Family seeks Purple Heart for late WWII vet
Medical records were lost in fire, hindering efforts
LAS CRUCES — George Hubert Gay was a young farmer from Hatch when he enlisted in the U.S. Army in May 1942 at Fort Bliss — just as American involvement in World War II was gaining steam.
He’d return home alive three years later, but not before fighting in several battles and spending 14 months as a prisoner of war. He left the service with three gunshot wounds to his left leg.
Gay died in 1974 at the age of 57. Despite his many injuries, Gay never received a Purple Heart, a military honor issued for being wounded or killed in enemy action. But, after three previous unsuccessful efforts, his family is launching a renewed attempt to seek the recognition.
A final fight
By November 1942, Gay was fighting along with the 3rd Infantry Division’s 30th Regiment on a battlefield in French Morocco, thousands of miles away from home. He’d see battle again in Tunisia and in Sicily and Salerno, Italy. It was in Anzio, Italy, in early 1944, where he was captured.
During a German attack on the front line, he was feeding ammo to a machine gun being manned by a fellow soldier, said Hubert Gay of Las Cruces, George’s son. The unit was sustaining heavy losses, and a lieutenant left to get reinforcements. A sergeant then left the post, saying he needed to get more ammo. German troops shot his comrade, who fell on top of him, and overran the unit, killing the rest of the U.S. soldiers, said Hubert Gay, recounting what his father had told him.
George Gay pushed away the body of his comrade and attacked eight German soldiers in his vicinity, believing he killed them all. He then started running back toward the next U.S. troops, only to be noticed by a second group of enemy soldiers who fired at him.
“They hit him in his left leg,” Hubert Gay
said. “He kept trying to run; he threw his gun away. His leg just didn’t want to work anymore.”
He then tried hiding in a small ditch, only to be discovered by German troops.
“He thought they were going to kill him, but they picked him up, carried him back and put him on an ambulance with some wounded Germans,” his son said.
‘We like cowboys’
George was apprehensive about what the Germans might do to him. But they asked him if he had any American cigarettes, which he did, and gave them some. And they asked where he was from. George responded, giving the name of the place he was born: Woodsboro, Texas.
“And they said: ‘That’s alright, we like cowboys,’ ” Hubert Gay said.
He was taken to a German POW camp, Stalag IX-C. He was either treated there or at a field hospital for his leg wounds, his son said. He was eventually moved to a second camp, Stalag IIB, in Hammerstein, West Germany. Hubert Gay still has the German-issued military dog tags that were assigned to his father.
Russian troops freed the Stalag IIB camp, which primarily held Americans, in April 1945. He’d caught malaria in Africa and suffered from malnutrition at the POW camp. His son said it was a miracle his father survived the ordeal.
“He was a strong guy — being a farmer,” he said.
Returning to America
George Gay returned to the United States, and in June 1945 he married his childhood sweetheart.
In October 1945, he was honorably discharged from the Army, according to official documents shown to the Sun-News. One field on the document states that he received no wounds in action — something both he and, later on, his family formally disputed.
Hubert Gay said his father wouldn’t have likely challenged that error and some others on paperwork on his own, but his mother prodded him to do so to get the benefits, such as disability pay, to which he was entitled. The records also didn’t accurately reflect the number of battles George Gay had fought in.
A 1947 letter from the Veterans Administration to George asked for him to supply an affidavit describing where and when he’d received the gunshot wounds. The letter noted that two doctors had reached somewhat different conclusions about the wounds. An Army report stated they’d come from a rifle, but a V.A. examination had concluded the wounds came from a “German automatic pistol,” according to the document.
In 1950, a V.A. office in Albuquerque did grant a slight increase in his disability payments for “gunshot wound left thigh muscles,” according to the document.
A family’s quest
In 2010, Hubert Gay launched his first attempt to seek the Purple Heart award for his father. In the course of looking for more records about his father’s service, he contacted the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
However, that office responded that it didn’t have the records because the majority of files for Army personnel from 1912 to 1959 were destroyed in a fire in 1973, according to a copy of the letter. The document also noted that the “Purple Heart Medal is awarded for wounds or injuries received as a direct result of hostile action.”
“A record of such wounds or injuries must be contained in official military records,” the letter states. “A search of these records has failed to produce any evidence that the veteran received such wounds. In the absence of evidence, the Purple Heart Medal cannot be authorized.”
Board rejection
The same letter noted Hubert Gay could file for a correction of military records through the Army Review Boards Agency in Virginia, which he later did. However, that body rejected the request. He sought a reconsideration of the case, noting that George Gay was the sole survivor of his squad; he was taken captive and treated by German medics, not Americans; and his military personnel records were destroyed in the 1973 fire.
The Army Board for Correction of Military Records denied the renewed request in December 2012.
At issue, the board concluded, was that verification that the wounds were the result of hostile action was needed, as well as treatment of the wounds by military medical personnel and documentation of the wounds in official records, according to the denial letter. The 1947 V.A. letter that acknowledged George Gay’s gunshot wounds wasn’t enough proof. Rather, an original treatment record was needed, “and that treatment record is not available,” according to the denial letter.
“Regrettably, there is insufficient evidence on which to base an award of the Purple Heart in this case,” the document states.
The denial letter did state George Gay could pursue case to appeal the matter, which he didn’t do.
A final attempt
Las Crucen Frances Williams served with Hubert Gay on a committee that established a Vietnam War monument at Las Cruces Veterans Memorial Park on Roadrunner Parkway. While working on the project, she heard about the family’s attempt to have the Purple Heart awarded to George Gay.
Williams, who worked for years at White Sands Missile Range, approached the commander of German military personnel stationed at Holloman Air Force Base, asking for assistance. She hoped the Germans may have maintained a record of treating George Gay’s injuries.
She said the now-former commander, Col. GAF and Commanding Director Heinz Ferkinghoff, was glad to assist and placed a request for information from back in Germany. And he received information back that American POW records had been confiscated by the Allies in 1945. He referred Williams to the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Williams checked there, only to be referred to the archives center in St. Louis — the batch of records that was destroyed in the 1973 fire.
On one hand, the federal government acknowledged George Gay’s gunshot wounds by issuing disability pay, Williams noted. But on the other hand, its denying him a Purple Heart. The senior Gay didn’t have the wounds when he enlisted, but he did upon leaving military service.
“When he got inducted at Fort Bliss, he was in very good condition,” she said.
Williams compiled a packet with all the documents the Gay family does have, as well as a summary statement of George Gay’s case.
Hubert Gay, who’s a Vietnam veteran, said he’s sent the packet to a U.S. senator and congressman and plans to resubmit it one last time to the Army board. And Williams plans to send it to some of her military connections.
Hubert Gay said he’s not seeking any sort of financial benefit from pursuing the Purple Heart for his late father. But he said his dad, who’s buried in Hatch alongside his wife, served his country well. And the recognition has been withheld for too long.
“I was a Vietnam veteran; my son was a Marine in the Persian Gulf War,” he said, noting this will be his last attempt to seek the Purple Heart for his father. “It’s a veteran tradition. I feel my dad should get the ribbons he deserved.”