Wake Island research help

[gel65]

Hello I have I uniform belonging to a soldier who served on wake Island with the first Marines, he later served with the U.S. constabulary forces, the only thing I could find in his uniform was the number S-6553, some of the awards he recieved are the bronze star, and purple hart his rank I belive was Private First class any help would be great I am interested to see what he did during the war thanks

[drmessimer]

Gel65: I'm sorry that no one has responded to your post earlier, but it is rather vague and contradictory. The number you provided, S-6553 is a laundry mark, consisting of the man's first initial of his last name and the last four digits of his serial number. The Marine unit at Wake island was the First Marine Defense Batallion, not the 1st Marines, which was an entirely different unit, and surrendered to the Japanese in 1942. After WWII the United States Army Space and Strategic Defense Command had missile units on Wake Island, but they were in no way associated with the Marine Coprs. The U.S. Constabulary Forces existed from 1946 to 1952 and is a general designation for US Army units that perfomed occupation duty in Germany and Austria. Is the uniform you have a Marine or Army uniform? It sounds to me like you have a post-WWII US Army uniform, but it would help if you could post a photo of the uniform, especially the shoulder patch(s), which would help us answer your question. Dwight

[gel65]

The uniform is an army uniform he has the 1st marines patch and the constabulary, the uniform is wartime though

[drmessimer]

gel65: Well, it sounds like he was a guy who might have been a Marine during WWII and then was in the Army after the war, which is the only explanation for two separate service patches on an Army uniform. I'm not up on current US Army uniform regulations, but in my day a soldier was authorized to wear the patch of the unit he saw combat with on the right shoulder and his current assigned unit patch on the left. I don't recall if that was extended to guys who came into the Army from the other services or not, but that might have been the case. But without some photos of the uniform and the patches, none of us can give you a factual answer. If there are any campaign ribbons on the uniform, they would tell us a lot about the guy. Please post some photos, we would like to see them. Dwight