The company that makes the medals for our military has finally gone through the vast stockpile of Purple Hearts that they created at the end of World War II.
All through Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and the various wars of this century, our wounded vets were still receiving WW2-era medals created in anticipation of the horrific losses we would have sustained invading Japan.
Finally, in 2022, the stockpile dwindled down enough that new medals had to be struck.
Thank God for Harry Truman's decision to drop the bomb and end the war! As many as the A-bombs killed, the military and civilian deaths on both sides would have been exponentially greater had the Allies conducted a conventional invasion of Japan. The Japanese had already demonstrated that they would fight to the last man to defend a barren rock in the middle of the Pacific; how much harder would they have fought for their homeland?
My Dad was scheduled to be part of the second wave of that invasion; he was told his chances of surviving the campaign without being killed or wounded were about 1 in 132. I always wondered about that statistic, but the sheer volume of Purple Hearts created would argue that the military, at least, believed it.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/05/14/decades-recipients-were-honored-purple-hearts-made-during-wwii-company-now-forges-new-medals.html
