February 21, 2024
Officials with the Finger Lakes VA say that the Orleans County Sheriff’s Department has recovered a stolen WWII Purple Heart medal. The VA says, the Purple Heart Medal was stolen from the Stanford family. Officials say that 1st Lt. Herbert Stanford was killed in World War II in 1944 in France. Officials say Stanford’s plane was shot down by the Germans and that German soldiers stripped his body of any identifiers and dragged his body to the gates of a cemetery there in France.
Today in Rochester, the VA Finger Lakes Healthcare System will be having a ceremony where they’ll be returning the stolen Purple Heart Medal to Lt. Herbert Stanford’s family.
