Father Kapaun: Servant of God and Medal of Honor Recipient

In a ceremony yesterday, Army Chaplain Father Emil Kapaun was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by President Obama. Rocco Palmo covers the White House ceremony.

Father Kapaun, who died in a North Vietnamese prison camp on May 23, 1951, had ministered heroically to US soldiers during the Korean War, and then, after his capture, to his fellow POWs.

Donald McClarey tells the story:

Serving as a chaplain at Fort Bliss, Father Kapaun was ordered to Japan in 1950. Upon the outbreak of the Korean War, he was assigned to a front line combat unit, the 3rd battalion, 8th cavalry regiment, 1rst Cavalry Division.

With his unit Father Kapaun participated during June-September 1950 in the desperate defense of the Pusan Perimeter and then in the breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, which, combined with the Inchon landings in Operation Chromite, the brilliant stroke by General Douglas MacArthur, led to the eviction of the invading North Korean armies from South Korea and the capture of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang on October 19, 1950. During all of this Father Kapaun was a whirlwind of activity: tending the wounded, administering the Last Sacrament to the dying, keeping up the morale of the troops. He said mass as close as he could get to the battle lines from an improvised platform on a jeep.

On November 1, 1950 Chaplain Kapaun’s unit ran headlong into advancing Chinese Communist forces at Unsan, North Korea, about 50 miles southof the Chinese border with North Korea. The official citation of the award of the Distinguish Service Cross to Chaplain Kapaun tells of his role in the battle:

The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to Emil Joseph Kapaun(O-0558217), Captain (Chaplain), U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection withmilitary operations against an armed enemy of the United Nations while serving as Chaplain with Headquarters Company, 8th Cavalry Regiment (Infantry), 1st Cavalry Division. Captain (Chaplain) Kapaun distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action against enemy aggressor forces in the vicinity of Unsan, Korea, on 1 and 2 November 1950.

On the afternoon of 1 November 1950, and continuing through the following 36 hours, the regiment was subjected to a relentless, fanatical attack by hostile troops attempting to break through the perimeter defense. In the early morning hours, the enemy succeeded in breaking through the defenses, and hand-to-hand combat ensued in the immediate vicinity of the command post where the aid station had been set up. Chaplain Kapaun, with complete disregard for his personal safety, calmly moved among the wounded men, giving them medical aid and easing their fears. His courageous manner inspired all those present and many men who might otherwise have fled in panic were encouraged by his presence and remained to fight the enemy.

As the battle progressed, the number of wounded increased greatly and it became apparent that many of the men would not be able to escape the enemy encirclement. Finally, at dusk on November 2, 1950, the remaining able- bodied men were ordered to attempt to break through the surrounding enemy. At this time, although fully aware of the great danger, Chaplain Kapaun voluntarily remained behind, and when last seen was administering medical treatment and rendering religious rites wherever needed.

Along with the other Americans captured Father Kapaun was marched north in bitterly cold winter weather approximately 100 miles. One of his fellow prisoners, Herbert Miller, was wounded and had a broken ankle. Mr. Miller survived the war and here is a recent statement by him on what happened next. “I was wounded with a broken ankle and the North Koreans were going to shoot me. He brushed them aside, reached down and picked me up and carried me. How he found the strength, I’ll never know. He was the bravest man I ever saw.”

Father Kapaun and his fellow POWs were taken, after their two week march, to a temporary camp which they called The Valley located 10 miles south of Pyoktong, NorthKorea, the first in a series of camps in the area where Father Kaupan and the men from his unit were held. Of the approximately 1000 Americans who were taken here 500-700 died. I was astonished in researching this article to learn that during their first year of operation the Chinese POW camps had a death rate of 40%, which makes them worse than the Japanese POW camps during World War II in which approximately one-third of the Allied prisoners perished.

Then the events began which made Father Kapaun unforgettable to the men who survived this Gehenna on Earth. First, the men needed food. On the miserable rations they had from the Chinese they were starving to death. Father Kapaun staged daring daylight raids into surrounding fields to scavenge for hidden potatoes and sacks of corn. If he had been discovered it is quite likely that he would have been shot on the spot. He always shared his food with the other men, and his example shamed his fellow prisoners who also scavenged for food outside of the camp to do the same and share their food.

Second the men needed hope. Throughout the camp Father Emil was always there. Praying with the men, joking with them, tending the sick, and burying the dead. The Chinese instituted mandatory re-education sessions, a surreal experience where starving Americans listened in sullen rage while a Comrade Sun in broken English gave them lessons on the glories of Communism. Father Kapaun at the end of each of these classes would speak up and refute the lesson calmly. The Chinese were in rage about this, but Father Kapuan would not be cowed by their threats and would not be silenced. Word spread around the camp that the “Reds” were afraid of the Father. The Chinese tortured two of Father Kapuan’s fellow officers until they accused him of having a “disobedient attitude” towards the Chinese. Father Kapaun simply told the shame-faced poor men that they should have taken no risks in attempting to shield him. No matter what his captors did, the esteem in which Father Kapaun was held by his fellow captives was unshakable.

Dysentery raged through the camp due to the poor sanitary conditions. Father Kapaun cleaned and tended the sick men. One day he scrounged coffee, literally God knows how, and surprised the men with hot coffee the next day after they woke up. He would often lead the men in prayers for food. On Saint Patrick’s day in 1951 they prayed and the next day they received liver from their captives, the first meat they had since the Chinese had captured them. On another occasion they prayed for tobacco, and a guard tossed them some through an open window the following day.

Leadership is something that men naturally look for in dire times and they looked to Father Kapaun. One of his fellow prisoners recalled: “In his soiled and ragged fatigues, with his scraggly beard and his queer woolen cap, made of the sleeve of an old GI sweater, pulled down over his ears, he looked like any other half-starved prisoner. But there was something in his voice and bearing that was different—with dignity, a composure, a serenity that radiated from him like a light. Wherever he stood was holy ground, and the spirit within him – a spirit of reverence and abiding faith – went out to the silent listening men and gave them hope and courage and a sense of peace.”

The Chinese strictly forbade religious services and Father Kapaun of course ignored them. On Easter Sunday 1951 he held a service for the men. He could not say mass lacking bread and wine, but he had a crude wooden cross and a rosary he made from the barbed wire fence around the camp. He gave an unforgettable sermon on the Passion and then recited the Glorious Mysteries on his barbed wire rosary. By this time Father Kapaun was in bad health, suffering from dysentery, pneumonia and an infection in one of his legs and his eyes. The next Sunday he collapsed while leading another service.

His Communist captors refused him all medical care. His death was slow and painful. On his last day with his men, with tears rolling down his eyes, he told them the story of the seven brothers and their mother who perished during the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes , prior to the Maccabean revolt. He said that after Antiochus had her sons put to death their mother began to cry. When Antiochus asked her why she was crying she said it was tears of joys because she knew her sons were in Heaven. Father Kapaun told his men that his tears were also tears of joy. Christ had suffered, he explained, and his suffering made him feel closer to Him. By this time all of the soldiers in the barracks were weeping. Soon the Chinese guards came to take Father Kapuan outside of the camp to the “hospital”. This was a shack where the Chinese took dying Americans, not to receive treatment, but simply to die. Father Kapaun lay on a dirt floor for three days, completely unattended, and died alone, except for God, on May 23, 1951. His captors dumped his corpse in a mass grave on the bank of the Yalu river and no doubt thought that was that in regard to this troublesome prisoner.

Not quite. His fellow prisoners never forgot him. Through their years of captivity his memory remained an inspiration to them. One of the prisoners, Major Gerald Fink, a Jew, spent two and a half months, every second of which he risked dreadful punishment, carving, in secret, a 40 inch crucifix in tribute to Father Kapaun. When the surviving prisoners were released at the end of the war, they came out with story after story of the deeds of the man they had all loved and called “Father” no matter what their religion.

A cause for canonization was opened for Fr. Kapaun in 1993 by his native diocese of Wichita, Kansas. That site recommends the following prayer:

Lord Jesus, in the midst of the folly of war,

your servant, Chaplain Emil Kapaun spent himself

in total service to you on the battlefields and

in the prison camps of Korea, until his

death at the hands of his captors.

We now ask you, Lord Jesus, if it be your will,

to make known to all the world the holiness

of Chaplain Kapaun and the glory of his

complete sacrifice for you by signs of

miracles and peace.

In your name, Lord, we ask, for you are the

source of peace, the strength of our

service to others, and our final hope.

Amen

Chaplain Kapaun, pray for us.

It is, perhaps, an especially good one as the specter of war once again hangs over the Korean peninsula.

UPDATE:

From the Wichita Eagle:

Several aged heroes from the war stood in the lobby, including former U.S. Army Master Sergeant Herbert Miller, an old soldier who now talks with a crack in his voice and whose hands shake so much from an affliction that makes it hard for him to sign his name.

At the White House, Ray had sat in the front row with his relatives and listened to the president describe the heroics of his uncle. Miller and his wife, Joyce, also sat in the front row, off to the president’s left, with some of the other eight soldiers who had been in the death camp with Kapaun.

The Millers fought to maintain their composure as the president described how Sgt. Miller and Father Kapaun first met — at the bloody battle of Unsan, where thousands died.

“Then, as Father Kapaun was being led away (as a prisoner of war) he saw another American — wounded, unable to walk, laying in a ditch, defenseless. An enemy soldier was standing over him, rifle aimed at his head, ready to shoot. And Father Kapaun marched over and pushed the enemy soldier aside. And then as the soldier watched, stunned, Father Kapaun carried the wounded American away.”

Some members of the audience wept as the president recited this story in a solemn, deliberate cadence. Miller was that soldier, lying in the ditch. He had only seconds to live until Kapaun appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and shoved the soldier’s gun away.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2013/04/12/2758581/medal-of-honor-ceremony-moves.html#storylink=cpy