Few Air Force legends are on par with the story of the "All American III," a B-17 Flying Fortress Bomber that survived a mid-air collision with a Nazi fighter but still - somehow - made it home. It was the subject of one of the war's most famous photographs (no small feat) and may have inspired the phrase "A Wing and a Prayer."
Over the years, a story as miraculous as the crew of the "All American" (as it's come to be known) is bound to grow some misconceptions. Details get lost to history, and falsehoods get attached in the retelling, but the plane's bombardier, Ralph Burbridge, set the record straight before he died at age 92 in 2013.
Burbridge joined the U.S. Army Air Corps before the United States entered World War II. By the time the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, he was getting his bombardier's wings pinned on.
His first missions in the war were over the Gulf of Mexico, looking for German submarines. Next came bombing missions over France. He and his crew soon found themselves based in Algeria, attacking Axis targets in North Africa.
The day that would make him and his fellow crewman famous came on February 1, 1943. The All-American took its place in the 414th Bombardment Squadron to make an attack on the Nazi-controlled Mediterranean ports of Bizerte and Tunis. Their mission was a success, and the plane went over the target without incident.
It was on their trip back to base in Biskra, Algeria, that they and their B-17 would enter the history books. Although unscathed by anti-aircraft fire, the bombers were met by the German Luftwaffe as they flew home. Messerschmitt Bf-109 fighters swarmed their formation.
Two enemy fighters came right at the American bombers. One plane was flying directly at the lead aircraft in the formation. The other was coming at All-American from its starboard side. As a squadron, the nose gunners of the B-17s were able to bring down the Bf-109 flying at the lead plane. The other fighter probably wished he'd been shot down - or was a better pilot.
"His wings looked as though they were afire from his flaming guns," Burbridge said in a 2012 interview.
When the German pilot was about 300 yards away, he began a roll to pull down and away from the All-American after his attack run.
"About halfway through his roll, either my fire or fire from the lead ship must have killed the pilot or disabled the plane," said Burbridge. "He never completed his intended roll and rapid pass under our ship."
The German plane tore through the B-17 bomber's top fuselage, almost chopping off the entire tail section of the aircraft. The only thing keeping it on the rest of the plane was the metal airframe. The diagonal section cut off by the fighter missed the airframe in the tail, though it did cut out the left horizontal stabilizer.
All the crewmembers of All-American III hurriedly donned parachutes and prepared to bail out of the plane, but nothing happened. The plane was forced to move slower, but the rest of the bombers stayed in a defensive formation until they were in safer airspace, then headed back to base.
All-American's trip would take longer than expected. It had a gaping gash in the tail section, after all.
"It seemed like the trip back took ten years, but the base wasn't really that far," Burbridge said. "Somehow, Kenny [Bragg - the pilot of the plane] nursed the damaged plane and got us home later than everyone else."
What was left of the tail section and the right stabilizer shook so hard in flight that the crew thought it would fall apart any second. It was effectively crippled and flying slow, but it was still flying, and that's all that mattered in that moment.
It eventually returned to base and managed to land without its rear wheel. It not only survived the landing but survived a 100-yard skid as the plane slowed to a halt. Ground crews had all but given up hope for the aircraft, so the crew - who all survived the ordeal - landed to a welcome.
The plane held together once on that ground and didn't break apart until ground crews had climbed aboard to inspect the tail section. The event would also lead to a complete change in the 414th Bombardier Squadron's patch and logo.
"Have you ever been inside a hamburger machine?" Sgt. James Spears asked reporters in 1969 after capturing Hill 937 in Vietnam's A Shau Valley. "We just got cut to pieces by extremely accurate machine gun fire."
The Battle for Hill 937 was a costly one for both sides of the fighting. It required at least a dozen assaults from American troops who believed they were taking one of the largest North Vietnamese headquarters complexes in the country.
After nearly 11 days, 72 Americans were dead on Hill 937, with nearly 400 more wounded. The North Vietnamese Army (PAVN) lost 630 men as the U.S. finally took control of the hill. Then just a few days after wrestling it away from the enemy, the Americans abandoned it.
For the days and decades afterward, everyone from military officers, journalists, and politicians to the troops who fought in the battle would not only question the tactics used but the military significance of what would come to be known as "Hamburger Hill."
The Battle of Hamburger Hill came in May 1969, as the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces fought to destroy North Vietnamese bases of operation in the A Shau Valley. The communists were using the valley to infiltrate South Vietnam through neighboring Laos.
The plan was for three battalions from 101st Airborne Division to conduct a reconnaissance in force into the valley, looking for North Vietnamese troops, weapons, and supplies. They would then destroy any they might find. Meanwhile, Marines and U.S. Army cavalry would cut off any possible retreat into Laos.
American troops on the ground knew that North Vietnamese regular units would aggressively resist any U.S. advance, but only for a short time. The communists would be forced to clear out before the U.S. could bring its superior firepower into the fighting. Prolonged, intense combat between the two sides, like the fighting seen at Ia Drang, occurred infrequently but was bloody when it did happen.
A Shau was a crucial stop along the Ho Chi Minh Trail for the communists, which meant that both sides wanted to clear the enemy out of the area. For the communists, the valley was a lifeline. For the Americans, it was a centerpiece of putting maximum pressure on the enemy as it moved.
But dense jungle and its remote location made it difficult to move men and materiel or gather intelligence in the valley. The Americans would have to get their information the old-fashioned way: combat patrols and captured prisoners.
The little information they could gather would not tell them one of the PAVN units in the area was a battle-hardened group of communist veterans known as "The Pride of Ho Chi Minh" or that the coming battle was going to be bloody and violent.
At Hill 937, two battalions of PAVN forces decided they would make one of those intense stands against the 101st. The 3rd Battalion, 187th Regiment arrived to take the hill on May 10, 1969, expecting to reach the top within hours. It would take nearly ten days.
The first attacks came on May 10, but the 3/178th was not at full strength, as much of the unit was still trying to march through the dense jungle foliage. The full unit would not arrive until May 19th. On the other side of the hill, 1/506th was making attacks to determine the level of resistance on that slope.
The Airborne troops made multiple frontal attacks on the communist defenders on May 14th as more reinforcements arrived. They made little progress but took heavy casualties. The defenses of the hill were well-organized and planned.
The approaches to the hill were narrow trails that created a bottleneck for the attacker, forcing the Americans to attack in smaller formations. Unable to capitalize on their numbers, the U.S. troops were funneled into prepared fields of enemy machine-gun fire, which was devastating during the frontal assaults. Once forced to fall back, American forces called in artillery fire, but that too was ineffective. The prepared defenses on the hill were both well-hidden and reinforced.
Over the course of 12 assaults, the Army dropped more than 1,000 tons of bombs, 142 tons of napalm, 31,000 20-mm shells, and 513 tons of tear gas on Hill 937. By May 18th, soldiers and reporters alike were referring to the fight as "The Battle of Hamburger Hill."
The closest the Army came to taking the hill before they were fully reinforced came on May 18th. The 3/187th engaged entrenched PAVN defenders in close quarters combat with small arms and grenades. Just 75 meters from the summit, the Americans struggled to coordinate one final assault. A chance thunderstorm ended that day's fighting early, and the 3/187th was forced to withdraw.
Finally, the Army moved in two fresh battalions of infantry to join the others, even though the first battalions had paid a high cost for their previous assaults. With reinforcements in place, the Americans launched a four-battalion attack of Hill 937 on May 20, 1969. Within two hours, they reached the top and cleared the hill of enemy forces within the next three hours.
On June 5th, the 101st Airborne's new commander abandoned HIll 937, as he deemed it had no military value. The next fight over Hamburger Hill would take place in Washington, as it led Congressmen and Senators to fight over American strategy in Vietnam.
Timing can be critical when conducting a military operation. During World War II, it wasn't just the men in combat who depended on accurate timing. The rest of the millions of Allied service members and potentially the entire free world relied on precision watches.
Like most critical supplies, the Allies knew that their troops required timekeeping devices that could withstand any of the dangers of modern combat, even if they weren't sure what the fighting would look like. The A-11 spec wristwatch was designed to be the timepiece that survived the war; even its wearer did not.
Veteran-inspired watchmaker Praesidus is bringing back the quality of that original design with a new line of recreated vintage tool watches inspired by the original World War II A-11 spec. The design of its latest watch, the A-11 Vince Speranza Edition, is inspired by the story of Speranza, the parachute infantry regiment, and the .30-caliber machine gun Speranza used at the Battle of the Bulge.
Tens of thousands of A-11 watches were made during World War II. It featured a single-piece strap, high contrast white lettering on a black background, and a solid case made of nickel or silver. The specifications for this military watch also included hand-winding, an outer minute track with 10-minute demarcations, and minute and hour hands.
Other modifications to the original spec were allowed, though the U.S. Navy required lumed numbers for its aviators. The watch proved so solid and reliable that the rest of the Allied forces requested it - even the Soviet Union.
The latest version pays tribute to Vince Speranza, a soldier who fought at the Battle of the Bulge using an M1919 Browning .30-caliber machine gun. He landed in Europe with the 101st Airborne Division's 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. He was one of the "Battered Bastards of Bastogne," who held the city, even in the face of a massive Nazi counterattack that left the city and its defenders surrounded.
The design of Praesidus' A-11 "Vince Speranza" watch is based on the famous soldier and his weapon. The stainless steel case back features a replica of an M1919 bullet. The strap comes in two options: the M1919 Barrel and the machine gunner. Assembled in the United States, it's powered by an automatic movement and features double-domed, scratch-resistant sapphire glass.
It even comes in a humidor box in honor of the cigar-chomping Vince "Machine Gunner of Bastogne" Speranza.
Praesidus is a veteran-driven watch brand that aims to recreate the timepieces worn by WWII heroes. Along with Speranza, the company has also honored Thomas Marcus Rice, another paratrooper with the 501st who jumped into Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Rice famously lost his watch in that jump. When Rice turned 97, Praesidus recreated the A-11 watch he'd lost.
The watchmaker's goal is to bring the spirit of American soldiers to a new generation so they can continue telling the stories of courage, heroism, and patriotism in the future - stories that might otherwise be forgotten to history. It has an entire line of watches available on the Praesidius website.
Like the original A-11, Praesidus' recreation is a simple, accurate, high-grade wristwatch that can stand up to the rigors of time and combat. The only difference is that the recreation might be a little sturdier, as the 21st-Century watchmaker can use durable materials that weren't available due to World War II rationing.
In stark contrast with the mission of combat forces, the US Army Medical Corps is committed to providing aid and comfort to the injured: wounded soldiers, civilians, and at times even enemy personnel. There are no medals, no glory, and heroism is measured in blood, sweat, and tears. Though the Korean War has been regarded as a failure by many because of its indecisive outcomes, in one area, it was an unbridled success-saving lives. 
When the war broke out in Korea on June 25, 1950, only two hundred doctors were in the entire Far East Command (Japan, Guam, the Philippines, and Korea). To ensure combat medical services, Congress quickly passed the Doctors Draft Act, requiring all doctors under the age of fifty-one to register for military service. As a result, ninety percent of all staff doctors in Korea were draftees, displaying a more relaxed attitude about Army rules, regulations, and discipline. At this same time, the Army authorized new medical procedures and deployed groundbreaking methods for transport and treatment of the injured, effectively reinventing combat care. One such development was the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH), popularized by Dr. H. Richard Hornberger, in his 1968 best-selling book (MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors), subsequent movie, and television series based on his real-life experience with the MASH 8055th.
In World War II, the fatality rate for seriously wounded soldiers was 4.5 percent. In the Korean War, that number was cut almost in half, to 2.5 percent. That success is attributed to a combination of the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, or MASH unit, and the aeromedical evacuation system comprised of the casualty evacuation (casevac) and medical evacuation (medevac) helicopters. 
Comprised of a series of tents and buildings that could be easily relocated as the front lines moved, the MASH units moved with them to keep the units as close to the front as possible. To accomplish this, accommodations were stark, with operating tables formed by a stretcher balanced across two sawhorses. In past conflicts, wounded soldiers often had to wait hours to be treated, but thanks to the MASH units and the helicopters that brought in the wounded, the wait time was reduced to minutes. As the centerpiece of the Army's medical innovations, these mobile units were fully self-contained, working hospitals, first conceived in 1945 at the close of World War II and the brainchild of Dr. Michael DeBakey. Aside from the constant stress of warfare and long hours in surgery, the units usually picked up and moved at least once a month, which came to be known as “bugging out." Specifically, standards for a MASH required that it was disassembled, loaded onto vehicles, and ready to depart on a six-hour notice. After arrival at its new destination, it was operational within four hours.
In Korea, US soldiers wounded at the battlefront were first attended to on-site by medics and doctors attached to their unit. If the injuries were severe, the men were then evacuated to a MASH unit for surgery and recovery. If warranted, the soldiers were evacuated to a larger hospital for treatment and, if very serious, sent home from there. 
Initially limited to 60 beds to focus on mobility, with only seven MASH units in Korea (8054th, 8055th, 8063rd, 8076th, 8209th, 8225th, and 8228th), the hospitals were often overwhelmed with wounded and enlarged to 150 beds in November 1950, and again in May 1951 to 200. With the Doctor's Draft Act of 1950, the timing of this expansion worked well for draftees that began to arrive in January 1951.
Similarly, about 540 nurses served tours of duty on the Korean peninsula. Though women weren't allowed on the front lines in combat roles, these nurses served close to the front lines and sometimes in the line of fire. In fact, by the end of the war, Army nurses had received 9 Legions of Merit, 120 Bronze Stars, and 173 Commendation Ribbons.
Much like MASH units, in the early 1950s, the helicopter was still in its infancy. A few made an appearance in the last days of World War II, but now they would be tested on the front lines in Korea. The helicopters carried no guns; they were equipped only with exterior pods and stretchers to extract wounded from the battlefield. They were fragile, high-maintenance aircraft with limited range. The early models had no radio or instrument lights in their cockpits. They couldn't operate in bad weather, were limited on where they could land and were fatally vulnerable to enemy ground fire. In January 1951, four aeromedical evacuation helicopter detachments arrived in Korea, medevacs that would transport more than 20,000 casualties during the war, with one pilot (1st Lt. Joseph L. Bowler) setting a record of 824 medical evacuations over a 10-month period. 
Perhaps a measure of the helicopter's impact is evident with the successful evacuation of 750 critically wounded soldiers in one day, Feb. 20, 1951, half of whom would have died, according to one surgeon, if only ground transportation had been used. Once the choppers arrived with their wounded, the medical teams unloaded the patients and prepared them for surgery. “There were times when the medical personnel were overloaded, so the pilots would help bring in the wounded and even help the doctors with instruments from time to time."
Richard Kirkland had always wanted to fly, a dream he'd had since he was a young boy. During World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was about to deploy as a member of the 3rd Rescue Squadron flying helicopters. On one of his first nights in Korea, he was introduced to many of the doctors and nurses of the MASH 8055th. There Richard was befriended by two men who would later be commemorated in print and inspire generations through film and television. “One of the surgeons shook hands, saying, ‘They call me Hawkeye- welcome to MASH. The M stands for mud." This, of course, was Dr. Hornberger, who later wrote about his experience with the 8055th under the pen name Richard Hooker. A second tent mate, Capt. Michael Johnson was the basis for the character Trapper John. In Korea, Hornberger pioneered a kind of surgery that was prohibited during the war. “Hornberger possessed the courage and audacity to attempt 
arterial repair when it was forbidden, and by one account, he may have been the first." Despite the rules and encouraged by early success, with the routine use of vascular surgery during the Korean War, doctors reduced the amputation rate resulting from vascular injury to 20.5 percent from 49.6 percent during World War II.
In a broad sense, with MASH units in place, the Korean War provided an opportunity to study and test new equipment and procedures, many of which would become standards of care in both military and civilian medicine; vascular reconstruction, artificial kidneys, improved cold weather treatments, the newest antibiotics, and other drugs (anticoagulant heparin, sedative Nembutal, serum albumin and whole blood to treat shock) that advanced medical care. In addition, computerized data collection (in the form of computer punch cards) and the use of plastic bags for the transport and handling of blood- a method later adopted around the world and still used today.
Life in a MASH unit varied greatly between boredom and endless hours of surgery due to overwhelming casualties. During a “push" (offensive front-line action), the wounded streamed into the operating room for days. Otto Apel, a MASH doctor, remembers, "Seventy-two hours after I had arrived at MASH 8076, I had lost the sense of feeling in my feet. I do not think I had spoken to anyone ... for at least twelve hours." Dr. Apel, it turned out, had performed non-stop surgeries for eighty hours upon his arrival. Harold Secor, a surgeon for the 8055th, recalls that staffing was lean, perhaps thirty corpsmen, ten doctors, ten nurses, one dentist, two service corps officers, and about thirty Koreans. Compounding matters was the units' proximity to the front line. The 8055th was generally four to five miles behind the front lines, and according to Dr. Secor, "
If they pulled back very far, we were on the enemy side; that happened at least once. We had a minefield in our front yard. There was always some danger, even from our own artillery firing over us. We had sandbags around the patient tents to stop stray bullets". Secor remembered that one day, "a bullet zinged into the mess tent, hit a post, and splashed into a cup of coffee." He said, "This was one of the accepted things that it didn't pay to dwell on."
Harold Selly was an Army medic, part of a forward collecting station team. “We were always in danger of being attacked or overrun by the enemy, shelled by artillery and mortars, and grenades thrown into the station," he recalled.
As United Nations (U.N.) troops crossed the 38th parallel and advanced north in the fall of 1950, they encountered a civilian population decimated by epidemics of typhus, smallpox, and typhoid. In addition, captured North Korean and later Chinese troops were ill with these and other contagious diseases. But most troubling was mentions of men turning black as they died, suggesting bubonic plague - the Black Death - was in Korea. But as it turned out, the plague was actually a virulent form of smallpox known as hemorrhagic smallpox. As a result, the 8228th MASH was established for the sole purpose of eradicating these diseases among enemy and civilian populations.
By late 1951, the front line stopped moving and, for the most part, remained in place until the war was over in 1953, negating the need for hospital mobility. Accordingly, the MASH units were replaced with smaller, more efficient combat surgical hospitals (CSH) and forward surgical teams (FST). At the turn of the twenty-first century, there was only one MASH unit left in the world, in Albania, the last to be deactivated in February 2006. Nonetheless, MASH units and the helicopter evacuations developed during the Korean War became the standard for operations in Vietnam and later Operation Iraqi Freedom. The visionary surgeon and inventor Dr. Debakey went on to become renowned for pioneering developments, including coronary bypass operations, carotid endarterectomy, artificial hearts, and ventricular assist devices, grafts to replace or repair blood vessels, and surgical repairs of aortic aneurysms, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, and the Congressional Gold Medal. Despite this acclaim, perhaps the most remarkable contribution centered on a brief and often forgotten moment in time, in a faraway land, where citizen surgeons and nurses gathered to defend freedom, advance medical science, and risk everything to save lives.
Rodolfo "Rudy" Hernandez joined the Army at age 17 and became a paratrooper in 1948. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, he was sent to Korea with the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. From there, his life changed forever.
On May 31, 1951, Hernandez and his company found themselves outnumbered by Chinese Communist troops on a hill near Wonton-ni, taking heavy artillery, mortar, and small arms fire. With the Americans running out of ammo, the Chinese rushed them in an effort to take the hill. Hernandez fired into them until a cartridge exploded and disabled his rifle.
That didn't stop him from defending his fellow soldiers. Wounded, he charged at the oncoming Chinese troops with his bayonet, killing six and turning the oncoming enemy around, allowing his comrades to retake the lost ground. Hernandez passed out from his grenade, bayonet, and bullet wounds.
For his bravery in the face of the enemy, Hernandez was awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor the United States can bestow. It was presented to him by President Harry Truman at the White House in 1952.
There are thousands of stories of American valor in the face of the enemy, each worthy of the nation's highest honor. But the thousands of Medal of Honor citations don't tell the whole story of those who received the award.
A new initiative from the American Battlefield Trust and the Congressional Medal of Honor Society is out to change that.
In the more than 160 years since the Medal of Honor was first created, the U.S. has awarded 3,530 Medals of Honor to deserving American troops. The Medal of Honor Valor Trail seeks to bring together hometowns, battlefields, cemeteries, museums, and any other site that connects a Medal of Honor story to a tangible place.
Using both a physical trail across the country and a digital presence to enhance the experience, the trail aims to keep history alive and teach compelling lessons about those who received the nation's highest honor, from the Civil War to today.
In 2019, the two organizations collaborated on the Civil War Medal of Honor database, an interactive map on the American Battlefield Trust's website that marks the location and tells the story of each of the Civil War's more than 1,500 Medal of Honor recipients. This database also included what biographical information was available about the recipient.
While working on this project, both organizations realized the effort could go much further, connecting all 3,530 recipients from the Civil War to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond. While the original Civil War database included just the battlefields and sites of the Medal of Honor action, the Valor Trail will be open to include any site that will make these stories more physically accessible to the American public.
Rodolfo Hernandez was one of eight children born to a Mexican-American farmworker in California. To join the Army at such a young age, he needed their consent, which they gave.
After the war, Hernandez married and had three children, and worked for the Veterans Administration. As he worked to regain movement in his right arm, he also learned to write with his left hand, both handicaps the result of his Korean War wounds. He eventually met the medic who saved his life near Wonton-ni the day he fought off a Chinese charge before he died in 2013.
The Valor Trail seeks to make stories like Hernandez's more tangible by elevating these biographical places to include plaques and markers, along with digital history. Hernandez's battlefield might be on the Korean Peninsula, but
From his childhood home to his final resting place at Sandhills State Veterans Cemetery near Fayetteville, North Carolina, any of the biographical sites from Hernandez's life are eligible to be official sites along the Valor Trail.
"We need these places to keep reminding us of those who gave more than any of us," Hershel "Woody" Williams, the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from World War II, said in a statement. "We, as a country, can't forget. We should never forget what their sacrifices have made possible."
To learn more about the Valor Trail or nominate a Medal of Honor-connected site to include along the trail, visit the official Valor Trail website.
When Gen. Douglas MacArthur took command of the United Nations Command in South Korea, he was already a World War II hero, Medal of Honor recipient, commander in chief of the Far East, and supreme commander of the Allied Powers.
North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. With his long pedigree as a leader and already based in Japan, MacArthur was the natural choice to lead the American troops in Korea. Within a year, the president of the United States relieved the General of all his commands.
Gen. MacArthur was confident that the Korean War would be a short one. Even after the South Korean capital of Seoul fell to the communists three days after the invasion, he assured President Harry S. Truman that the war could be won.
Even before the president named him the overall commander in Korea, MacArthur was ahead of the situation. He sent ammunition and supplies to Pusan on the southern tip of the Korean peninsula to help ensure the allied forces could make a stand there. MacArthur had already authorized the U.S. to use Naval and Air Forces on North Korean troops by the time Truman approved it.
The General's most audacious move was a landing at Inchon, behind the North Korean advance. In the minds of the other Generals of his time, Inchon wasn't just a bad landing area; it was the worst that could be chosen. High tides and higher seawalls meant a hazardous landing for American forces, who would be at risk until they could establish a beachhead.
Even though many doubted the possible success of the Inchon Landing on Sept. 15, 1950, it was a spectacular success. As allied forces fought for their lives at the Pusan Perimeter, the U.S. X Corps of the Army's 7th Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division found Inchon undefended.
Within two days, the Marines had broken through and captured Kimpo Airfield, the Army had landed and blocked a communist counterattack, and the battle to retake Seoul had begun. Back in the south, South Korean and U.S. Army forces broke out of the Pusan Perimeter and sent the North Koreans into a full retreat.
MacArthur had broken the back of the communist invasion, and his stock had never been higher. With the North Korean People's Army back across the 38th parallel, the president and the General were soon at odds over how to proceed: end the war with a ceasefire or advance into the north and topple the communist regime?
In a meeting on Wake Island in October 1950, where President Truman presented Gen. MacArthur with his fifth Distinguished Service Medal, the president asked about the likelihood of Chinese or Soviet intervention in the war. MacArthur knew the Chinese had hundreds of thousands of troops across its border with North Korea and stated his belief that a Chinese intervention was unlikely, and if it happened, the UN forces would "slaughter" them before they reached Seoul.
But by the time Truman met with MacArthur, Chinese troops had already crossed the Yalu River, which separated China and North Korea.
When MacArthur returned to the war, he ordered a full invasion of North Korea. UN forces advanced rapidly toward the Yalu River. Pyongyang fell on Oct. 20, 1950. Five days later, the UN force encountered the Chinese for the first time at the Battle of Onjong. The Chinese intervention had begun, the Republic of Korea II Corps was completely destroyed, and now the UN forces were being pushed south.
As the war raged on across the Korean peninsula, a public battle was being fought between Gen. MacArthur and the president of the United States. As 1950 turned into 1951, MacArthur told reporters that political constraints were hampering his ability to conduct the war. In response, the Truman White House ordered that all press statements would have to be cleared with the administration before being made public.
That didn't stop MacArthur, who continued to make public complaints. On the battlefield, however, the UN had pushed back the full extent of the Chinese intervention. On March 14, 1951, the UN captured Seoul for the fourth and final time, pushing the communists back across the original border.
MacArthur, believing China's military power was actually much weaker than it was, believed that expanding the war into mainland China would cause a total collapse of the government in Beijing. In a communique to Lt. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, he advocated that expansion, which included bombing China and landing Nationalist Chinese forces from Formosa (now known as Taiwan) onto the mainland.
Truman, along with many in his administration, believed that the Soviet Union would intervene for China in the case of a larger war. Although the General submitted a plan for the use of nuclear weapons against China, he had not yet requested their use. Atomic bombs were a critical component of his plan to defeat communist China, a plan that was explained in an interview published after MacArthur's death.
The General also believed nuclear weapons should be used at the field commander's discretion, not the president's. The Truman administration did not want to use nuclear weapons and did not have faith that MacArthur could win a prolonged, expanded war in Asia without them. Instead, Truman wanted a negotiated truce and an orderly withdrawal from the conflict.
On April 5, 1951, MacArthur gave the greenlight to Ridgway to launch Operation Rugged, an invasion of North Korea 20 miles across the 38th parallel, securing Seoul's water supply and a further advance, all without consulting Washington. It was the last straw for Truman.
After conferring with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Truman relieved MacArthur of his command because the General was "unable to give his wholehearted support to the policies of the United States Government and of the United Nations in matters pertaining to his official duties." Truman named Ridgway as MacArthur's replacement.
MacArthur returned to the United States to a hero's welcome and a ticker-tape parade. He addressed a joint session of Congress to deliver his now-famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech.
Truman was widely panned for his decision, which was incredibly unpopular among the American public. Some legislators even called for Truman to face impeachment charges, but closed-door Senate hearings confirmed that Truman was acting within his authority to fire MacArthur, even if the decision was unpopular.
While MacArthur's dismissal reinforced the concept of civilian control of the military, it would have doomed Truman's chances in the 1952 presidential election. He decided not to run for another term, clearing the way for another former General, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to take office and end the war in a negotiated truce.
If ya gotta toot your own horn, you'd better hire a new bugler."
Words of advice fro
m a wise friend. Granted, he offered them in the context of vanity, and in the interests of full disclosure, pride could have been a motivator the day I decided to buy a bugle. But in my defense, I decided to buy one after Frank Wainwright's funeral.
I knew Frank probably better than the next of kin who reluctantly sat in the front of the church, first pew. In case you're wondering, I use the word reluctantly on purpose. In his last years, Frank was a cantankerous old man, intolerably grumpy. Part of the problem was, I suspect, just his nature; part of it, though, was attributable to the shrapnel buried in his legs since June 7, 1944, when his landing craft was turned to metal shards and wooden splinters a few yards from Utah Beach, Normandy, France.
Yes, Frank was a veteran. And thanks to Congress, he was entitled to a free flag presented by a member of his military service and the sounding of Taps at his funeral. Therein lies the problem.
Have you tried to hire a bugler lately?
New or used, they're a vanishing breed. Congress must have recognized that shortage because it generously modified the law to authorize recorded versions of a bugle as a suitable substitute.
So, Frank's service cl
osed with a very dignified folding of the American Flag preceded by an undignified, electronic bugle rendition of something that sounded like Taps. Crotchety or not, the old man deserved better.
Unfortunately, Taps-by-boombox has all but taken the place of the lone soldier and his bugle at military funerals.
A shame, actually, because it's an amazing work, Taps. At just 24 notes, it will tug at your heartstrings, even if you have no personal ties to the martial sound or special bond with those who do. It's the sweetest of all calls and, after 30 years, the single-most powerful trigger that, with just a few notes, can take me back to a time when duty, honor, and country were my stock in trade.
More important, it's a tradition all men and women who've worn the uniform have had in common since the Civil War. It's a promise to each that when the shadows of their lives lengthen and the veteran's work is done, their last rites will include the sounding of Taps.
With the noble goal of banishing the dreaded boombox from the military funeral, I bought a bugle. It came complete with the standard warning that Taps would be the hardest 24 notes I would ever sound. Nevertheless, I began practicing in earnest; my first brassy squeaks and squawks were born in the basement with only the family dog present. And she was so deaf she couldn't have passed muster in Helen Keller's remedial canine school for the hard-of-hearing. Only after I reached an inconsistently recognizable presentation did I venture outdoors to practice.
Then, for months, 
I traveled the backcountry roads and highways of the Pacific Northwest in search of places where the bugle could tell its story. The concert halls were small municipal cemeteries and overgrown, abandoned graveyards. Dressed in my jeans, I'd march through forgotten churchyards and burial grounds, collecting cockleburs on my socks.
Sometimes when the path was clear of rattlesnakes and red ant hills, the concerts went well. Other times not so much, like the first time the snow was ankle-deep, or when the sun chapped my lips, or a bee crawled up my pant leg. Sometimes I just had a bad day.
Over the months, though, the sounding improved. It would never be good enough for the audience that never complains. But then, they wouldn't. Every one of them would have known the sequence of the sound and cadence. Every one of them would have known it came from my heart.
I gradually transitioned from the solitude of the solitary bugler in a hidden cemetery to rendering the honors for veterans at their last roll call. The Nati
onal Guard's Regional Honor Guard unofficially adopted me as their bugler, and with their encouragement, I even put the uniform back on. Overcoming my reluctance to dressing the part was a small price to pay to show the families of the fallen that our country still cares enough to recognize the traditions they held dear.
I still have a hard time passing a country cemetery when I see one on a day trip or vacation. And I still get a bit misty-eyed when I put the bugle to my lips, and each note finds its proper place. But when that happens, my heart is more at peace than at any time since the last time I wore the uniform and listened to Taps echoing across a military installation more than 30 years ago.
Today, when I hear that soulful sound, I'm reminded that the servicemen and women for whom it cries were real once-I might even argue they still are. And I met those whose stories are contained in these pages, courtesy of an old bugle call.
Most veterans and veteran families are familiar with "Taps,” the bugle call sound at the graveside services of veterans and service members during their funerals. The name most likely comes from the call to extinguish camp lights during the Civil War, which was sounded by three long taps on a snare drum.
The short tune itself has evolved a lot since the days of the Civil War. It was first used at a military funeral service in 1862. The slow, mournful sound was deemed appropriate for the setting, and sounding "Taps” at funerals caught on quickly. By 1891, it was a part of every military funeral.
Author Robin Lee Turner first began bugling with Honor Guard teams from VFW posts, Marine Corps League Detachments, and American Legion Posts. He was so impressed with the dedication to duty he saw in those honor guards that he decided to write a book. On Veterans Day 2021, he dedicated that book, "Sounding Taps: A Duty of Remembrance,” to the men and women who serve on those details.
Turner is an Army veteran who served for ten years but found he missed the camaraderie of military service. A few decades later, he picked up his bugle and volunteered with Bugles Across America, a nonprofit organization that provides buglers to sound "Taps” at military funerals free of charge.
Unlike so many veteran funerals, where the sound of "Taps” will come from a speaker in the horn of a bugle, Robin Lee Turner will arrive in his crisp dress uniform, clean white gloves, and shining bugle to perform a real rendition of the call. He’s provided this last service to the fallen hundreds of times.
Along the way, he began to collect the stories of those fallen whose stories might otherwise go untold. These are not the men and women whose stories will appear in history books alongside the names of great generals and epic battles, but they are the stories of the fallen, our fallen, who should not be forgotten.
It’s clear that "Sounding Taps” is not just a collection of those stories. It’s a labor of love by the author. It’s a book that might be perfectly suited to crack open every Memorial Day, to think of someone who gave their all in service to their country – a small way to remember and say thank you.
"Sounding Taps: A Duty of Remembrance” can be purchased on the author’s website and on Amazon. The book cost $15 for the Kindle edition, $35 for hardcover, and $28 for paperback.
While the price might seem steep, every dollar spent on the book will be donated to Bugles Across America to help make volunteer buglers available to Honor Guards to sound Taps live, at no cost, to families of the fallen, to the government, or to Honor Guards.
His first missions in the war were over the Gulf of Mexico, looking for German submarines. Next came bombing missions over France. He and his crew soon found themselves based in Algeria, attacking Axis targets in North Africa.
"His wings looked as though they were afire from his flaming guns," Burbridge said in a 2012 interview.
What was left of the tail section and the right stabilizer shook so hard in flight that the crew thought it would fall apart any second. It was effectively crippled and flying slow, but it was still flying, and that's all that mattered in that moment.
The Battle for Hill 937 was a costly one for both sides of the fighting. It required at least a dozen assaults from American troops who believed they were taking one of the largest North Vietnamese headquarters complexes in the country.
American troops on the ground knew that North Vietnamese regular units would aggressively resist any U.S. advance, but only for a short time. The communists would be forced to clear out before the U.S. could bring its superior firepower into the fighting. Prolonged, intense combat between the two sides, like the fighting seen at Ia Drang, occurred infrequently but was bloody when it did happen. 
At Hill 937, two battalions of PAVN forces decided they would make one of those intense stands against the 101st. The 3rd Battalion, 187th Regiment arrived to take the hill on May 10, 1969, expecting to reach the top within hours. It would take nearly ten days. 
The closest the Army came to taking the hill before they were fully reinforced came on May 18th. The 3/187th engaged entrenched PAVN defenders in close quarters combat with small arms and grenades. Just 75 meters from the summit, the Americans struggled to coordinate one final assault. A chance thunderstorm ended that day's fighting early, and the 3/187th was forced to withdraw. 
Like most critical supplies, the Allies knew that their troops required timekeeping devices that could withstand any of the dangers of modern combat, even if they weren't sure what the fighting would look like. The A-11 spec wristwatch was designed to be the timepiece that survived the war; even its wearer did not.
The latest version pays tribute to Vince Speranza, a soldier who fought at the Battle of the Bulge using an M1919 Browning .30-caliber machine gun. He landed in Europe with the 101st Airborne Division's 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. He was one of the "Battered Bastards of Bastogne," who held the city, even in the face of a massive Nazi counterattack that left the city and its defenders surrounded.
When the war broke out in Korea on June 25, 1950, only two hundred doctors were in the entire Far East Command (Japan, Guam, the Philippines, and Korea). To ensure combat medical services, Congress quickly passed the Doctors Draft Act, requiring all doctors under the age of fifty-one to register for military service. As a result, ninety percent of all staff doctors in Korea were draftees, displaying a more relaxed attitude about Army rules, regulations, and discipline. At this same time, the Army authorized new medical procedures and deployed groundbreaking methods for transport and treatment of the injured, effectively reinventing combat care. One such development was the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH), popularized by Dr. H. Richard Hornberger, in his 1968 best-selling book (MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors), subsequent movie, and television series based on his real-life experience with the MASH 8055th.
Comprised of a series of tents and buildings that could be easily relocated as the front lines moved, the MASH units moved with them to keep the units as close to the front as possible. To accomplish this, accommodations were stark, with operating tables formed by a stretcher balanced across two sawhorses. In past conflicts, wounded soldiers often had to wait hours to be treated, but thanks to the MASH units and the helicopters that brought in the wounded, the wait time was reduced to minutes. As the centerpiece of the Army's medical innovations, these mobile units were fully self-contained, working hospitals, first conceived in 1945 at the close of World War II and the brainchild of Dr. Michael DeBakey. Aside from the constant stress of warfare and long hours in surgery, the units usually picked up and moved at least once a month, which came to be known as “bugging out." Specifically, standards for a MASH required that it was disassembled, loaded onto vehicles, and ready to depart on a six-hour notice. After arrival at its new destination, it was operational within four hours.
Initially limited to 60 beds to focus on mobility, with only seven MASH units in Korea (8054th, 8055th, 8063rd, 8076th, 8209th, 8225th, and 8228th), the hospitals were often overwhelmed with wounded and enlarged to 150 beds in November 1950, and again in May 1951 to 200. With the Doctor's Draft Act of 1950, the timing of this expansion worked well for draftees that began to arrive in January 1951.
Perhaps a measure of the helicopter's impact is evident with the successful evacuation of 750 critically wounded soldiers in one day, Feb. 20, 1951, half of whom would have died, according to one surgeon, if only ground transportation had been used. Once the choppers arrived with their wounded, the medical teams unloaded the patients and prepared them for surgery. “There were times when the medical personnel were overloaded, so the pilots would help bring in the wounded and even help the doctors with instruments from time to time."
arterial repair when it was forbidden, and by one account, he may have been the first." Despite the rules and encouraged by early success, with the routine use of vascular surgery during the Korean War, doctors reduced the amputation rate resulting from vascular injury to 20.5 percent from 49.6 percent during World War II.
If they pulled back very far, we were on the enemy side; that happened at least once. We had a minefield in our front yard. There was always some danger, even from our own artillery firing over us. We had sandbags around the patient tents to stop stray bullets". Secor remembered that one day, "a bullet zinged into the mess tent, hit a post, and splashed into a cup of coffee." He said, "This was one of the accepted things that it didn't pay to dwell on."
By late 1951, the front line stopped moving and, for the most part, remained in place until the war was over in 1953, negating the need for hospital mobility. Accordingly, the MASH units were replaced with smaller, more efficient combat surgical hospitals (CSH) and forward surgical teams (FST). At the turn of the twenty-first century, there was only one MASH unit left in the world, in Albania, the last to be deactivated in February 2006. Nonetheless, MASH units and the helicopter evacuations developed during the Korean War became the standard for operations in Vietnam and later Operation Iraqi Freedom. The visionary surgeon and inventor Dr. Debakey went on to become renowned for pioneering developments, including coronary bypass operations, carotid endarterectomy, artificial hearts, and ventricular assist devices, grafts to replace or repair blood vessels, and surgical repairs of aortic aneurysms, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, and the Congressional Gold Medal. Despite this acclaim, perhaps the most remarkable contribution centered on a brief and often forgotten moment in time, in a faraway land, where citizen surgeons and nurses gathered to defend freedom, advance medical science, and risk everything to save lives.
On May 31, 1951, Hernandez and his company found themselves outnumbered by Chinese Communist troops on a hill near Wonton-ni, taking heavy artillery, mortar, and small arms fire. With the Americans running out of ammo, the Chinese rushed them in an effort to take the hill. Hernandez fired into them until a cartridge exploded and disabled his rifle. 
In the more than 160 years since the Medal of Honor was first created, the U.S. has awarded 3,530 Medals of Honor to deserving American troops. The Medal of Honor Valor Trail seeks to bring together hometowns, battlefields, cemeteries, museums, and any other site that connects a Medal of Honor story to a tangible place. 
Rodolfo Hernandez was one of eight children born to a Mexican-American farmworker in California. To join the Army at such a young age, he needed their consent, which they gave. 
North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. With his long pedigree as a leader and already based in Japan, MacArthur was the natural choice to lead the American troops in Korea. Within a year, the president of the United States relieved the General of all his commands. 
Within two days, the Marines had broken through and captured Kimpo Airfield, the Army had landed and blocked a communist counterattack, and the battle to retake Seoul had begun. Back in the south, South Korean and U.S. Army forces broke out of the Pusan Perimeter and sent the North Koreans into a full retreat. 
As the war raged on across the Korean peninsula, a public battle was being fought between Gen. MacArthur and the president of the United States. As 1950 turned into 1951, MacArthur told reporters that political constraints were hampering his ability to conduct the war. In response, the Truman White House ordered that all press statements would have to be cleared with the administration before being made public. 
The General also believed nuclear weapons should be used at the field commander's discretion, not the president's. The Truman administration did not want to use nuclear weapons and did not have faith that MacArthur could win a prolonged, expanded war in Asia without them. Instead, Truman wanted a negotiated truce and an orderly withdrawal from the conflict. 
m a wise friend. Granted, he offered them in the context of vanity, and in the interests of full disclosure, pride could have been a motivator the day I decided to buy a bugle. But in my defense, I decided to buy one after Frank Wainwright's funeral.
osed with a very dignified folding of the American Flag preceded by an undignified, electronic bugle rendition of something that sounded like Taps. Crotchety or not, the old man deserved better.
I traveled the backcountry roads and highways of the Pacific Northwest in search of places where the bugle could tell its story. The concert halls were small municipal cemeteries and overgrown, abandoned graveyards. Dressed in my jeans, I'd march through forgotten churchyards and burial grounds, collecting cockleburs on my socks. 
onal Guard's Regional Honor Guard unofficially adopted me as their bugler, and with their encouragement, I even put the uniform back on. Overcoming my reluctance to dressing the part was a small price to pay to show the families of the fallen that our country still cares enough to recognize the traditions they held dear.
Most veterans and veteran families are familiar with "Taps,” the bugle call sound at the graveside services of veterans and service members during their funerals. The name most likely comes from the call to extinguish camp lights during the Civil War, which was sounded by three long taps on a snare drum.
Unlike so many veteran funerals, where the sound of "Taps” will come from a speaker in the horn of a bugle, Robin Lee Turner will arrive in his crisp dress uniform, clean white gloves, and shining bugle to perform a real rendition of the call. He’s provided this last service to the fallen hundreds of times.