Soldier’s lost documents returned in time for Memorial Day

What are the odds that a teenage soldier’s legacy would finally return to his family 70 years after he was killed in action? This is the bittersweet question pondered by Frank Hughes, 86, of Washington, D.C.

Earlier this month, Frank received a trove of long-lost photos and letters from his older brother, Private Phillip T. Hughes, who was one of the first and youngest U.S. Army soldiers committed to the Korean War in July 1950.

The documents include several photo portraits of Philip as a small child, taken at the now-defunct Harris & Ewing studio in Washington, D.C. More poignant are two letters sent to Philip in Korea by his adoptive mother. The envelopes were marked “return to sender” by Army postal clerks after Philip was killed in action.

Through the 1940s, the two Hughes boys were a fixture on Rehoboth’s New Castle Street, where their adoptive parents owned a summer cottage just steps from the Boardwalk. But by the summer of 1949, family tensions festered. The boys ran away from home. Misadventures landed them in reform school, from which Philip escaped by enlisting in the Army. He deployed to Korea, enduring 10 weeks of combat while celebrating his 18th birthday on the battlefield. He was killed in action Sept. 12, 1950.

Frank, just two years younger than Philip, was able to overcome family hardships. As the beneficiary of Philip’s life insurance policy, Frank went to school and became a successful and widely travelled executive. Frequent relocations, however, caused the loss of his brother’s photos and letters. They were last seen during the early 1980s in a Texas storage facility. During the years since, Philip’s legacy was reduced to a tombstone at Arlington National Cemetery and a small memorial plaque found inside Rehoboth’s St. Edmond Catholic Church.

“It was really a series of coincidences that allowed these documents to return to the family,” said Christopher Russell, author of “The Battle of Turkey Thicket,” a book about Philip Hughes published in 2017. “The material was found by an individual in Texas who passed it on to an antique store in Fort Worth. Years later, around 2008, a shopper buys the envelope and its contents, takes it home, and largely forgets about it … until rediscovering it just recently while doing some house-cleaning, courtesy of the coronavirus lockdown.”

“I think this was meant to happen,” said antique store patron Justin Kriss of Brooklyn, N.Y., about finding the documents. “In my mind I thought ‘Man, if I were a relative, I would really like to have those...’ so I would try to give them back to his family somehow.”

With extra time afforded by home quarantine, Kriss searched the internet, ultimately finding Russell’s book describing Philip’s retrieval from an orphanage, his childhood in Washington, D.C., his subsequent travels as a runaway, and his service during the opening weeks of the Korean War. “The Battle of Turkey Thicket” is a title derived from the playground in Philip’s neighborhood near the Catholic University of America.

Kriss and Russell collaborated to ensure delivery of the material to Philip’s surviving family. Russell had maintained contact with Philip’s kid brother, Frank, whom he had met several years ago while researching Philip’s story. Now in his 80s, Frank Hughes is a retiree living comfortably in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Cici. The material reached the couple in May, in time for Memorial Day.

“All this is great,” said author Russell. “But now I should update the book’s epilogue!”

“The Battle of Turkey Thicket” is available at www.baritonebooks.com and www.amazon.com.