Burma Star and Cameronians cap badge given to an American

[Kanemono]

This Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) cap badge and Burma Star were given to Gomer Spencer Hawk in 1950 by Sergeant James Donald DCM. Sergeant James was a member of the “Chindits” who served with Merrill’s Marauders. The “Burma Star” is named in the British manner, however, it is hand engraved not impressed so it is unofficial. Only the Burma Stars given to Indians were named.

 

 

Gomer Spencer Hawk was born in Catawissa, Pennsylvania on October 7, 1920. He graduated from Catawissa High School in 1938. He worked in the textile industry in Catawissa before enlisting in the U.S. Army on March 12, 1940 at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was assigned to Company B, 5^th Infantry, Camp Paraiso, Canal Zone, Panama. On September 2, 1943 he volunteered for a nameless “dangerous and hazardous mission” with the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) under the command of Frank Dow Merrill. This unit codenamed Galahad, was to spearhead a U.S.-Chinese offensive across northern Burma. Known as Merrill’s Marauders the 5307th Composite Unit was a combat unit of less than 3,000 men from the 50 states. Everyone a volunteer, for what is now known to have been a long range penetration behind enemy lines suicide mission. These patriotic volunteers that answered President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s worldwide call for a dangerous and hazardous mission didn’t know what, or where, only that the expected casualty rate was 85% or more and their Country needed them. They operated behind enemy lines with only what they could carry on their backs or on mules. They hacked their way through more than 700 miles of the world’s most difficult jungles and repeatedly attacked the enemy’s infrastructure while spearheading the Chinese advance. While severely outnumbered, they out fought the best of the enemy’s 18th Imperial Marines. In the five months, they fought five major battles and thirty minor ones. In monsoon rain they cut their way over the impossible 6,000 ft. Kumon Range to Myitkyina where they captured the only all-weather airfield in Northern Burma. No other unit in annals of military history ever fought so long under such adverse conditions with only what they could carry on their backs or on mules and occasional resupply by airdrops. The marauders lived on inadequate emergency rations and continually fought malnutrition and exhaustion. Suffering from fevers, diarrhea, jungle rot, fungus, leach infections, was the norm. Merrill’s Marauders cleared the enemy out of Northern Burma and enabled a land route to China. Hawk returned to the United States on June 28, 1945. He went to college under the G.I. Bill and earned a degree as an engineer. On May 9, 1949 he sailed from New York, New York, to São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, on the S.S. Brazil. Gomer Spenser Hawk died on July 9, 1983 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.

 

 

 

[teamski]

Pretty cool! Remember, the British did not name their WWII campaign medals, only Australians, Rhodesians and South Africans.

 

-Ski

[Kanemono]

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