38 Of The Most Decorated Servicemen In American History

Edward Allen Carter Jr. started his career young – very young. When he was just 15, he had his first taste of military experience, joining the Chinese Army in its fight against the invading Japanese. And when his age was revealed and he was forced to leave the service, that didn’t put him off. Instead, he went to Spain in 1936 and joined the Republican forces fighting the civil war there.

Naturally, Carter joined the U.S. Army after WWII broke out. And he proved his mettle when fighting with the 56th Armored Infantry Battalion. The tank he was riding on was hit, and of the three men he was with, two died and one was badly wounded. The American soldier didn’t take that lying down. Although he was shot five times, he still managed to kill six of the eight Germans who’d attacked him. He even took the remaining two prisoner. Despite that brave act, he only won a Distinguished Service Cross. But this injustice against the African-American soldier was finally corrected in 1997, when he was posthumously awarded a Medal of Honor.

A 19-year-old Joshua Wheeler clearly saw the U.S. Army in his future. So, he undertook basic training at Georgia’s Fort Benning and ultimately joined the 75th Ranger Regiment. And there was no desk duty for the young soldier. He served on three tours of duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan with the Rangers.

Then Wheeler was assigned as a special operations soldier. He was a team leader with Delta Force and served in 11 frontline missions in the Middle East. The courageous master sergeant even fought ISIS forces in Iraq. Then, in October 2015, he went above and beyond. Wheeler took part in an operation at an ISIS prison that succeeded in releasing 70 hostages. And while that assault sadly led to him being killed in action, his final act of bravery earned him a Purple Heart, a Silver Star, and the Medal of Patriotism.

James Helms Kasler was one of the men who defended his country during WWII – although he didn’t stop there. Taking to the skies during the Korean War, he shot down six enemy planes. He even served in Vietnam from 1966, when he flew F-105 fighters.

Then, on his 91st Vietnam combat mission, Kasler’s wingman’s plane was destroyed. The stricken pilot ejected, and Kasler flew his plane incredibly low to give the man cover. While doing so, however, his plane was hit, and he, too, ejected – only to be captured by the North Vietnamese. Kasler was cruelly tortured, but he refused to participate in enemy propaganda. This stalwart resistance won him a third Air Force Cross. Thankfully, he was finally freed in 1973 after 2,401 days as a prisoner. At the end of a stellar career, Kasler’s 76 awards included two Silver Stars and nine Distinguished Flying Crosses.

After a first attempt to join the U.S. Army was rebuffed, Vernon Joseph Baker finally enrolled in 1941. He then undertook basic training as an infantryman at Camp Wolters, Texas. From there, he went on to Officer Candidate School, emerging as a second lieutenant. It all prepped him for the theater of war. In 1944 Baker landed in Italy with the 370th Infantry – although he ended up with a two-month hospital stay after receiving an arm wound.

Platoon commander Baker was back on the frontline in spring 1945 when his unit attacked a well-defended German mountain position. The lieutenant knocked out three machine gun nests in an intense engagement that resulted in the deaths of all but six of his platoon’s 25 men. Undeterred, he led a second assault the next day that captured the mountain. As a result, the serviceman received the Distinguished Service Cross. This was upgraded to a Medal of Honor in 1997.

In 1913 Joel Thompson Boone graduated from Philadelphia’s Hahnemann Medical College, but his next step wasn’t to become a doctor. No, the following year, he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve with the rank of junior grade lieutenant. And in 1916 he deployed to Haiti with the Marine Expeditionary Force, who were there to suppress rebel fighters.

After the U.S. entered WWI, however, Boone was assigned as a medical officer aboard U.S.S. Wyoming. He was then attached as a surgeon to the 6th Marine Regiment, fighting in France. It was during this service that he displayed extraordinary courage while treating wounded men while under enemy fire. His exploits earned him the Medal of Honor, adding to his tally of six Silver Stars and a Distinguished Service Cross. In fact, the serviceman’s many medals made him the most decorated U.S. Army medical officer of all time.

Not long after Eugene Ashley Jr. was born, his family moved to New York City. From there, he eventually joined the U.S. Army in 1950 and saw service in the conflict in Korea. But it was during the Vietnam War that his exceptional heroism came to the fore. He served there with the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne).

On February 6, 1968, Ashley led his unit on an assault on a North Vietnamese position during the Battle of Lang Vei. A detachment of American troops was trapped there by a communist force of soldiers and tanks. And with complete disregard for his own safety – and despite being shot multiple times – the commander led repeated attacks on the enemy. The fifth attack finally led to a North Vietnamese retreat, but Ashley was mortally wounded by an enemy artillery round. The serviceman was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Merritt Austin “Red Mike” Edson became a second lieutenant with the Marine Corps in 1917 and was posted to France the following year. He also served in both China and Central America in between major conflicts. But it was during WWII that he saw the highlights of his career.

During the summer of 1941, Edson took command of a U.S. Marine battalion. Then, the following year, he led his men in an amphibious landing on Tulagi – one of the British Solomon Islands in the Pacific. However, the veteran is best remembered for his exploits during the fighting on Guadalcanal. His men had taken a ridge there and were ferociously and repeatedly assaulted by a 3,000-strong enemy force. The Marines held out, and the commander won a Medal of Honor for his exceptional courage in leadership.

After training with the U.S. Army Air Corps, Neel Ernest Kearby was posted to Australia in 1943. He was in command of the 348th Fighter Group, which flew the formidable P-47 Thunderbolt fighters. And the airman downed his first Japanese aircraft, a Mitsubishi G4M bomber, in September that year.

Then, in an October 1943 combat mission, Kearby and four other P-47s ran into a force of 40 Japanese fighters. The airman shot six of them down, and this feat won him a Medal of Honor, making him the first fighter pilot to win that award. He went on to reach a tally of 22 kills – the highest achieved by a pilot in the Pacific. On a mission in March 1944, however, the colonel shot down yet another aircraft but was himself hit by an enemy plane. Although he parachuted clear, the bullet wounds he’d sustained resulted in his death.

Louis Cukela was born in the European city of Split, which is in modern-day Croatia. In 1913, though, he started a new life in America and proved his allegiance to his country by signing up with the U.S. Army. Rather unusually, he served for just under two years before being honorably discharged in 1916. Then he enlisted again – this time with the U.S. Marine Corps. Cukela was posted to France in 1918 and saw action in various battles.

Cukela’s bravery earned him a commission as an officer and many awards, including a Navy Medal of Honor. He won this in July 1918 by taking a German machine-gun position from the rear at bayonet point and capturing four of the enemy. In fact, he won two Medals of Honor for this engagement, as the Army awarded him one separately. He remains one of only 19 Marines to have earned the Medal of Honor twice.

When Sammy Lee Davis joined the army, the U.S. was already embroiled in the Vietnam War. And following a period of extensive training, the young soldier was posted to the southeast Asian country with the rank of private first class. It didn’t take long for the artilleryman to make his mark, either. In the early hours of November 18, 1967, Davis was with his 43-strong unit at a position called Firebase Cudgel in the Mekong Delta. Then around 1,500 Viet Cong fighters ambushed the Americans, attacking them with mortars and bullets.

In the ensuing melee, Davis grabbed a machine gun and lay down suppressing fire to enable his comrades to launch artillery rounds at the enemy. Then, despite injuries that rendered him incapable of swimming, the intrepid private commandeered a floating mattress and saved three G.I.s trapped on the other side of a nearby river. Unsurprisingly, the soldier’s outstanding courage earned him the U.S.’ highest award for bravery: the Medal of Honor.

William Henry Johnson enlisted in the U.S. Army just weeks after America had entered the First World War. The African-American soldier was then sent to France for labor rather than combat duties – often the case with non-white servicemen at the time. But Johnson eventually got his chance to fight when his segregated regiment was put under French command.

On one May night in 1918, Johnson was on guard patrol in the Argonne Forest when a band of German soldiers approached. The brave sergeant chose to fend off the attackers with grenades, his large knife, and even his fists – at the cost of 21 wounds to himself. Owing to that extraordinary act of courage, the French went on to honor Johnson with the Croix de Guerre. But the Americans were slow to follow that lead. The Purple Heart and Distinguished Service Cross that Johnson ultimately received came more than half a century after his death.

Joe Ronnie Hooper joined the U.S. Navy at just 18. And following a period as an airman that saw him honorably discharged in 1959, he proved he wasn’t done by signing up to the army. This was despite the fact that he had an appetite for trouble – something that landed him in disciplinary hot water on more than one occasion.

Still, during Hooper’s two tours of Vietnam, he excelled enough to earn a hatful of medals – including eight Purple Hearts, a pair of Silver Stars, and half a dozen Bronze Stars. But his most prestigious award was undoubtedly the Medal of Honor, which he received for his considerable bravery in combat. On February 21, 1961, Hooper led an attack on a well-defended position close to Huế. And while the then-sergeant and his men came under heavy fire, Hooper ignored the danger and personally evacuated several wounded men – even though this led to him becoming gravely injured. Regardless of the personal damage he suffered, he continued to fight, killed several North Vietnamese soldiers, and led his charges to victory.

Fighter pilot Robin Olds first saw action at the age of 21 when he flew WWII missions from England. Proving his considerable skill in combat even then, he downed 12 German planes in total – earning the title of double ace. Yet while Olds stayed in the Air Force after WWII had ended, he was refused permission to fight in the Korean War – a matter that became a source of deep personal frustration. He must have been relieved, then, when he was put back in action for the Vietnam War, holding command of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing in 1966.

Olds received a variety of decorations for his time in service, but none were more prestigious than the Air Force Cross he earned in 1967. On August 11 that year, the colonel managed his unit of eight fighter planes on a mission to strike a bridge that was strategically important to the North Vietnamese. And though he and his men would come under considerable fire while pursuing their goal, they ultimately succeeded in hitting the target.

During the course of WWII, Matt Louis Urban took part in no fewer than seven military campaigns – including the June 1944 invasion of France. Just days after arriving at Utah Beach, in fact, he single-handedly destroyed two German tanks with a bazooka.

This feat didn’t mark the end of Urban’s exploits in combat. From June to September 1944, the then-captain further demonstrated his bravery by continuing to lead his unit even after a serious leg injury. He sustained a further severe wound to the neck while heading a charge against the enemy on September 3 in Belgium. And because of his actions during the conflict, Urban was finally given the Medal of Honor in 1980.

Richard Ira Bong first took to the skies while he was still at college as part of the Civilian Pilot Training Program. And he put that experience to good use in 1941 when he joined the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program – ultimately gaining his wings in January 1942. Trained up as a pilot of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, the second lieutenant was then posted to the South West Pacific – set for combat during WWII.

Bong proved his worth for the Allies, too, when he shot down his first two Japanese planes – an accomplishment that won him a Silver Star. Seeing off another four Japanese craft also earned him a Distinguished Service Cross. In fact, as of December 1944, Bong had brought down an astonishing 40 enemy planes – the highest number destroyed by any American pilot during WWII. That earned him the Medal of Honor. But, tragically, the pilot – by then a major – died in August 1945, when the plane he was flying as a test pilot crashed.

Among Jorge A. Otero Barreto’s many accomplishments, he held the distinction of being the first Puerto Rican graduate of the 101st Airborne Division’s training program. Then the young soldier began the first of five tours of duty in Vietnam, starting off as an advisor to South Vietnamese military units.

All in all, Otero Barreto took part in 200 combat missions and was wounded on five occasions. Owing to his outstanding conduct in the field, the sergeant first class was decorated handsomely, with five Purple Hearts, five Bronze Stars, and two Silver Stars among his 38 awards. Otero Barreto won the second of those Silver Stars for leading a desperate and highly dangerous – although ultimately successful – attack on a well-defended North Vietnamese position.

Eugene Bennett Fluckey graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1935. Then, three years after that, he entered Basic Enlisted Submarine School in Connecticut. Fluckey wasn’t done learning, though, even after a spell serving on two Navy subs. In 1943 he took further training – this time at the Prospective Commanding Officer’s School in New London. And at the height of WWII in January 1944, the experienced submariner was deemed fit to take command of the USS Barb.

Fluckey proved his mettle, too, as, in his 18 months as the Barb’s commander, his vessel claimed no fewer than 17 confirmed sinkings – including the downing of both a cruiser and an aircraft carrier. And the sailor’s endeavors not only won him four Navy Crosses and a Medal of Honor, but also the virtually inevitable nickname of “Lucky Fluckey.” That somewhat ignores the fact that the skipper’s decorations came because of bravery rather than mere good fortune.

Thomas Buchanan McGuire Jr. dropped out of college to attend the U.S. Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program. Fortunately, it all worked out, as he ultimately won his pilot’s wings in February 1942. Then, just four months later, he was flying on combat missions around the Aleutian Islands in the Northern Pacific.

McGuire also entered the South West Pacific theatre of WWII. And during just two days in August 1943, he downed five Japanese planes – among the 38 he felled in total during his time in conflict. The feat that would earn McGuire both a Silver Star and a Purple Heart came in October 1943, when he was wounded after shooting down three Japanese Zero fighters. Yet while the major managed to bail out on that occasion, his luck sadly ran out in January 1945 when his plane crashed during a dogfight. McGuire was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 1946.

Matej Kocak was born in a town that now lies in modern Slovakia. In 1906, however, he left his native land for America, joining the U.S. Marine Corps the following year in Pittsburgh. And while Kocak’s first active service overseas was in Vera Cruz, Mexico, it was during the First World War that his exceptional bravery came to the fore. After the U.S. entered the conflict in 1917, Kocak was posted to France in December of that year.

On July 18, 1918, the sergeant held his nerve during an attack on German troops in the Argonne Forest. During the intense skirmish, Kocak made a single-handed bayonet charge on a machine gun position, leaving the Germans manning it with no choice but to flee. He didn’t stop there, either. Kocak went on to take command of more than two dozen French colonial troops and overwhelm another machine gun nest. But while these two actions ultimately earned him Medals of Honor from both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army, he sadly wasn’t around to receive those accolades in person. The intrepid Marine was killed in action on October 4, 1918 – little more than a month before the war ended.

Daniel Joseph “Dan” Daly joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1899. A year later, he was posted to China and fought in the Boxer Rebellion – a conflict that saw Chinese patriots rise up against foreigners in their country. In one action, Daly held a key defensive position, and despite repeated attacks, he clung on, repeatedly injuring the enemy. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery.

Daly was then awarded a second Medal of Honor in 1915. The sergeant was fighting rebels in Haiti at the Battle of Fort Dipitie when his unit was ambushed by a much larger force. But despite the unit being heavily outnumbered, he led his men to safety. Then in WWI, Daly participated in the fierce Battle of Belleau Wood in France in 1918 and won a Navy Cross. He is one of only two soldiers ever to have earned two Medals of Honor through separate actions.

Smedley Darlington Butler was so keen to join the military that he lied about his age. Sent to the Philippines as part of the U.S. Marines, Butler had his first taste of armed combat there, leading 300 men as they took a town called Noveleta.

Butler was then sent to China in 1900 to suppress the Boxer Rebellion, and his heroics when wounded there resulted in a Marine Corps Brevet Medal. Then, in 1914, he won a Medal of Honor for his bravery during street fighting in Veracruz, Mexico. A second came as a result of combat in Haiti at the Battle of Fort Dipitie. Along with Dan Daly, who also received his second medal at Dipitie, Butler is the only Marine to have been awarded two Medals of Honor for separate actions.

Robert Augustus Sweeney signed up with the U.S. Navy in New Jersey and ultimately became a crew member of the USS Kearsarge. While the ship was anchored in Hampton Roads, however, Seaman E.M. Christoverson fell overboard. And Sweeney didn’t hesitate. He dived into the stormy waters and with the help of a second sailor rescued the struggling man. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for this courageous act.

Sweeney’s next accolade came following his heroics in December 1883, when a boy fell between moored ships in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He and another man jumped into the water and rescued the youngster. The two were each awarded a Medal of Honor, meaning Sweeney became – and remains – the only African-American to have received the medal twice.

John Duncan Bulkeley completed his training at the United States Naval Academy in 1933. And when the U.S. joined WWII, he was stationed in the Philippines heading up the six vessels of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three. Bulkeley evacuated General Douglas MacArthur and his entourage as the Philippines fell to the Japanese.

Bulkeley then later participated in the 1944 D-Day invasion of France, again commanding torpedo boats. Soon after, he took command of the destroyer USS Endicott. Coming across two British gunboats under attack by German vessels, Bulkeley joined the battle – even though only one of his ship’s guns was operational. The ship under his command sank the enemy craft and then rescued both British and German sailors. During his service, Bulkeley won an abundance of bravery awards, including a Medal of Honor.

Edward Vernon Rickenbacker joined the U.S. Army in 1917 when his country entered WWI. He was then sent to France in June with the rank of sergeant. But while Rickenbacker had an ambition to fly, his lack of formal education meant he was consigned to ground duties as a mechanic. And yet he’d soon convinced his superiors to let him take to the skies. He downed his first enemy aircraft with gunfire on April 29, 1918.

Within a month, Rickenbacker had brought down five German planes. This in turn made him an “ace” and earned him the French Croix de Guerre. All told, he eventually shot down 26 enemy planes and won the Distinguished Service Cross no fewer than eight times. One of those awards was even upgraded to a Medal of Honor in 1930. In fact, Rickenbacker was regarded as perhaps the most decorated American of the First World War.

Douglas MacArthur is easily one of the most distinguished military leaders of the 20th century. But it was perhaps his destiny, as he was born into a military family in the barracks at Little Rock, Arkansas. Much later, MacArthur fought in WWI on the Western Front in Europe, where his bravery earned him seven Silver Stars as well as two Distinguished Service Crosses.

In WWII, Macarthur famously led the retreat from the Philippines in 1942. And despite the defeat, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his courageous but unsuccessful defense of the islands. He also returned victorious to the Philippines in 1944 and went on to be the official recipient of Japan’s surrender in September 1945. Impressively, the general won more than 100 military awards during his long and illustrious career.

David Haskell Hackworth was born in Ocean Park, California, into a family suffering through the Great Depression. He later joined the U.S. Army in 1946 and was posted to Trieste, Italy, as a rifleman. He also served in the Korean War and volunteered for a second term. While there, Hackworth was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant in 1951 after winning three Silver Stars for bravery. But he still wasn’t done after that.

Hackworth then volunteered for service in Vietnam, where he was posted in 1965. There, he founded a unit called Tiger Force to match the guerilla tactics of the North Vietnamese. He earned a reputation as a highly effective combatant, too, although he was also noted for his unconventional methods. During his time in uniform, Hackworth won more than 90 military awards, including a Presidential Unit Citation for his Tiger Force.

James Francis Hollingsworth started out in WWII as a lieutenant in charge of a platoon in the North African campaign. At just 26, though, he found himself in command of an armored regiment and participated in the Allied invasion of Europe and Germany.

Hollingsworth went on to fight in the Vietnam War in 1966 with the position of the 1st Infantry Division’s assistant commander. But while his superiors reprimanded him for taking too active a personal role in fighting the Viet Cong instead of concentrating on his command duties, Hollingsworth’s courage was never in doubt. The evidence for that is clear: his many awards include four Distinguished Service Medals, three Distinguished Service Crosses, and six Purple Hearts.

James Elliot Williams was just 16 when he joined the U.S. Navy in 1947. And active service came three years after that in the Korean War, when he was consigned on the destroyer USS Douglas H. Fox. During the conflict, Williams used small boats to lead raiding parties onto the North Korean shores.

Then, in 1966, Williams was deployed in Vietnam. There, he commanded River Patrol Boat 105 and was tasked with finding and destroying Viet Cong fighters and arms shipments. However, while chasing down an enemy craft, Williams’ boat came under sustained attack. In the ensuing battle, 1,000 Viet Cong were killed and more than 50 enemy boats were destroyed. Williams was awarded the Medal of Honor for his outstanding courage during this action. This, together with numerous other awards, would make him the most decorated enlisted sailor in U.S. naval history.

After training as a parachutist, Thomas Howard Tackaberry took on a commission as a second lieutenant in September 1945. Then, following various peacetime assignments, he was posted to Korea in 1952 and commanded a company of the 9th Infantry Regiment. His bravery during the conflict there won him two Silver Stars and a Distinguished Service Cross.

After Tackaberry led an attack on North Vietnamese positions. his courage in the face of enemy fire won him another Distinguished Service Cross in 1966. A third Distinguished Service Cross came three years later after he exhibited expert leadership during a fierce engagement with the enemy. And through the course of his time in Vietnam, the serviceman was also awarded three Silver Stars.

The son of Irish immigrants, John T. Corley came into the world in Brooklyn, New York. Then, after graduating from West Point, he was a major with the 1st Infantry as it landed in North Africa in 1942. He swiftly earned his first Silver Star after fighting in Algeria and received a Distinguished Service Cross for destroying an enemy machine-gun post.

Corley went on to take part in the 1944 D-Day landings in northern France and was awarded another four Silver Stars during the campaign to defeat Germany. Then, after a spell spent teaching at West Point, he served in the Korean War. He earned another three Silver Stars in that conflict – bringing his total to eight – plus a second Distinguished Service Cross. And after these and many other awards, Corley stands as one of the U.S. Army’s most decorated men.

Born into a native Hawaiian family in Wai‘anae, Herbert Kailieha Pilila‘au was later drafted into the U.S. Army. And in 1951 he was sent to fight in the Korean War as a Private First Class with the 2nd Infantry Division. His platoon notably fought at the Battle of Bloody Ridge to the east of central Korea. Pilila‘au and his comrades were also ordered to capture a feature called Hill 931 – part of a range known as Heartbreak Ridge.

The attack stalled below the summit of the hill, and a powerful North Korean attack forced the Americans back. Pilila‘au stayed behind, though, to cover the retreat. Eventually, out of ammunition, he was overwhelmed by the enemy and bayoneted to death. But Pilila‘au had given as good as he got. When his body was found, it was surrounded by 40 dead North Koreans. For his outstanding courage, the soldier received the highest decoration for bravery: the Medal of Honor.

Robert Lewis Howard joined the U.S. Army in 1956 and got his first taste of action in Vietnam. He served there as a Green Beret special forces staff sergeant with the extremely secret Military Assistance Command. And during this spell in Asia, Howard received two Silver Stars and a Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery.

Howard served a total of 54 months in the Vietnam War, and during that period he was wounded no fewer than 14 times. He also won the Medal of Honor for one especially outstanding display of courage that saw him drag a wounded comrade to safety despite himself being injured. And Howard similarly picked up a clutch of other decorations, including eight Purple Hearts and four Bronze Stars.

Hoping to see action in WWI, Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller joined the U.S. Marines – although the conflict had ended before he could get to France. Yet he did go on to serve in Haiti and Nicaragua between the world wars. And it was in South America that he won his first bravery decoration: a Navy Cross in 1930. He was then awarded a second Navy Cross in 1932.

After the outbreak of WWII, Puller – now in command of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines – was sent to Samoa in the Pacific and then on to Guadalcanal. There, he won his third Navy Cross, this one for defending an airfield from Japanese attack. A fourth came before the war’s end, too. And Puller subsequently fought in the Korean War, winning yet another Navy Cross and a Distinguished Service Cross. He became – and still is – the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.

Richard Hetherington “Dick” O’Kane started his navy career on battleships, but he took a submariner’s course before starting a life below the waves aboard USS Argonaut. And in 1942, after the U.S. had joined WWII, he became executive officer to the submarine USS Wahoo.

Then, in 1943, O’Kane commanded his own submarine, the USS Tang. In its five wartime patrols, the Tang sank 33 Japanese ships – the highest number destroyed by any single submarine commander. In time, though, the Japanese captured O’Kane when his submarine sank – the victim of her own malfunctioning torpedo. After he was subsequently freed, his bravery was recognized with a Medal of Honor. During his service, he also won three Silver Stars and three Navy Crosses.

Roy Milton Davenport left the United States Naval Academy in 1933 with the rank of ensign. Then, after a posting aboard the battleship USS Texas, he went on to take submarine training. And he served as executive officer on USS Silversides early in WWII before taking command of his own sub: the USS Haddock.

During Davenport’s time on the Haddock, he earned two Navy Crosses after sinking large tonnages of Japanese shipping. And after he took command of a new submarine, the USS Trepang, he succeeded in creating more havoc for enemy shipping. Confirmed sinkings under his command include a 750-ton freighter and a 1,000-ton transport. Davenport won five Navy Crosses during WWII – the only sailor to achieve such a feat.

Garlin Murl Conner was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941, where he joined the 3rd Infantry Division. He was posted to England in October 1942, and from there he took part in the invasion of North Africa the following month. Conner didn’t exactly rest on his laurels, either. He engaged in four amphibious landings during the fighting in Italy.

By the end of the war, Conner had been promoted to first lieutenant and picked up a basketful of bravery medals. In France, for example, he won the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroic conduct in defeating a German attack. Conner’s other wartime awards include four Silver Stars and France’s Croix de Guerre. And in 2018 his Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded to a Medal of Honor.

In 1930 Samuel David Dealey joined the U.S. Navy from the Naval Academy. After that, he took a submariner’s course and served aboard various subs. And with his solid experience under the waves, Dealey eventually received command of his own submarine, the USS Harder, when America joined WWII.

Dealey took the Harder on six wartime patrols in the Pacific. He had excellent success, too, sinking 16 enemy vessels. But his fifth patrol became hair-raising after enemy destroyers spotted his craft. Engaging the battleships, he sank a total of five Japanese craft. Dealey received the Medal of Honor for this highly courageous and successful attack. Sadly, he ultimately died during his sixth patrol after a Japanese minesweeper destroyed his submarine.

Audie Leon Murphy had a difficult start in life, being born into an Irish-American sharecropper family with 12 children. Then his father abandoned the family, and his mother passed away during his teen years. This all meant Murphy had to leave school early to work as a cotton picker. And yet he went on to become one of the most medaled combatants of World War II – and a successful movie star to boot.

Murphy joined the U.S. Army in 1942 after falsifying his age. He then took part in the seaborne invasion of Sicily and the subsequent landing on mainland Italy. His first bravery award, for destroying an enemy tank in March 1944, came in the shape of a Bronze Star. Then, after Murphy joined the invasion of France, he was granted the Medal of Honor for repelling a German attack while wounded. He ended the war with every American bravery award available as well as medals from the French and the Belgians.

Murphy had originally joined up after Pearl Harbor was ambushed. Thousands of people were killed in the attack, and that’s to say nothing of the wounded. Then, the next day, on December 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt turned to Congress seeking a declaration of war against the Japanese enemy. He received it.

A few days after America declared war against Japan, the latter’s major allies got in the mix. Germany and Italy issued declarations of war against the U.S., which were duly reciprocated. There could be no doubt now that America had officially entered into that global conflict that we call World War II.

Historians are obviously still very interested in the events surrounding Pearl Harbor today, given its clear significance. But some of these experts are actually a little skeptical of some of the presumptions linked to the attack nowadays. The National World War II Museum’s Rob Citino is just one such person.

In an article that appeared in Time magazine in December 2021, Citino laid out his objections to certain “facts” we tell ourselves about Pearl Harbor. In it, he pointed to the sheer complexity of an event like that. It was a complicated situation, and we need to be careful in making claims about it. Otherwise, we stand the chance of misinterpreting the nation’s past.

The assault on Pearl Harbor was a terrible shock for the U.S. and its citizens, but it didn’t occur in a vacuum. The attack itself was launched in secret, certainly, but the odds of America and Japan coming to blows had been rising year on year for a long time. For decades, the two nations had been standing in opposition to one another.

At that time, the Japanese had been acting in a particularly antagonistic way toward China. They seemed intent on expansion, and their Chinese neighbor was in their sights. Taking over parts of that country would have its economic and demographic benefits for Japan. All this came to head in 1937, when the Japanese declared war.

Opposing Japan’s hostile approach towards China, the Americans then got involved in the messy situation. They imposed a series of sanctions and embargoes on Japan, hoping to bruise its economy. If they could limit its access to money and vital supplies, the thinking went, Japan would have to pull back a bit.

As things turned out, that plan failed spectacularly. Far from being discouraged to expand, the Japanese, if anything, were just emboldened to carry on. Officials from both sides engaged in months of talks, but no firm resolutions were ever reached. In hindsight, it can seem like war was basically unavoidable.

As things heated up, the Japanese came up with a scheme to quickly and emphatically knock the Americans out. They wanted to annihilate the American fleet in the Pacific Ocean, which meant organizing a secret attack. So their attention turned to the Pearl Harbor naval base situated in Hawaii.

Given its location 2,000 miles away from the contiguous U.S., Pearl Harbor didn’t necessarily seem like an obvious choice of target. It was, after all, some 4,000 miles away from Japan, too. Other locations controlled by allies in the South Pacific — say Singapore, Indochina, or the Dutch East Indies — seemed more likely to be hit.

But on the morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese instigated their surprise assault on Pearl Harbor. By roughly 8 a.m. the sky above the base was darkened by aircraft dropping bombs and shooting bullets. Within ten minutes, the massive battleship U.S.S. Arizona was targeted and sunk with more than a thousand individuals on board.

The next major loss was the U.S.S. Oklahoma, which was carrying around 400 people at the time. Japan targeted this vessel with torpedoes, which eventually managed to penetrate its outer shell, a catastrophe for both men and ship. The explosions forced the Oklahoma onto its side, and it was submerged beneath the water’s surface.

The attack was over within a couple of hours, but the damage was intense. Every single battleship that had been stationed at Pearl Harbor was left impaired in some way. Vitally, though, none were totally destroyed. Repairs were eventually made to all except the U.S.S. Utah and the U.S.S. Arizona.

A total of 21 vessels were damaged, plus around 300 aircraft on top of that. Plus, elements of the infrastructure at the base were destroyed. And on top of everything, roughly 2,400 people lost their lives, with another 1,000 left injured. These individuals were a mixture of members of the military and civilians.

Despite the clear destruction left in the wake of the attack, Japan did not succeed in its aim of totally crippling the U.S. Luckily for the Americans, no aircraft carriers were actually stationed at Pearl Harbor that day. That was extremely fortunate, because carriers were far more important than battleships at that time.

On top of that, a lot of Pearl Harbor’s infrastructure was left more or less in one piece. Certainly, much of it had been damaged — but not all of it. Many important facilities were still able to function in the wake of the attack, which meant the U.S. recovery wasn’t as difficult as it otherwise would have been.

But even though it wasn’t an insurmountable disaster in terms of damage, the Pearl Harbor assault was politically seismic. President Roosevelt spoke to Congress the very next day, calling for war. He said, “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

FDR’s speech did what it was supposed to, and Congress gave the go-ahead for the American declaration of war against the Japanese. Just a few days after that, then, Germany and Italy proclaimed war against the U.S., which was matched by the Americans. The U.S. was now at the heart of a global conflict.

Incidentally, only one member of Congress had voted down the notion that America should declare war against the Japanese. That came from Montana representative Jeannette Rankin, who had also been opposed to America joining World War I. This time, the prominent suffragist said, “As a woman, I can’t go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else.”

Despite Rankin’s protestations, America entered World War II and would remain embroiled in it until September 1945. And looking back now, many people think of Pearl Harbor as the event that instigated it all. But historian Rob Citino wants us to be careful about how we remember the attack and its consequences.

According to Citino, some people across the United States seem to misunderstand certain aspects of what happened at Pearl Harbor. He says, for instance, that there’s an impression out there that World War II actually started after the Japanese attack. And that, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth of the matter.

In actual fact, the beginning of World War II is actually more complicated than many people might think. That’s because different countries entered into the conflict at different points in time. If you’re from China, for example, you might say the war began a whole decade before the assault on Pearl Harbor.

By the dawn of the 1930s, Japan was looking to acquire raw materials to feed its industrial growth. That led it to invade Manchuria province in China in ’31. Things only got worse for the Chinese from there, and by 1937 the Japanese had instigated a full-blown invasion of their neighbor. People in this region, then, might say World War II began at this time.

Europeans, on the other hand, might look to September 1939 as the start of World War II. That’s when German forces moved into Poland. People in Russia, meanwhile, might say June 1941 was the beginning of their war. That month marks the point when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.

If you were from Ethiopia, your war would have started in 1935, after Italian forces moved into the African country. In short, then, World War II was a complicated conflict that involved a lot of different players. Each country looks to a different date as the beginning of the war, but we can say for sure that it was raging well before America joined in.

Even after the United States joined the fray, events didn’t necessarily unfold as many people today think they did. There’s a perception out there, for instance, that the events at Pearl Harbor roused people all over the country to get involved with the military. The doors into recruitment stations, it’s said, were ripped from their hinges as people lined up to join the fight. Well, that’s not quite true.

Sure, plenty of Americans really were moved by what happened at Pearl Harbor, so they decided to join the military. But in reality, most people who ended up fighting for the United States weren’t volunteers at all. Roughly two-thirds of these people were actually drafted into action. The idea that everyone across the nation wanted to fight because of Pearl Harbor is a myth.

In fact, the draft was already in force before the Japanese set out for the naval base in 1941. President Roosevelt had already called for it months previously, in the second half of 1940. So, by December 7, 1941, more than two million individuals had donned the military uniform.

These soldiers had already been through training in the months before the Pearl Harbor attack. In places such as the Carolinas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, the drafted fighters were put through their paces in exercises meant to replicate real fighting scenarios. This meant the U.S. was definitely preparing for war months before December 1941.

The notion that America’s forces were mainly made up of volunteers also feeds another myth entirely. It suggests that the nation was totally caught off guard by Japan and that it was in no way ready to fight a war by the end of 1941. That simply wasn’t the case, as preparations were well under way.

The Pearl Harbor attack certainly took American forces by surprise on the day itself, but if we zoom out a little, we see the situation more fully. The country had already drafted millions of men, plus industry had already been kicked into gear. Factories were making the materials necessary to fight a war.

All of this challenges another widely believed myth about America’s place in World War II. You may have heard that before Pearl Harbor, the United States was a “sleeping giant” waiting to be forced into action. But what does that actually mean, and where exactly did this phrase come from?

Well, the description of America as a “sleeping giant” has been linked to Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, who orchestrated the Pearl Harbor assault. He apparently came up with it after the attack had taken place. The Japanese commander supposedly said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

It’s a great line; there’s no doubt about that. In fact, it sounds like it could have been in a movie. And, well, that’s because it was. In 1970 the film Tora! Tora! Tora! came out, presenting audiences with a dramatization of what happened on December 7, 1941. That’s where we hear the “sleeping giant” line.

The truth is there’s no evidence the real Admiral Yamamoto ever uttered those famous words. The movie’s screenwriter once claimed to have spotted the quote in a note written by Yamamoto, but nobody else has ever seen this letter. The question is, then, do we really believe it ever existed?

But even if Yamamoto did refer to the U.S. as a sleeping giant — which there’s no evidence for — the fact is that America was by no means asleep during this period. We’ve already seen how the nation had drafted soldiers and started military production. But that’s not all it was doing.

The U.S. was already opposing Japan before Pearl Harbor, even though it wasn’t technically at war yet. America had already placed embargoes on Japanese goods, which interfered with its ability to acquire important materials for fighting a war. And months before the Pearl Harbor attack, the U.S. cut off Japan’s ability to buy its oil.

So the U.S. was not a sleeping giant, and Americans were not automatically driven to volunteer for the military after the Pearl Harbor attack. These are big myths that historian Citino wants to challenge. But his objections aren’t the only ones to consider. For example, the website War History Online has pointed out another one.

A big myth challenged by the website is that Pearl Harbor was the only base to be attacked on December 7, 1941. We tend not to hear about the other targets that the Japanese hit that day, because Pearl Harbor was the most dramatic. But they also attacked several other places on that fateful date. So even though Pearl Harbor is one of the most famous events in American history, all of this suggests how much we have to learn about it.