Gordon H. Yates was a tall, skinny redhead who joined the Navy during World War II when he was 17. Two years later on April 27, 1945, the young aviator was dead, beheaded by the enemy after his patrol bomber was shot down in waters off southeast Asia.

His family was to get a small part of him back Saturday when Purple Hearts Reunited presents the medal he was awarded decades ago to his sister in southeastern Pennsylvania. Yates’ family had lost track of the medal at least as far back as 1979 when his father died.

Yates’ 80-year-old sister, Alva Brickner, now afflicted with Parkinson’s disease, can’t communicate very well, but her son said her reaction was unmistakable when he told her the medal had been found.

“She teared up,” Daniel Brickner said. “She just kept writing, ‘Thank you.’”

Daniel Brickner said he believes the Purple Heart — a combat decoration awarded to those wounded or killed in action — was likely in the possession of his grandfather, then inadvertently sold at an estate sale following his 1979 death.

The medal wound up with a woman in Ashland, Va., who had it for more than 30 years. The woman recently told the adjutant of the Richmond chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart that she couldn’t remember where she got it, but had always planned to find its rightful owner.