The limits of this record

What the searches reached, and what would settle the rest

The limit, stated plainly: Decorations are the least completely published part of the military record. The Medal of Honor is published entire, and this section's summit test is therefore a true negative. Below that height the record thins fast: Distinguished Flying Crosses below the famous, Bronze Stars with "V," Army Commendation Medals with "V," and Purple Hearts by the hundred were published, if at all, in unit general orders and hometown newspaper columns that no register has gathered for this ground. This section does not know how many decorated Mishawaka men and women stand below the waterline of the published record, and it prints no estimate. What it can state is the shape of its own reach: the two great valor registers searched name by name and by city; the county's Gold Star roll read entire; the county veterans index read at the letters the record required; the Army Air Forces' award cards at the names the registers gave; and the city's own marker programme entire.

Leads left open, by name:Victor A. Melchiorre stands in the county veterans index as having "earned 5 Battle Stars… and the Bronze Star for heroism," buried at Fairview — but the index gives his township as unknown, and no second record corroborates the entry; he is excluded from the decorated record above and named here as an open lead. Dan Dzierla's reported Silver Star, printed above at newspaper strength, awaits the same settlement. And Gary J. Honold's index-reported Silver Star and Purple Heart await theirs. Against them stands one exclusion this section is sure of, stated so the record is not later muddied: Donavon F. Smith, the Second World War ace whose Distinguished Service Cross for the Emden mission of 11 December 1943 is sometimes loosely attached to this area, was born at Dowagiac and raised at Niles; only a brother lived in Mishawaka. His cross is Michigan's to print.

The settling archives: What would settle every open line in this section exists, and it is named so this section's gaps have addresses: the men's and women's service records at the National Personnel Records Center; the general orders of the units themselves, at the National Archives; the South Bend Tribune's servicemen's columns and the St. Joseph County Public Library's index to them, which covers the war years 1941 to 1979 and is the likeliest single source for the Bronze Star generation; and the county veterans index's own underlying obituary files, from which its decoration notes were compiled. Until those are read, this section stands as the decoration record the published registers support — complete at the summit and at cross height, honest about the slope below.

Sources:

1. St. Joseph County veterans index (INGenWeb), M section: Melchiorre, Victor A. — "earned 5 Battle Stars… and the Bronze Star for heroism," buried Fairview, township unknown; printed here as an unsettled lead.
2. The decoration record of Donavon F. Smith (Distinguished Service Cross, Emden, 11 December 1943), as carried in the registers: born Dowagiac, Michigan, raised at Niles; excluded.