Ola Lee Mize, as he was known to his friends, was awarded the Medal of Honor for incredible valor in the Korean War as an enlisted man. He later became an officer and served in Special Forces for three and a half tours in Vietnam before retiring in 1981.
Mize was born August 28, 1931, in Albertville, Alabama as the son of a sharecropper. He was forced to leave school after just the ninth grade to help his family put food on the table, as was very common throughout the United States in that era.
Mize tried several times to enlist in the Army but was rejected for being too light at just 120 pounds. He finally got in when his mother signed an affidavit to affirm his age since a tornado had destroyed all his town's records while he was young.
But once in the Army, a bigger problem was looming. Mize was virtually blind in one eye, which had been accidentally pierced with an ice pick when he was five years old.
The vision exam for the Army at that time involved holding a paddle over one eye and looking at the chart with the other. He passed the test by briskly switching paddles in a way that made it look as if he was switching eyes. He had practiced this bit of subterfuge with spoons beforehand.
Mize became an infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division and was about to finish up his tour and go back to finish schooling and attend college when the Korean War broke out. He re-enlisted in the hopes of getting sent to Korea.
He would get his wish and be involved in some horrific combat there. Assigned to Company K, 15th Infantry Regiment, Third Infantry Division, was helping to defend a strategic hill near Surang-ni in mountainous South Korea. The hill, called Outpost Harry by the Americans, sat between American and Communist lines, each several hundred yards away. Coincidentally, the 15th Infantry Regiment was the same unit that Audie Murphy served in during World War II.
During the previous few nights prior to June 10, 1953, Mize had observed numerous trucks behind the enemy's ridgeline bringing in men and equipment. He called for artillery strikes and air strikes, but those were denied.
A Sergeant manning a listening post that night reported something amiss. Upon investigating, Mize came up and looked to the unit's front. "Where did all those shrubs come from," he asked the Sergeant? They hadn't been there before. Mize noticed one move. He crouched up and unloaded a full carbine magazine into them as Chinese soldiers, infiltrating the lines were cut down very close to the LP.
At one point, as an enemy soldier stepped behind an American and prepared to fire, Sergeant Mize killed him. At dawn, he helped regroup for a counterattack that drove the enemy away. He was personally credited with killing 65 of the enemy. In fact, it could have easily been much more. Of the 56 men on Outpost Harry, only eight survived.
When an American machine-gun nest had been overrun, he fought his way to the position, killing 10 North Korean and Chinese soldiers and dispersing the rest. He had been knocked down and wounded but not seriously three times by artillery and grenade blasts, and his men were astounded that he returned alive.
The legend that was told of Mize was that when he took back the machine gun nest, he dispatched the last of the Chinese soldiers with an entrenching tool when his weapon ran out of ammunition. There was a bronzed "E-Tool" that would hang over his desk later in his career. He did tell the local Gadsden, AL newspaper that he went "combat crazy" during the pitched part of the engagement.
"I thought I'd bought the farm," Col. Mize told VFW Magazine in an interview. "I just knew I was going to die. I knew it. I accepted it. All I wanted to do was take as many of them with me as I could."
He and the remaining Americans convinced the Chinese that there were many more Americans left on the hill but throwing grenades and shooting from one position and then leaping into other holes and firing from there.
He was recommended for the Medal of Honor but initially asked that his name be withdrawn, saying the honor should go to the troops that died defending it.
"That terrible night in 1953 in Korea at Outpost Harry was one I would never want to repeat," he wrote in a foreword to "Uncommon Valor," a book about Medal of Honor recipients.
"Too many good young men gave their lives to take or hold that miserable piece of high ground."
Eventually, in 1954 Mize did receive the Medal of Honor from President Eisenhower and recounted that he was so nervous it was obvious to everyone. He credited the President to calm him by joking about himself.
Mize remained in the Army and became an officer. In 1962 he attended the Special Forces Officers Course training and was assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group.
In late 1963, he was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, where he was deployed to Vietnam on his first tour as an A-Team Leader. In 1965, he was assigned to the Special Forces Training Group, where he was the Advanced Training Committee chief for SCUBA, HALO, and the SKYHOOK schools. Mize is also credited for being the officer responsible for starting the present-day Combat Divers Qualification Course in Key West, FL.
He returned to Vietnam in 1966-67 and again in 1969 as the Commander of the 3d Mobile Strike Force Command (Cambodian Troops). The Mike Forces, as they were called, were the quick reaction force for any of the Special Forces/CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group) A-Camps in their Corps area.
In 1975 Colonel Mize was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he was initially the Special Forces School Chief for the Field Training Division and Resistance Division and later the Commander of the Special Forces School. At that time, the U.S. Army JFK Institute for Military Assistance (IMA). Later this was changed to the Special Warfare Center (SWC). Mize retired in 1981.
Colonel Mize's awards include the Medal of Honor, Silver Star, Legion of Merit (with Oak Leaf Cluster), Bronze Star (with four Oak Leaf Clusters), Ranger Tab, Master Parachutist Badge, SCUBA Badge, and the Combat Infantryman's Badge (2nd award).
Colonel Mize passed away on March 12, 2014, from cancer at age 82. In addition to his wife, Betty, he is survived by his daughter, Teresa Peterson; his brothers, Gary, Donald and Johnny; his sisters, Judy Heinrich, Brenda Garza, and Della George; four grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
Mize's citation can be found at http://www.archives.alabama.gov/tours/korea/mize.html
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Gazing out the open cargo doors of the Huey flying over Phouc Long Province, boyish-looking Specialist 4 Robert Pryor took in an endless landscape of mountains, meandering rivers and rolling hills covered with dense evergreen vegetation, bamboo thickets, and triple canopy tropical broadleaf forests. The forbidding wilderness had an odd virginal beauty. It was also one of the most dangerous places in South Vietnam.
This sparsely populated highland plateau, nestled along the Cambodian border some 65 miles northeast of Saigon, had long been a North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong stronghold. Its isolation offered them a safe hideaway where food and equipment could be replenished while units rested, trained, or prepared for future operations in the III Corps Tactical Zone.
Fiercely contested by government and Communist forces, several deadly battles had been fought over the region. One bloody battle took place 24 kilometers from Pryor's destination, Camp Bunard, in June 1965, when the Special Forces camp at Dong Xoai was overrun, leaving seven Americans dead and three missing.
On this late January day in 1969, Pryor's first glimpse of Camp Bunard came from about five kilometers out. It appeared smaller than he expected. A kilometer northwest of the camp was the New Life Hamlet of Dia Diem Bunard. Here, Cambodians, Vietnamese and Montagnards lived in a village created as part of the pacification program devised by South Vietnam and its U.S. advisers.
Pryor was met by several of his new teammates of Detachment A-344 and shown around. An A-team, the Special Forces' smallest unit, ordinarily consisted of about 12 men at the time, although A-344 was undermanned. Ideally, a unit had two Medics, two commo Sergeants, a team operations Sergeant, an intelligence Sergeant, two combat engineers, a detachment commanding officer, a detachment Executive Officer, a light weapons Sergeant, a heavy weapons Sergeant and sometimes an attached Civil Affairs/Psychological Operations Officer. In Vietnam, few camps were ever full strength. On the ground, the camp felt even smaller than it looked from the air. As one of Bunard's combat engineers, Pryor would be responsible for keeping the buildings and defenses in good repair. Smaller meant his job would be more manageable.
When Pryor had arrived at 5th Special Forces Group Headquarters in Nha Trang shortly before Christmas 1968, he was 19 years old and had been in the Army nearly two years, mostly in the United States: basic, advance, airborne, Special Forces and Vietnamese language. Perhaps because Pryor looked more like 14 to some, it was decided that he could use some more training. After four weeks of Recondo School, Pryor was assigned to Bunard.
In his first six months there, he had seen his share of firefights, boldly faced down the enemy, received his first Purple Heart after being wounded by shrapnel fragments, and turned 20. Now, with the approach of summer, he was experiencing his first rainy season.
Typically, monsoon rains are sudden and short. But the heavy storm hitting Camp Bunard on Wednesday, June 17, 1969, had been pounding the camp for hours with no sign of letting up.
At 5:30 a.m. on the 18th, Pryor had just finished radio watch. He stood at a doorway of the windowless, concrete bunker that housed the team's tactical operations center (TOC), eyeing the huge puddle and muddy clay between him and his breakfast in the team house.
"What the hell," he mumbled as he pulled up his collar and bolted into the driving rain through the mud field. There in seconds, he yanked open the screen door and scrambled inside.
The only people there were the camp's two Cambodian cooks, who started whipping up Pryor's breakfast as soon as he walked in. He quickly devoured his eggs, canned bacon, toast, and coffee, and reached into his breast pocket for a plastic bag that held a half-empty pack of Benson & Hedges cigarettes and his Zippo. He lit up, leaned back in his chair, and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. As he stared out the screen window, the rain suddenly stopped.
Pryor went out to check around the camp to see if there had been any damage from the rain that would need repair. Finding only a lot of soggy sandbags, he headed to his hooch to grab some sleep.
He was in a deep sleep when he was awakened around 8:30 a.m. by a clamor in the hall outside his room. He figured it was Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Dudley, a Weapons Sergeant, and Staff Sgt. Charles Orona, Senior Medic, heading out on the patrol they had been assigned the night before by the detachment commander, 1st Lt. John Parda. The patrol's mission was to look for any signs of Viet Cong east of the camp. In addition to Dudley and Orona, the three-day patrol would include two Vietnamese Special Forces operators and 60 members of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG).
Hoping to fall back asleep, Pryor rolled over. He shut his eyes for a second or two when they suddenly snapped back open as a startling thought ran through his mind: There are not enough Americans left in the camp!
Just a couple days earlier, Master Sgt. John Nowlan and Sergeant Larry Crile, the team's junior medic, left for R&R in Australia. Now, with Dudley and Orona out on patrol, that left only four Americans to defend the camp, along with a handful of Vietnamese Special Forces and around 50 CIDG personnel who, more than likely, included some Viet Cong infiltrators.
Along with Pryor, the three remaining Americans at Bunard were 1st Lt. Parda, Sgt. 1st Class Carl Cramer, commo Sergeant, and Sgt. 1st Class Charles Hinson, Senior Intelligence Sergeant.
As he mulled over the seriousness of the situation, Pryor decided maybe it wasn't all that dire. They had three things going for them.
First, all the Americans were seasoned warriors. Second, there had been only a few enemy contacts in the past few months. And third, security conditions were better than they had ever been since his arrival in January because two rifle companies with more than 200 men from the 1st Infantry Division were operating out of a mini firebase directly beyond Bunard's outer perimeter for nearly a month. Their patrolling provided enormous security to Bunard. Added to that, the division's massive firepower available to support the camp anytime it was needed. Matter of fact, Big Red One units were laced across the region as security for crews clearing away heavy vegetation along both sides of Highway 14.
So, with enemy activity near zero, plus the 1st Infantry Division carrying out much of the security mission, Pryor decided it wasn't as grim as he had first imagined and drifted back to sleep.
Along with the others in the camp, Pryor spent the rest of the day carrying out routine activities. While leading a crew doing minor fixes on the camp's defenses, he saw no signs of impending danger. That night, he did his routine radio watch, finally going to bed at 3 a.m., knowing all was well.
When Pryor awoke at dawn on the 19th, however, he and the other three Americans were shocked to learn that the 1st Infantry Division element next door had moved out during the night. Not one of the four Americans at Bunard had been told about the planned move.
Literally overnight, having too few Americans at Camp Bunard suddenly became a problem of major consequences.
There was yet another condition unfolding at that moment that no one could have imagined. More than 100 well-armed Viet Cong were making their way through the jungle toward the camp.
A "perfect storm" of singular fury was blowing directly at Camp Bunard.
Among the Americans in the camp, there was now a heightened sense of alertness. The rest of the day, everyone had a more critical eye on security conditions and making adjustments where needed. Late in the afternoon, Pryor and Parda went over to the abandoned 1st Infantry Division firebase to scrounge around for anything that could be used to reinforce Bunard's defenses. They found barbed wire, heavy lumber, and other construction items, but because it was getting dark, they decided to return the next morning with a work party and haul it back to the camp.
Scheduled for radio watch that night from 11:30 to 1 a.m., Pryor decided to read a book he had just started rather than try to sleep. Around 11 p.m., he shoved the paperback into his side pocket, put on his web gear, secured his M-16, and headed out of the hooch.
It was his normal routine to walk the camp perimeter, looking for anything out of the ordinary before reporting to the TOC. This night was pitch black. Even the waxing moon was invisible behind the low hanging clouds. All he could see were shadows and darkness, but as best he could determine, nothing was amiss.
Pryor relieved Carl Cramer, who reported everything was quiet. The A-team patrol had reported no signs of enemy activity since they started out the day before. No messages had been received from B-Detachment headquarters at Song Be, 22 kilometers northwest of Bunard. No news was good news, especially since the camp's manpower shortage and the loss of its 1st Infantry Division "security blanket."
Yawning, Cramer picked up his M-16 and the letter he had written to his wife, bid Pryor "good night," and shuffled off to bed. After making sure all radios were operational, Pryor, a three-pack-a-day smoker, sat down and lit up a cigarette. He spent his two-hour radio watch finishing his paperback. Just before 1 a.m. on June 20, Charles Hinson entered the TOC ready for his radio watch. Pryor reported what Cramer had passed on to him: All was quiet. He then left for bed.
Inside his room, Pryor sat on the edge of his bunk, picked up a crumpled pack of cigarettes and his Zippo from the table, lit a cigarette, and drew the smoke in. The smoke irritated his throat, and as he coughed, he admonished himself, "Someday I've got to quit smoking." He reached down to unzip his jungle boots, slipped off his trousers, and tossed them in a heap at the side of the bed.
Leaning back on the bed, Pryor took another drag, and again he hacked and thought to himself: "Who am I kidding? There is no way in hell I will ever quit smoking." He started to take another drag, but as he did, all hell broke loose-the world of Camp Bunard and Robert Pryor was about to be torn to pieces from a firestorm of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and heavy machine gun and small-arms fire was raining down on the camp. Along the Bunard's outer perimeter, a swarm of Viet Cong sappers and soldiers were about to breach the wire.
Pryor butted his cigarette, pulled on his trousers and boots, grabbed his M-16, a radio and his ammunition belt, and bolted out the door toward his assigned mortar pit about 10 meters away. Instantly, he was met with enemy fire pouring from the outer perimeter but made it unscathed to the mortar pit, grabbed a ready-to-fire illumination round, and dropped it down the 81mm tube. He dropped a couple more illumination rounds into the tube as fast as he could. The three rounds exploded brightly in the dark sky, casting eerie shadows throughout the camp. Two such shadows rushed to the mortar pit, startling Pryor until he saw it was the two Cambodian cooks, who were assigned to help stop the attack.
The three men began working in rhythm: A few illumination rounds, followed with several high-explosive (HE) rounds. The distinct "thump, thump, thump" of mortar rounds hitting the base plate gave Pryor some comfort. The HE rounds exploding outside the perimeter sounded even more reassuring.
Still, the Viet Cong gained a foothold inside the outer perimeter and were moving into the inner perimeter. Fire from defenders and attackers flew back and forth in streams of green and red tracer rounds. Caught in the crossfire were about 35 women and children who lived in the camp. Standing outside the TOC, Parda saw the enemy storming into the camp. He radioed Pryor to get to the outer perimeter to try to stop the Viet Cong and get the civilians to safety.
Hearing the orders, Pryor felt certain he would be killed, but he also knew he was the one to go. His three teammates were married with children, and he didn't even have a girlfriend. How could he live with himself if Parda, Hinson, or Cramer were killed? So, leaving the cooks behind to continue the mortar fire, he strapped on his radio and scurried to the operations center, where Cramer was frantically calling for fire support while Parda barked order on all fronts.
Dodging the enemy fire, Pryor raced to the TOC, where he found Phan, his interpreter, and the two dashed toward the outer perimeter to confront an overwhelming force of determined Viet Cong.
Pryor and Phan had gotten to about 30 meters from the outer perimeter when the darkness ahead of them exploded into a wall of fire. Despite AK-47 and heavy machine gun bullets cracking all around them, the duo managed to safely cover the ground to the outside perimeter without being hit. Firing on the run, they moved along the outer defenses until they stumbled on the women and children cowering in small tunnel-like trenches connecting the fighting positions.
Phan yelled at the civilians to run toward the inner perimeter while Pryor provided cover. As the women and children scrambled toward safer ground, Phan fired off a burst in the direction of the Viet Cong. At that moment, an enemy mortar round exploded to their rear, knocking Pryor off his feet. Feeling around with his hand, he found shards of hot, jagged metal sticking out of his thigh. Beside him was his radio, blown apart. Turning to see how Phan had fared, he saw his mangled body, blown into pieces and scattered about.
Struggling to get up, Pryor limped forward in an attempt to stop the Viet Cong before they reached the inner perimeter. After 50 feet, a machine gun opened up on him. He aimed his M-16 at the flames bursting from the darkness, and the machine gun fell silent.
Pryor slapped another magazine into his rifle and moved ahead a few more yards when something hot hit him in the chest, knocking him to the ground like he had been struck by a speeding bowling ball. Swiping away the blood now oozing from a chest wound, he was surprised at its wetness and stickiness.
Bullets continued to crack over his head and ripped into the dirt around him. He knew he had to find some cover, fast. Recalling a shallow trench nearby, he crawled to it safely in spite of the fire now concentrated in his direction. But the moment he got into the trench, a grenade blast sent metal fragments into his arms and legs and shattered his rifle. Despair swept over Pryor-a badly wounded man with no rifle, no radio, and dozens of VC intent on killing him.
Crouching as low as he could in the trench, Pryor watched green tracers from enemy bullets pierce the darkness and could feel a number pierce his body. Multiple rounds raked his lower abdomen. His knees, thighs, and left calf were hit. It was a B-40 rocket that tore off the muscle in his forearm and blew off part of his skull.
Lying in the dirt, now completely helpless, Pryor could sense the presence of someone nearby and expected to be finished off with a bullet in the head at any second. But instead, he heard the reassuring voice of one of the camp's Cambodian medics.
At that instant, the enemy fire grew to a crescendo, and Pryor felt a heavy tug at his throat. A bullet penetrated the base of his neck. Now he could barely breathe and realized that the medic was no longer patching up his wounds. Raising his head, he saw the dying medic at his side, blood spurting from a bullet hole in his head.
Trying to gauge the extent of his own wounds, Pryor searched the body parts he could reach. He felt blood oozing out of his legs, chest, arms, and stomach. He reached up to his head. Blood and brain tissue met his touch. Shivering from the pain, he grew nauseous from the pungent odor of his own blood.
Amid the clamor raging about him and the searing pain inside him, Pryor could still distinguish the M-16s firing from the inner perimeter and see friendly tracers. Overhead he saw an exploded illumination round drifting to earth. "Thank God, I'm not alone," he thought. "But what does it matter, really? I'm a dead man."
As he began to lose consciousness, he also began to hear English-speaking voices. Were they real? He struggled mightily to fend off the fog closing in on his mind as the voices grew stronger, closer. It was Hinson's voice calling his name. Somehow Pryor got out a muffled, "Over here!"
In spite of the deafening gunfire and explosions, Hinson heard Pryor's cry and raced to him, immediately giving him morphine while assuring him he was going to be all right. But Pryor knew nothing could have been further from the truth as he felt himself growing cold. The gash in his chest, neck, and the four head wounds were bleeding profusely. Suddenly, the world in front of him went white. "So," he thought, "this is how it ends?"
Although also wounded, Hinson somehow carried and dragged Pryor back to the command bunker, with bullets, satchel charges, and mortar rounds chasing him every step. Twice he dropped Pryor because of the slipperiness from his many bleeding wounds.
Finally, Hinson pulled Pryor into the bunker, and Parda helped lay him in a corner and cut off what was left of his clothes to find the wounds and attempt to stem the bleeding. Hinson raced back out of the TOC to continue the fight to secure the outer perimeter.
The battle had been raging for 30 minutes when a pair of gunships arrived, dropping powerful illumination over the camp and exposing scores of Viet Cong desperately trying to hide. The gunships opened up with all the firepower they had. Some VC fell instantly dead, others were wounded. The survivors ran to take refuge in the abandoned 1st Infantry Division camp, from where they continued to fire on Camp Bunard. The gunships shifted to the Viet Cong's new position and let go with rockets and mini-gun fire and were joined by more gunships.
Meanwhile, inside the operations bunker, Pryor was in a deep coma, his condition worsening with each labored breath. Parda had little success in stopping the bleeding. He cursed the absence of the team's two medics from the camp. Thank God, Parda thought, a medevac helicopter was inbound, but would it be soon enough?
Parda yelled at Cramer for an update on the dust-off. "About five minutes out," responded Cramer. Parda prayed the medevac would get there sooner. He feared Pryor would be dead in minutes, maybe even seconds.
With the sound of a dust-off approaching, Cramer radioed the pilot that the situation had become desperate: Pryor was fading fast. The pilot did not respond with the same urgency, telling Cramer he would not risk losing his crew and helicopter by landing in the camp while it was still under enemy fire. Parda grabbed the radio and begged him to please land: "There is only sporadic enemy fire, and my man is nearly dead!"
Seconds later, another medevac came on station. The pilot had heard the exchange between Cramer and the other medevac. He said he and his crew would attempt a rescue and asked for ground guidance on where to land. Cramer told him it needed to be inside the perimeter, as the camp's helipad was in direct sight of enemy fire. "The only suitable place to land is a very tight fit between buildings with antennas and guide wires in every direction," Cramer warned. The pilot calmly requested an azimuth on which to vector in.
Hinson, who had returned to the TOC, threw a PRC-25 radio over his shoulder, grabbed a flashlight and a compass, and moved to the area selected for the improvised helipad. Casting a filtered red light into the darkness toward the sound of the hovering medevac, Hinson radioed the pilot the proper azimuth, telling him to bring the nose of the helicopter in on his flashlight.
Slowly and carefully the pilot guided the aircraft down, even as several enemy bullets slammed holes in the chopper's fuselage. Hinson warned the pilot that he was dangerously close to a building. The pilot adjusted, only to be told by Hinson that he was now too close to an opposite building and a 30-foot antenna.
After several more adjustments called out by Hinson, the pilot squeezed between the structures. The chopper settled gently to the ground, its nose six inches from where Hinson was standing, with three feet between the rotor blades and the surrounding obstacles.
Parda and Cramer rushed the stretcher holding Pryor's motionless body to the medevac and lifted him up to the crew chief and medic, who pulled him up and onto the cargo floor. While no one would say it, each man's face showed it: Pryor would not survive.
The pilot lifted off with the same care to clear the obstacles he had taken when landing, pulled power, and headed directly southwest to the 24th Evacuation Hospital at Long Binh. In the cargo bay, Pryor did not stir when the medic on board jammed a transfusion needle into his arm and tried to stop the bleeding.
It took 45 minutes to reach the hospital, where a medical crew was already waiting. The crew chief and medic lifted Pryor's blood-soaked stretcher and lowered it into the waiting arms of two medics.
Loosely secured to a gurney, Pryor was raced into the emergency room. The pilot and the crew watched, and only when the gurney disappeared into the hospital did they lift off into the darkness.
Clinging to life, the 20-year-old was met by several scrubbed doctors and nurses who leapt into action with oxygen, IVs, blood transfusions, and anything else to keep Pryor breathing. It was a very tall task considering the 30 serious wounds and nearly 200 other wounds they counted on his body.
Pryor's bladder was ruptured; his clavicle and upper rib cage were fractured by the bullet that ripped into his neck; the bullet that tore into his chest barely missed his heart; bullets and fragments of shrapnel were found everywhere, in his torso, legs, arms, and head. Most serious were two head wounds that had blown away 20 percent of the right side of his brain.
The valiant struggle to save the young soldier's life went on for 23 hours. Like his comrades at Camp Bunard and the fearless medevac crew, no one at the 24th Evacuation Hospital was willing to give up on him.
Miraculously, Pryor did not die on the operating table. However, it took several more operations and procedures in the week ahead to keep him alive. The last procedure, a secondary closure of his head wounds, was done on June 26. A total of seven gallons of blood had been pumped into his veins, and through it all, he never emerged from his deep coma.
On Pryor's 30th day in the hospital, July 20, 1969, he gradually regained consciousness. He could not see because of his brain injuries, but he could hear. As he came to, he could hear excited voices all around him while a newsman was announcing on television that the Apollo 11 spacecraft had just landed on the moon. With Pryor struggling to listen, Neil Armstrong proclaimed to the world watching in awe: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
The first words Pryor heard after 30 days in a coma were among the most historic in all of human history.
For his extraordinary courage that night in battle, Robert Pryor was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second-highest award for valor. Charles Hinson and Carl Cramer received Silver Stars. John Parda was presented a Bronze Star Medal with "V" device for valor.
Pryor spent nearly four months recuperating at the 24th Evacuation Hospital at Long Binh, the 249th General Hospital at Camp Drake in Japan, and Travis Air Force Base in California. He then went to the Presidio of San Francisco's Letterman Army Hospital for rehabilitation and some further procedures. On October 13, 1969, he was sent home on terminal leave with 100 percent disability.
And, Robert Pryor also quit smoking. His last cigarette was the one he lit up just moments before the perfect storm swept across Camp Bunard.
Lt. Col. Michael Christy served two tours in Vietnam, first on a Special Forces A-Team and later with Project Delta's 81st Airborne/Ranger Battalion. On his second tour, he was the company commander of C Company, 12th Battalion 1st Cavalry Division. A film and television documentary writer, director, and producer, his work appears on the History Channel, A&E, and other networks.
The wreckage of the USS Indianapolis, the Navy cruiser sunk by an imperial Japanese submarine 72 years ago during the waning days of World War II, was finally discovered on Saturday, reports Chris Buckley at The New York Times.
A team financed by Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, discovered the warship 18,000 feet deep in the North Pacific Ocean. Kristine Phillips at The Washington Post reports the ship was on a super-secret mission to Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands in late July 1945, to deliver the components for the "Little Boy" atomic bomb dropped a week later on Hiroshima, Japan. 
After delivering her payload, the ship was sailing in the Philippine Sea on its way to rendezvous with other ships in preparation for an attack on Japan.
Around midnight on July 30, however, Japanese submarine I-58 intercepted the ship and launched torpedoes, fatally wounding the 610-foot vessel. It only took 12 minutes for the Indianapolis to go completely under. Phillips reports about 800 of the crew of 1,197 were able to get off the ship alive, crammed into a handful of lifeboats and floating around the ocean in life jackets. As it turned out, that was the beginning of the tragedy.
Reports of the sinking did not reach the Navy because of the ship's secret mission and no one knew there were hundreds of men scattered in the ocean.
While Navy intelligence had intercepted a message from the Japanese submarine responsible for torpedoing the Indianapolis, the transmission was dismissed as a hoax, and over the next four-and-a-half days, the sailors had to fend for themselves.
Natasha Geiling at Smithsonian.com reports that the survivors had to tread water because their life vests weren't buoyant enough to keep them afloat. Without much food or fresh water, men slowly perished. But the worst of it was the sharks.
The sharks were drawn to the area by the explosion of the sinking ship as well as men thrashing in the water and the blood of the wounded. One by one the survivors saw wounded men get dragged under by sharks, only to have their mutilated corpses later float to the surface.
By the time a spotter plane found the men at sea and ships were deployed to rescue them, only 317 of the roughly 800 men who went into the water remained. Up to 150 had died from shark bites, making the sinking the worst shark attack in history.
The story of the Indianapolis was brought into the popular spotlight by the movie Jaws in which the captain hunting the huge shark tells his story of surviving the harrowing shark attack.
According to a press release, the ship was located by Allen's Research Vessel (R/V) Petrel in an undisclosed location in the North Pacific. The team was able to locate the ship after new information about its whereabouts surfaced in 2016 when a naval historian was identified a landing craft that had spotted the Indianapolis the night it went down. 
Using that information, the team was able to narrow its search to a 600-square-mile section of open ocean. Using state of the art remote operated vehicles and sonar, they found the wreck and were able to identify it beyond a shadow of a doubt using insignia on the hull and other markers.
"To be able to honor the brave men of the USS Indianapolis and their families through the discovery of a ship that played such a significant role during World War II is truly humbling," Allen says in the statement. "As Americans, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the crew for their courage, persistence, and sacrifice in the face of horrendous circumstances. While our search for the rest of the wreckage will continue, I hope everyone connected to this historic ship will feel some measure of closure at this discovery so long in coming."
There are 19 survivors of the wreck who are still alive (Albert Morris, Jr. died at age 92 on August 15, 2018). Scott Neuman at NPR reports that the location of the ship will be kept secret and the site will be administered as a war grave.
Please visit this site to hear a first hand account of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis by survivor and TWS Member Edgar Harell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_Yhm_xBTOI
At the height of the Vietnam War, up-and-coming commo guys who wanted to learn the art of radio operation would walk into a classroom and see a huge number five written on the chalkboard.
Inevitably, someone's curiosity would win out, and they'd ask what the big number meant. The instructor would then calmly tell them, "that's your life expectancy, in seconds, in a firefight. So, listen up, and you might learn something that'll keep you alive."
That number wasn't some outrageous scare tactic. During the Vietnam War, the odds were tremendously stacked against radio operations - and that 5-second life expectancy was, for some, a grim reality.
In all fairness, that number was on the more extreme side of estimates. The life expectancy of a radio operator in the Vietnam War ranged between five to six seconds all the way up to a slightly-more-optimistic thirty seconds, depending on your source. If you look at all the things the radio operators were tasked with, it becomes abundantly clear why commo guys weren't expected to last long.
The first and most obvious tally in the "you're screwed" column was the overall weight of the gear radio operators were expected to carry into battle. The PRC-77 radio system weighed 13.5 lbs without batteries. Toss in batteries, some spare batteries, and the unsightly, large encryption device always called the NESTOR, and you’re looking at carrying 54lbs on your back. Now add your weapon system onto that and try to keep up as you fight alongside your unencumbered brethren. It took a lot of getting used to - but they managed.
If the weight wasn't problem enough, next comes the antennae. They weren't all too heavy, but they were extremely uncomfortable to use and would often give your position away to the enemy. The three-foot version was easier on the radio operator, but it wouldn't work in thick jungles. 
For that environment, the radio operator needed a ten-foot whip antenna to stick out of their back, which was a great way to draw unwanted attention.
The Viet Cong knew what it meant to take out a guy with a giant, ten-foot antenna sticking out of their back - you might as well have painted a bullseye on them. You take out the radio operator, and you effectively avoid dealing with air support. Additionally, it was well known that a radio operator's place in the marching order was at the heels of the officer-in-charge - two high-priority targets in one spot.
And it wasn't just the bullets that radio operators had to watch out for. The large antenna also acted as a targeting point for mortars and other explosives. All they had to do was aim for the antenna, and they could wipe out anyone near the radio operator. As terrible as it sounds, this meant that the radio operator would sometimes move in isolation, away from the rest of the squad.
It is unclear exactly how many radio operators lost their lives during the Vietnam War. While many radio operators were fulfilling their MOS, others just had a radio strapped to them in times of need. One thing is for certain, though: Being a radio operator back in the Vietnam War puts you among the most badass troops the military has to offer.
Pfc. Arthur Joseph Holmes enlisted in the United States Marine Corps one month after the United States entered World War II. He spent over two years of his young life in the island-hopping campaigns of the Pacific with the 1st Marine Division. Holmes participated in many of the battles that took place in the Pacific during the war. He never returned home.
Holmes was born in New York on December 11, 1923. He lived in Manhattan with his mother and two siblings and worked as an errand boy in 1940. In January 1942, Holmes left for Parris Island and trained to become one of over 200,000 Marines that served in World War II.
He joined Company C, First Battalion, First Marine Regiment in April 1942. After his unit assignment, his military career moved quickly. By July 11, 1942, he arrived in New Zealand and began preparations for the Guadalcanal Campaign.
On August 7, 1942, Holmes and 11,000 other Marines landed on the island of Guadalcanal. Only 6 months after leaving New York for the Marines, Holmes participated in some of the heaviest fighting that the 1st Marine Regiment experienced during the entire war.
On the night of August 21, 1942, the Japanese launched a massive counter-offensive against the Marines to retake the islands. Between 41 and 43 Marines were killed during the Battle of Tenaru. Despite the heavy fighting, the Marines held their positions against nearly 1,000 enemy soldiers.
It was just the beginning of Holmes's experience of the war. He participated in one battle to another for the next two years. From September to December 1943, he fought alongside the Australian 9th Division on the Huon Peninsula. In January 1944, Holmes's unit participated in the Battle of Cape Gloucester.
In September 1944, the Battle of Peleliu began. Within 10 days, the First Marine Division lost half of its fighting force. Over 2,000 Americans lost their lives during the fighting. Pfc Arthur J. Holmes Jr. was among them. He was killed in action on September 19, 1944, at the age of 20. 
He spent the last two years of his life at war, and never returned home.
Holmes was awarded the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. He was buried at sea and his name can be found on the Walls of the Missing in Manila American Cemetery.
Last year, the Veterans Legacy Program partnered with the University of Central Florida to learn about Veterans memorialized at Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, Florida. Holmes was among the Veterans that students conducted research on. One student discovered Holmes's story and wrote a biography for him to share his legacy.
You can read Holmes's biography at:
https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/biographies/BMD-0-31-F.html
On September 26, 1918, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Tampa (operating as the USS Tampa under wartime rules) was lost with all hands, a total of 131 men. This was the greatest combat loss taken by the U.S. Naval forces during World War I as well as the greatest loss of life incurred by the U.S. Coast Guard in its entire history.
The Tampa's short story began on August 9, 1912, when the U.S. Revenue Service Cutter (UCRC) Miami, built by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Corp., was commissioned at Arundel Cove, MD. The ship was named for the Miami Indian tribe rather than for the then little settlement in South Florida. At the time, several revenue cutters were named after Indian tribes. The Miami was 190 ft long, with a 14.6-ft draft and a displacement of 1,181 tons. Her normal crew complement was 70 Officers and men, she carried three quick-firing six-pounders and various small arms, and she could do 13 knots.
The Miami's first duty was with the International Ice Patrol, operating out of Halifax and looking for icebergs. Subsequently, she was based at Tampa, Florida, and developed a relationship with the city.
In January 1915, the Revenue Cutter Service and the Lifesaving Service were merged and renamed the U.S. Coast Guard. It was then decided that the Indian tribal names were to be phased out, so in February 1916 the Miami was renamed the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Tampa.
Soon after war was declared on April 6, 1917, according to law, the U.S. Coast Guard was transferred to the U.S. Navy for the duration of the war. Three days later, the USS Tampa, along with the former USCGC Tallapoosa, seized the Austrian merchant ship Borneo, the first overt action by Coast Guard ships in the war.
At the time, the USCG had 23 cutters capable of ocean service, which were sent to east coast Navy yards where they were up-gunned and outfitted with depth charges. In August and September of 1917, the cutters Ossipee, Seneca, Yamacraw, Algonquin, Manning, and Tampa left for European Service. They were designated as Squadron 2, Division 6 of the Atlantic Fleet's patrol forces (the flagship was the slightly larger gunboat USS Paducah PG-18), and the squadron was based at Gibraltar. These cutters escorted hundreds of vessels convoying between Gibraltar and the U.K. and also performed escort and patrol duty in the Mediterranean.
On the evening of her loss, USS Tampa was detached from escorting Convoy HG-107 in the Bristol Channel with orders to proceed to Milford Haven, Wales, to discharge passengers. At 8:45 p.m., an explosion was noted by a hydrophone operator in the convoy. Subsequently, the Tampa failed to arrive at her destination, and a search was made for her by U.S. and British patrol craft. A small amount of wreckage identified as belonging to the Tampa and two unidentified bodies in Naval uniforms were found. Two other bodies later washed ashore. Losses were 111 U.S. Coast Guard, four U.S. Navy, eleven Royal Navy, and six civilians.
The British Admiralty notified Rear Admiral William Sims, USN, commander of the U.S. Navy in Europe:
Their Lordships desire me to express their deep regret at the loss of the USS Tampa. Her record since she has been employed in European waters as an escort to convoys has been remarkable. She has acted in the capacity of ocean escort to no less than 18 convoys from Gibraltar comprising 350 vessels, with a loss of only two ships through enemy action. The commanders of the convoys have recognized the ability with which the Tampa carried out the duties of ocean escort. Appreciation of the good work done by the USS Tampa may be some consolation to those bereft, and Their Lordships would be glad if this could be conveyed to those concerned.
The German U-boat UB-91 claimed credit for sinking the Tampa. Her captain, Kapitänleutnant Wolf Hans Hertwig, wrote in his service log that he had spotted the Tampa while he was running on the surface and submerged and fired the torpedo from the stern tube at a distance of 550 meters, which hit the Tampa amidships.
Clearly, UB-91 wasn't spotted by any lookouts on the Tampa, which took no action or countermeasures whatsoever. From the reported distance at the time the UB-91 launched her torpedo, the ships had been quite close together. Why did Hertwig submerge? With his 105mm deck gun, he had the Tampa out-ranged. He could easily have fallen back and engaged Tampa with his gun, which would have saved a torpedo.
Hertwig was a very new U-boat commander in a new craft; the UB-91 had been commissioned in April. He had spent nearly all of the war with the High Seas Fleet, having served at the Battle of Jutland on SMS Westfalen, had only recently graduated from the U-boat training program, and his first patrol had no results. How did an inexperienced U-boat commander and crew pull off a tricky stern shot at very close range so flawlessly? In any event, the official U.S. Coast Guard history doesn't concede that UB-91 sank the Tampa.
The men of the USS Tampa are commemorated at the Brookwood ABMC Cemetery and Memorial in Surrey, UK, and also on the U.S. Coast Guard memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.
Postscript: On February 19, the Coast Guard released the following.
FM COMDT COGARD WASHINGTON DC//CG-092//
TO ALCOAST
UNCLAS //N05700//
ALCOAST 062/19
COMDTNOTE 5700
SUBJ: USS TAMPA PURPLE HEART MEDAL CAMPAIGN
1. The U.S. Coast Guard needs your help with locating and contacting descendants of the USS TAMPA, which was tragically sunk during World War I with all hands lost. The Service has yet to present 84 of the outstanding Purple Heart Medals awarded posthumously to the crew. We intend to recognize as many of the descendants as possible this Memorial Day. We need your help to do this.
2. Background:
A. USS TAMPA, a Coast Guard ship and crew serving under the Department of the Navy was lost with all hands after being torpedoed by a German U-boat off Wales on September 26, 1918. This tragic loss occurred just weeks before the end of World War I. It was the single largest loss suffered by the Coast Guard during that conflict.
B. At the time of TAMPA's loss, the Purple Heart Medal was not in use. In 1942, eligibility was extended to include the Coast Guard, but it was not until 1952 that the awarding of the Purple Heart Medal was made retroactive for actions after April 5, 1917. However, TAMPA was overlooked until 1999, when a retired Coast Guardsman submitted a proposal to award the Purple Heart to her crew.
C. In 1999, then-Commandant Admiral James Loy authorized the posthumous awarding of the Purple Heart Medal to the crew of USS TAMPA. Today, over one hundred years after TAMPA was lost and twenty years after the first TAMPA Purple Heart was awarded, the Coast Guard is still attempting to identify those families who have yet to receive their ancestors' Purple Heart.
3. The purpose of this ALCOAST is to raise awareness of the Purple Heart award program and to continue to identify those families who have yet to receive their ancestors' medals. You can help.
4. Summary of USS TAMPA Purple Heart Medals awarded:
A. There were 130 men on TAMPA, including 111 Coast Guardsmen and 4 Navy men.
B. 26 TAMPA Purple Heart Medals have been claimed since 1999.
C. 3 TAMPA Purple Heart Medals are presently in progress.
D. 84 TAMPA Purple Heart Medals remain unclaimed.
5. The names of the 84 TAMPA crew whose Purple Heart Medals remain unclaimed are listed here: https://www.history.uscg.mil/tampa/.
6. To submit applications for TAMPA Purple Heart Medals, please contact Ms. Nora Chidlow, Coast Guard Archivist, at Nora.L.Chidlow@uscg.mil or 202-559-5142. She has served as the primary point of contact between the Coast Guard and many TAMPA descendants, and also with the Medals & Awards branch.
7. To apply for their ancestor's Purple Heart Medal, descendants are required to provide documentation showing the descendant's relationship to the TAMPA crew member, such as family trees, pages from family Bibles, birth/death certificates, and/or pages from Ancestry or other genealogical applications. Please expect about 4-6 weeks' time for processing.
8. I encourage all members of our Coast Guard family to share this ALCOAST with the widest possible audience. We owe it to our shipmates in USS TAMPA and their descendants to ensure their heroism and sacrifice are recognized and remembered.
9. RDML Melissa Bert, Director of Governmental and Public Affairs, sends.
10. Internet release is authorized.
When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner's seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He's a natural-born shooter.
At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit.
After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art "super tank," one of twenty in the European theater.
But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That's how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, the fight for Cologne, the "Fortress City" of Germany.
Battling through the ruins, Clarence will engage the fearsome Panther in a duel immortalized by an army cameraman. And he will square off with Gustav Schaefer, a teenager behind the trigger in a Panzer IV tank, whose crew has been sent on a suicide mission to stop the Americans.
As Clarence and Gustav trade fire down a long boulevard, they are taken by surprise by a tragic mistake of war. What happens next will haunt Clarence to the modern-day, drawing him back to Cologne to do the unthinkable: to face his enemy, one last time.
Reader's Response
A band of brothers in an American tank. Makos drops the reader back into the Pershing's turret and dials up a battle scene to rival the peak moments of Fury."
~The Wall Street Journal
From the New York Times, bestselling author of A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner's journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel - and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.
~The New York Times
"The tension, death, and courage that were everyday experiences for American tankers fill the pages of Makos's book. This moving story of bravery and comradeship is an important contribution to WWII history that will inform and fascinate both the general reader and the military historian."
~Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Spearhead is "a compelling, exciting adventure. An in-the-moment re-creation of the Allied breakthrough of the West Wall into Nazi Germany by a remarkable cadre of tank crewmen of the 3rd Armored Division."
~Kirkus Reviews
I had to order this great book after seeing a review about Spearhead in The Wall Street Journal. As I thumb through my copy, I know I will not be disappointed! I am a student of history, and keenly appreciate reading about WW II, especially American actions in France and Germany. For me, much of this is very personal in a familial sense. Author Adam Makos is a gifted writer with much more to offer in the future. The typeset makes this edition easy to read. The colorized photo on the cover brings the past to life. The notes, index, sources, etc. are complete. Well done, Random House, and a special thanks to Adam Makos!! WELL DONE!!
~Ronald English
This is the best book I have read since Adam Makos' 'A Higher Call.' It is an intense and emotional journey through the end of WW II. I remember watching the film on the duel with the Panther as a kid and always wanting to know more, now you can. This book will leave you saying wow and probably rubbing your eyes a bit at the end.
I was sitting on the edge of my office chair on numerous occasions, glued to the pages reading as fast I could to see what would happen next. I can't believe the things these boys went through to defeat the Third Reich. I love WW II history, and I now have a much stronger appreciation of our WW II tanker veterans like Clarence Smoyer and his armored infantry comrades.
All I can say is Clarence's story should be a movie! Do yourself a favor and read this book!
~Dom
About the Author
Hailed as "a masterful storyteller" by the Associated Press, Adam Makos is the author of the New York Times bestseller 'A Higher Call' and the critically acclaimed 'Devotion.'
Inspired by his grandfathers' service, Makos chronicles the stories of American veterans in his trademark fusion of intense human drama and fast-paced military action, securing his place "in the top ranks of military writers," according to the Los Angeles Times. In the course of his research, Makos has flown a World War II bomber, accompanied a Special Forces raid in Iraq, and journeyed into North Korea in search of an MIA American Airman. He lives in Denver.