The grouping consists of a machine stitched 5th Army patch, hand-stitched "PARACHUTE" rocker, medal and ribbon bar for the Distinguished Service Cross, and the medal for the Purple Heart. The Purple Heart is numbered "167115" on the edge, and the Distinguished Service Cross engraved "SALVADOR/FABREGA" on the back. Records show that Fabrega (recorded in different sources as either a T/5 Technician or a Sergeant) lived a life that could best be described as "interesting". Born in either 1910 or 1913 in Catalonia depending on source, Fabrega spent much of his life on the move, living in Spain, Germany and Argentina in his youth, serving some time in the merchant marine before joining the Loyalist Army for the Spanish Civil War, a brief stint in the French Foreign Legion ending with him going off the reservation during the Fall of France, and eventually winding up in New York City, where he would enlist in the U.S. Army in 1942. His robust language skills made him an ideal candidate for service with the OSS, and he was recruited and trained to be part of the Tacoma Mission, an OSS operation to drop Allied military advisors to aid and train Italian partisan forces as a threat to German supply lines in the Italian Alps. Dropping in just after Christmas of 1944, Fabrega fought alongside a mixed force of Italian partisans, OSS advisors, and rescued Allied airmen doing damage to supply lines and dumps while evading and fighting both Italian and German pursuers. Eventually, their luck ran out, and Fabrega fell into the custody of the SS, where he was subjected to a variety of physical and psychological tortures. Notably, at one point he was given the opportunity to escape by an SS driver who claimed to be a spy for the OSS; either believing it some manner of setup (he had maintained under brutal interrogation that he was just a mundane airman, not an OSS man) or believing the driver more valuable to the war effort where he was, he opted to remain captured. He would later escape on his own, and reportedly managed to bluff the occupants of a SS barracks in Merano that he was an officer there to officially capture them, ordering them to put themselves on lockdown a day prior to the arrival of the 10th Mountain Division to actually secure the area. For his service he would be awarded the DSC and the Purple Heart; his DSC citation including incidents such as getting into a two-on-one machine gun duel with a pair of Italian Fascist machine gun crews to support an entire partisan flank so they could reposition and eventually attempt a breakout, and tells the story of the driver/spy (the citation presents the driver's story as true). He would return to America following the war, with records showing him settling in Miami and later residence in Texas, where he would pass on in 1993. Includes a copy of "The Brenner Assignment" by Patrick K. O'Donnell, where Fabrega and his exploits are mentioned on multiple pages. Provenance: The Putnam Green/Sycamore Collection

Very good overall, with the medals and ribbon bar showing light staining, and the patches showing mild wear.