Todays purple hearts were all manufactured during WW2?

[Muad_Dib]

Today is the anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. In a thread about it on the SA boards someone mentioned that so many purple heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the overwhelming casualties that would have resulted from an invasion of Japan, that the ones awarded today are still from that stockpile. Is this true?

[FormerMarineGuy]

@Muad'Dib

Today is the anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. In a thread about it on the SA boards someone mentioned that so many purple heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the overwhelming casualties that would have resulted from an invasion of Japan, that the ones awarded today are still from that stockpile. Is this true?

According to this site it is true, but the current amount of troops being injured is depleting the supply from WW2 and now they are starting to make more.

In 2000, for the first time in years, the government ordered a new supply of Purple Hearts. The old supply, manufactured in anticipation of the invasion of the home islands of Japan during World War II, had begun to run low.

But although great numbers of the World War II stock are still ready for use, the recent production of 9,000 new copies was ordered for the most simple of bureaucratic reasons. So many medals had been transferred to the Armed Services that the government organization responsible for supplying them had to replenish its own inventory.

Demand for the item was high. By the end of 1999, most of the refurbished medals had been shipped to other government customers and the DSCP entered into contracts for the first large-scale production of Purple Hearts since World War II.