The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
1951 – 1953
The test: Gustin is the Korean War's one verified Mishawaka decoration. The city's other proven Korean War dead, whose deaths stand in the Wars section — Second Lieutenant Edwin F. Tabaczynski of the Air Force, lost 20 August 1951 with his remains not recovered, the city's unaccounted-for of that war; Private First Class Joseph H. Veevaete of the Marine Corps, killed 1 May 1953; and Robert F. C. Maenhout, whose identification rests on converging records — were each searched in the award registers. No citation, general order, or register entry recording a valor decoration for any of the three was reached. The Purple Heart attends death in action as a matter of course in that war's practice, but this section does not print decorations by inference: none of the three is listed here as decorated, because no record naming the award was reached.
What the record does hold for Tabaczynski: His service was a matter of public pride in his lifetime. The November 1951 issue of Air Force Magazine carried him on its cover's theme: "Second Lieutenant Edwin F. Tabaczynski, Mishawaka, Indiana, who has at this writing fourteen combat missions under his belt. He flies [an F-80] in the 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing." A hometown second lieutenant with fourteen combat missions, named in the Air Force Association's own magazine in the month after his loss — the magazine reached print on a schedule set before his death was known at home. It is not a decoration. It is printed here because it is the form public honor took for him, and because a reader of this section should know that the absence of a medal in the registers is not an absence of a record.
Sources:
- Military Times Hall of Valor and Military Hall of Honor — searched for Tabaczynski, Veevaete, and Maenhout; no valor-award record found.
- Air Force Magazine, vol. 34, no. 11 (November 1951), cover caption on 2LT Edwin F. Tabaczynski of Mishawaka.
- Wars section of this build (the Korean War rolls, the county count of forty-three, and Tabaczynski's unaccounted-for standing).