Wright Swanay

Veteran awarded Purple Heart for service in WWII

Posted 12/21/2010 1:20 PM ET

By John Thomspson, Johnson City Press

ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. "I feel I am fulfilled and I feel my country has recognized my service," 90-year-old Wright Swanay said Monday morning when he was awarded with a Purple Heart.

The award comes to Swanay (SWAY'-nee) 66 years after he was injured during a bombing run on July 2, 1944.

Retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Richard Dionne, the commander of the Johnson County Honor Guard, pinned the Purple Heart on the lapel of Swanay's jacket.

Nearly a hundred of Swanay's friends and fellow veterans attended the brief ceremony.

"I have had 65 years to prepare a speech and I am a loss for words," Swanay said after he received the medal. "This is a nice Christmas present."

He said that, while he has received many other medals and campaign ribbons, the presentation of the Purple Heart "fills my cup. It means everything to me."

Second Lieutenant Swanay qualified for the nation's oldest award when he injured his shoulder while bailing out of a shot-up B-24 while on a bombing run over railroad yards near Budapest, Hungary. He was a bombardier with the 756th Squadron, 459th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force.

After three days of evading the enemy, Swanay was captured on July 5. He spent the next 302 days in German prisoner of war camps.

Any prisoner of war would remember his liberation, but it was even more memorable for Swanay because Third Army Commander George Patton welcomed the men back to freedom.

"My brother, George, was in the Third Army, so I was waiting at the front gate in hopes I might see him," Swanay said. As he stood by the front gate, several senior staff officers approached the gate and began yelling for the men to "make way for the general."

Then Patton rode through the front gate, right in front of Swanay.

"He told us 'We are going to get you some hot food, then we are going to get you some clean clothes for you to wear, and then we are going to send you home as soon as we can'" Swanay said. "Then he started using some of the rough language that Patton was known for, he said 'we are going to make those blankety blank Germans pay for every blankety blank thing they did to you,' and he meant it, too!"

Patton was true to his promise. Swanay was back in Elizabethton in May 1945. But in the haste to send him home, the Army did not award Swanay his Purple Heart.

Swanay went on to become an advocate for veterans in the region, and a leader for those veterans who had been prisoners of war. Even though he helped many other veterans, he was not able to help his own cause of obtaining his Purple Heart.

One day recently he mentioned the forgotten medal to Sara Sellers, a retired Air Force chief master sergeant, who started working with Sen. Lamar Alexander's office.

Soon, Swanay's case was before the Air Force Board of Correction of Military Records. The board acted to correct Swanay's records to reflect that he was awarded the Purple Heart on Aug. 1, 1945.

Sellers concluded the program by quoting from George Washington's order establishing the medal in 1782: "Let it be known that he who wears the Military Order of the Purple Heart has given of his blood in the defense of our homeland and shall forever be revered by his fellow countrymen."

2nd Lt WRIGHT SWANAY was assigned or attached to the 459th Bombardment Group on 16 June 1944 according to a 27 October 1944 dated document subject roster of personnel sent to the commanding general NATOUSA

MACR: 6412

2nd Lt Wright S Swanay was assigned to the 459th BG 756th Squadron.

The following information on Wright Swanay is gathered and extracted from military records. We have many documents and copies of documents, including military award documents. It is from these documents that we have found this information on 2nd Lt Swanay. These serviceman's records are nowhere near complete and we are always looking for more material. If you can help add to Wright Swanay's military record please contact us.