Cased Purple Heart named to SGT. MICHAEL SLIWKA, who was killed in action while as a prisoner of war on a Japanese freighter on Sept. 7, 1944, when it was sunk by American torpedoes. According to one of the three newspaper clippings accompanying the lot, the freighter sailed from Davao, Mindanao in the Philippines on Aug. 20, 1944 and was attacked off the western shores of Mindanao on Sept. 7. Sliwka, born in Syracuse, was an 11-year veteran of the Army was stationed in Panama, and scheduled for service in China when World War II broke out. He was sent to the Philippines in April 1944 and taken prisoner when the Japanese took Manila. The award is housed in its original leather-bound coffin box, held in place therein with the original velvet-lined hook with the ribbon bar pinned beneath. Accompanied by the original letter sending the medal to Irene Sliwka, Sliwka’s wife in Clovis, New Mexico. WITH: a second purple heart medal, not identified or attributed. Very good.