The Mystery of the Purple Heart: Stephen Endres’ Journey

Background

I’ve been busy working on the Aviation Wrecks of Southern California book and haven’t been diving much locally — even though the conditions have been nice so far this year. I have done a couple dive projects that I will find time to write about, but most of my time has been writing and research.

Readers have often told me they like learning about and hearing updates about the book and some of the detective work we do.

In this case, I will detail some detective work to learn more about Stephen Endres who was the pilot of the P-38 we located and identified off Solana Beach, California.

P-38 Lightning “Skip Bombing Mission” (Solana Beach, CA — 180 fsw)

The Purple Heart Medal

In the original post, I noted that Stephen’s obituary indicated he flew “72 combat missions with the 80th fighter squadron in the South Pacific” and that he was “awarded several medals including the Purple Heart.”

I wanted to learn more about his Purple Heart award and hopefully the citation. The Purple Heart is awarded to service members who are wounded or killed in combat against an enemy force and is the oldest military honor.

To my surprise, there is no national registry of Purple Heart recipients. The “National Purple Heart Hall of Honor” maintains a list of recipients; however, it is self-enrolled and they require “proof” of the award but it is far from complete.

We have also been trying to get in touch with any of his relatives but haven’t had much success. We did hear back from his nephew who offered to provide pictures, information, etc. but then he went dark and has stopped responding.

A relative of another airman who died in a training accident reached out to us to provide more information about him and the accident. After inquiring where she got the personnel records, she referred me to Lori Berdak Miller at Redbird Research.

Lori came through and provided a ton of information about Stephen Endres and his military service (some 200+ pages). Now the key question was: did it indicate the Purple Heart and the conditions surrounding that.

Injury during battle

Sure enough, buried in the information were a couple of really key notes including getting wounded while he was in P-38 Air Forces number 42-67796 escorting B-24 bombers in the South Pacific:

His family was notified of his injury via a standard “Casualty Message” Telegram:

In addition, the clinical record provides a bit more information about his injuries:

According to the records, he was placed back on duty on 28 July 1944 but then he needed to be re-admitted to the hospital at least once due to ongoing complications with his injuries.

The primary question remained: was this the reason for the Purple Heart Award?

Purple Heart Recommendation & Award

I found the formal recommendation for the Purple Heart Award, dated 14 October 1944 which was about 6 months after he was injured in battle:

The award was approved on 4 November 1944 by Brigadier General Paul B. Wurtsmith and was noted on 6 December 1944:

Additional Information

There is a ton of additional information in the files, but one of the more interesting is a summary of his chronological record in the military, particularly his flight service overseas:

The start of the record shows his training time and hours and then he is En Route to the South Pacific from Jan-Feb 1944.

In February 1944 – Jun 1944, he flew 101 hours in the P-38 on 27 missions. During the next six months from Jul-Dec 1944, he flew an additional 136 hours across 33 missions and then in the first 6 weeks of 1945 (Jan-12 Feb) he flew another 82 hours across 18 missions before begins sent back stateside on 13 Feb 1945.

That equates to 319 hours in 78 missions in one year.

Stephen Endres was a hero indeed and his flight career started with a crash off Solana Beach that luckily survived.

Thanks To…

Lori Berdak Miller for her tireless work to photocopy and send the personnel records for Stephen G. Endres.