DFC/Air Medal pair (LT E.E. Hartman, US Navy)

Pair to LT Earl E. Hartman, USNR: Distinguished Flying Cross, wrap brooch (missing the pin shaft), unnamed; Air Medal, wrap brooch, unnamed. With a Naval Aviator badge, pin-back, marked by N.S. Meyer; a bullion naval aviator badge (worn); a pair of lieutenant’s bars. With original temporary citations for two Distinguished Flying Crosses and 9 Air Medals to Hartman; 17 photographs of fighter operations aboard USS Suwannee (CVE-27); plus an additional 11 copied aircraft action reports involving Hartman.

LT Hartman’s initial Air Medal was for actions on 13 April 1945: “…In the course of a four-hour Combat Air Patrol in the Nansei Shoto he sighted five enemy dive bombers, one of which he shot down…” Hartman’s DFC and other Air Medals were for completed combat missions. VF-40, flying F6F Bearcats from USS Suwannee, arrived off the coast of Okinawa on 1 April 1945 and spent the next 77 days suppressing Japanese air activity in the area.