By Dan Israeli
"I'm very surprised, after all these years, I thought I'd never get it," said Hanson, as he sat and gazed at his heart shaped medallion. "Now that I have, I'm glad that I got it."
Hanson was awarded his medal in the Garden City office of U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, among his family and friends. It was in January of 2007 when Hansons's son William contacted McCarthy's office, seeking help in what has been a decades long quest to validate records of Hanson's injury, sustained on January 7, 1945 in Metz, France. Hansen, a P-47 crew chief with the 368th Fighter Group, suffered shrapnel wounds to the head when he got a little too close to a German land mine explosion, a blast that killed two men while injuring others.
After having his wounds dressed and being discharged from the service, Hanson, a Brooklyn native, returned to New York - but never had his Purple Heart ceremony. He went on to marry his wife Gertrude and raised a family in Mineola, working as a truck driver. As the snub passed with time, it was Hanson's children who decided to pursue their father's unacknowledged battle scar.
When Hanson's son William tried to retrieve the necessary documents in 1974, he discovered that just one year earlier, a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis had destroyed a ton of files, including his father's. That made the effort to prove Hanson's injury all the more difficult. It wasn't until 2006 when Tim Grace, a fellow son of a P-47 pilot, released a book titled "Second to None: The History of the 368th Fighter Group," which opened the door to accessing the detailed accounts, photographs and files that would prove Hanson's exposure to the mine explosion.
The book was able to link Hanson, a staff sergeant in the war, to his old commanding officer, retired general Tote Talbot, who wrote Hanson a letter of recommendation to support the effort. All the family needed at that point was someone in the federal government to put Hanson's case up for review again. That's where Rep. McCarthy came in.
"It's a large process, with a lot of documentation," McCarthy said, after she handed Hanson his Purple Heart. "In the end, we were able to get the proper files and sent it over to the U.S. Military's clearinghouse." It took nearly a year from January of 2007, when William Hanson first contacted McCarthy, for Hanson's war record to be verified and corrected. According to his son, the original account said Hanson accidentally stepped on the mine, when really, it was other members of the 368th Fighter Group who were trying to defuse it.
For Hanson's family, the award was a testament to not only Joseph's service to his country, but that of other veterans, including his brothers in the fighter group, 13 of which lost their lives in air-to-air combat. "It was a long time coming," said Hanson's son Gerry. "It's a tribute to every veteran who served. They can all share with my father in this moment. It's not about one person."
McCarthy noted the significance of individual acknowledgments, like Purple Hearts. "It's extremely important," she said. "Aside from the fact that he deserved it, it's especially nice for the families, because it gives them something that will be there for generation to generation."
