Original U.S. WWII 34th Infantry Regiment Engraved Purple Heart, Bronze Star, & Conspicuous Service Cross Medal Grouping - Corporal Kenneth E. Scheller

Original Items. One-of-a-Kind Group. This is the tremendous engraved medal grouping of Corporal Kenneth E. Scheller, Company K, 34th Infantry Regiment. Scheller was awarded the Purple Heart Medal for wounds received in action around June 1945. His hospital admission card lists his injury as a Fracture, compound, comminuted with nerve involvement only; Location: Radius, Shaft; CausativeAgent: Bullet, Missile Not Stated; Diagnosis: Palsy, brachial. Also included in the group is his engraved Bronze Star Medal, and his engraved Conspicuous Service Cross with two devices.

The grouping includes:
- Scheller’s Engraved Purple Heart Medal in its original presentation case with the ribbon and pin.
- Scheller’s Engraved Bronze Star Medal in its original presentation case with the ribbon and pin along with a Ruptured Duck discharge pin.
- Scheller’s Engraved New York Conspicuous Service Cross with a ribbon pinned on the brooch with two devices denoting another award. These medals are very difficult to find in their own right.
- Printouts of research.

Scheller’s wound was bad enough to warrant him being invalided home. His medical treatment is listed as Excision,patella,aftr compnd comminuted frac/Hammertoe opr/Ostectomy/Resection bonerib/Coccygectomy. 

This is a great grouping worthy of further research. Comes ready to display!

The 34th Infantry Regiment in World War II

The 34th was awaiting embarkation on 7 December when the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war.[8] The regiment was reassigned to the Hawaiian Department and its convoy rerouted to Oahu, where it arrived on 21 December. The 34th was put in department reserve and assigned to the defense of the island.

On 12 June 1943 the 34th was assigned to the 24th Infantry Division, replacing the 298th Infantry, a Hawaiian National Guard unit that had been severely depleted the previous year when its ethnic Japanese soldiers were reassigned to the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate). In September the division shipped out to Australia for training.

The 34th served as division reserve during the Operation Reckless landings at Tanahmerah Bay, Netherlands New Guinea on 22 April 1944. The regiment was brought ashore and assisted in mopping-up operations around the Hollandia airdrome.

In early June the 34th was attached to the 41st Infantry Division, whose assault on Biak Island was meeting unexpected resistance. A two-day assault by the 34th captured Sorido and Brooke airdromes, major objectives in the campaign.

On 16 February 1945 the 3rd Battalion under Col. Aubrey S. "Red" Newman amphibiously assaulted Corregidor and assisted the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team in capturing the island. The fighting lasted until 26 February.

According to Stephen J. Lofgren who prepared the pamphlet, Southern Philippines in the U.S. Army's Center of Military History series The US Army Campaigns of WWII, "The Southern Philippines Campaign usually is given short shrift in popular histories of World War II." The campaign, which the U.S. Army recognizes as ending on 4 July 1945, actually lasted until Imperial Japanese forces received the news of the Japanese total defeat from Tokyo in September. Operation VICTOR V of the Southern Philippines Campaign was waged with primary objective of eradicating Japanese military power on Mindanao in the Philippine Islands and liberating the Filipino people.

The 34th Infantry, operating as an element of the 24th Infantry Division, participated in some of the most horrific combat under the most insufferable weather and terrain conditions of the War in the Pacific. Yet for the entire campaign U.S. forces losses were minimal. The mopping up activities on the island of Mindanao lasting into September 1945 would result in 22,000 Japanese soldiers emerging from the central Mindanao jungles to surrender. More than 10,000 Japanese died in combat on Mindanao, while 8,000 or more died from starvation or disease during the campaign. From 17 April to 15 August 1945, 820 U.S. soldiers were killed in eastern Mindanao and 2,880 were wounded; many more deaths and injuries were after 15 August. The 34th Infantry would go on to occupy the southern Japanese island of Kyushu.