was at the very back of the closet, it made sense that no one knew that Gerald’s flag was there. Even his mother was surprised.
“I don’t know when my dad got it. I’m just so grateful that someone recognized it for what it was,” said Hamilton, 62.
The flag has never been removed from the box. A piece of paper inside the box explaining the burial flag’s significance is in pristine condition. The tape binding the box is still a little sticky.
Miller said he knew exactly how significant the flag would be because he was given a similar flag when his father,
Arthur William Joseph Miller III, a Navy veteran of the Vietnam war, died of Lou Gehrig’s disease when Miller was 13 years old.
“It’s one of the most valuable things I have in my life,” Miller said. “When I went downstairs and talked to the homeowners, I told him my story and I said, ‘I don’t want you to throw this away.’ It was extremely rewarding.”
Hamilton said the flag was more than just a pleasant surprise. It was a chance for him to keep Gerald’s memory alive.
Gerald was always the family hero.
He was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed wild young man who joined the military before Pearl Harbor. But because he never married or had children to carry on his legacy, Hamilton said he worried that his great-uncle would one day be lost to history.
He called men like Gerald the often “forgotten soldiers” because “two or three generations down. people start to forget them.”
But now, Hamilton said, Gerald’s memory is safe with him. As the family’s official historian, Hamilton said plans to keep learning about his great-uncle and the rest of the family in hopes of one day passing along the knowledge and heirlooms to his 30-year-old son.
Until then, the flag and Gerald’s other Army memorabilia are tucked away in a safe inside Hamilton’s Radnor home, alongside his father’s Marine Corps burial flag and other family military artifacts.
“I’m very, very thankful that Brodie found that and brought that to me,” Hamilton said. “I don’t know what the value of a 48-star flag is, but certainly it has tremendous value to our family.” shendrix@dispatch.com @sheridan120