I was doing some eBay hunting the other day when I found a pretty cool Ike jacket. It was a jacket patched to the U.S. North African theater of operations. What caught my attention about it 'other then the shoulder patch' was the beautiful hand sewn ribbon bar attached above the left breast pocket. I'm not 100% certain, but I believe it was made in theater. The five overseas service bars sewn above the left cuff appear to be theater made as well. Included with the jacket was a khaki garrison cap. The seller made no mention of this grouping being identified to a specific veteran, but both the jacket and cap had markings I was able to research. The garrison cap is marked twice with the faded name 'Mayfield'. On the jacket there's a faded laundry number of 'M7119' and the name Mayfield is written once again.
A quick search on the national archives database revealed the veteran's basic enlistment information. His name was 'Fred Mayfield' and his ASN is 20617119. After finding this info I decided to pull the trigger on purchasing this small grouping. I highly doubted the seller had any other bits for sale that were connected to this vet, but I decided to check out his other listings just to be safe. I'm really glad that I did! I ended up finding a sizeable group of documents and paper items all tied to Mr Mayfield. It consisted of letters, telegrams, and even a small guidebook to U.S. military insignia/awards. Without question I quickly bought the group of paper items.
I have to say, I'm a bit confused as to why the seller didn't sell everything bundled together. He could have easily sold it all for much more AND guarantee the history stays together. Neither listing contained any mention that they were part of a bigger grouping. I guess this just proves that you can never be too thorough. If you buy an item, always look through the other listings the seller has up. You just might find items connected to the piece you bought!
Various paper items actually include the the vet's unit info. To my eyes it looks like 'H+S. Co. 338th Engineer'. If someone could tell me more about this unit, I would greatly appreciate it
Ike Jacket
Garrison Cap
Documents
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