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Auction: 26003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 480

(x) Seven: Lieutenant-Commander R. G. Sipe, United States Navy

United States of America, Navy Good Conduct Medal (Richard Granville Sipe 1941); American Defense Medal, 1 clasp, Fleet; American Campaign Medal; Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal; World War II Victory Medal, mounted together as worn, together with National Defense Medal and Philippine Liberation Medal, contact wear, very fine overall (7)`

Richard Granville Sipe was born on 7 June 1919 in Conover, Ohio to Charles Oliver Snipe and his wife Edith Catherine, the eldest of five children. Sipe went on to attend Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and joined the U.S. Navy upon the outbreak of World War II. Sipe was married to his first wife, Hazel Ray Taylor, in Washington D.C. on 7 June 1942 with their address listed as Alexandria, Virginia.

At some stage during the war Sipe was stationed in the Philippines, while his wife and son returned to Ohio. After just under three years of marriage Sipe filed for divorce which was granted in April 1945. He was married for the second and final time to Anne Bernon Field on 29 March 1948, with whom he went on to have five daughters. The couple lived together in San Diego, California. Sipe continued serving in the U.S. Navy in the coming years, eventually moving to Danville, Illinois with his family in 1958 and then returning to Indiana in 1988.

Sipe still appears registered in the Navy in 1972 at the age of 53, but later appears on the retired military registry in 1990. Following his retirement, Sipe and his family lived in Pomona, California and Stanford, Indiana before finally settling in Solsberry in 1994. There Sipe died at Bittersweet Farm, where he and his wife ran an antiques shop, on 17 July 2010 at the age of 91. He was buried in the California Central Coast Veterans Cemetery in Monterey County, California, with his wife Anne joining him upon her death in 2023.

Sold together with copied research, as well as three riband bars, an assortment of 7 naval buttons by Hilborn Hamburger Inc., N.Y., an eagle brooch, a dove brooch, a brooch marked ‘1944’ celebrating the Anglo-American alliance, and a medallion engraved ‘FLT’ mounted on black riband.


Subject to 5% tax on Hammer Price in addition to 20% VAT on Buyer’s Premium.

Estimate
£80 to £120

Starting price
£60