Thank you for posting your request on History Hub!
Your inquiry pertains to the “4 bronze stars” reflected on your father’s World War II era discharge certificate (DD Form 214).
The Textual Reference Archives II Branch (RR2RR) has custody of the Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1917- (Record Group 407) and the Records of U.S. Army Operational, Tactical, and Support Organizations (World War II and Thereafter) (Record Group 338). Military unit files among these records consist mostly of historical reports, after action reports, unit journals, and general orders. These records do not include personnel information, nor do we have a name index to these records.
General orders, as referenced above, do include information about the official bestowal of medals on individual service personnel. However, these records are arranged by unit, thereunder by date and thereunder by general order number. We would need this information to search our records. It is possible the requisite information is contained in the DD Form 214 you mentioned. We recommend that you send an inquiry to our main email address (archives2reference@nara.gov) and include (as an attachment) a copy of the abovementioned DD Form 214.
We invite you to continue the conversation with community members on History Hub, but should you have follow up questions for the staff at Archives II, please email us at archives2reference@nara.gov so that we can assist you further.
We hope this is helpful. Best of luck with your research!
It depends what the discharge papers say. There are two types of bronze stars.
There is the Bronze Star Medal, awarded for valor or achievement. And it will always be listed that way on his discharge papers.
Then there are bronze campaign stars, awarded for participating in named campaigns in theater. they will be listed following the Campaign medal, for example:
European-African-Middle-Eastern Campaign Medal (or EAME Campaign Medal) with four bronze stars.
Or Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with four bronze stars.
There's a separate block on the form that lists the campaigns. (in World War II for the Army, it was actually a WD Form 1--it wouldn't become a DD-214 until the Defense Department was established in 1947).
Typically, in the European Theater, when soldiers have four campaign stars, they are:
NORTHERN FRANCE
RHINELAND
ARDENNES-ALSACE
CENTRAL EUROPE
It is most likely that you're seeing your dad's campaign stars, as Bronze Star Medals were rather stingy during World War II.
