United States (Champion Paper Co.): 1942 silver WW2 deployment medal presented to Logan Robertson

Dr. Logan Thomson Robertson (1916-1987) was my maternal grandfather. He was the son of Reuben Buck Robertson (1879-1972), who was the president and chairman of Champion Paper Company, which operated in Canton, North Carolina.

He attended the Yale School of Medicine until World War 2 intervened, after which he became a captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Among other deployments, he was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, where my mother, Lillian "Happy" Dobbs (nee Robertson) was born in 1944. Granddaddy received his M.D. degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1942 and also studied at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and at Duke University Medical School.

Interestingly, though I had previously handled eight similar medals in bronze which had been issued to other Champion employees, this one- my grandfather's- did not come down to me as a family heirloom, but rather through the kindness of a stranger named Lucy Brannen, who had somehow acquired it. She tracked down my mother with some internet sleuthing, then sent the medal to Mom, who gave it to me.

It has some wear on it, so perhaps Granddaddy carried it as a pocket piece for a while. Not long before this medal so serendipitously appeared, I had reunited a World War 1 love token with a descendant of its original owner, so it was fun to be on the receiving end of a similar quest.

Other medals of this type were struck in bronze and given to Champion employees. I have seen eight of them. This one (Granddaddy's) is the only silver one I have seen.

Sammlung : United States Coins