1 April 2022 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

Father Nguyen Lao Hoa fighting in the Vietnam War while still preaching church services.
Location: Vietnam
Date taken: December 1962
Photographer: Howard Sochurek

Augustine Nguy?n L?c Hóa (c. 1908 – c. 1989) was a refugee Chinese Catholic priest, who arrived in South Vietnam in 1959 and led a militia called the Sea Swallows resisting the Viet Cong in the Ca Mau Peninsula. The "fighting priest" and his "village that refused to die" attracted admiring media stories in the United States, and in 1964 he received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in the Public Service category.

Many years ago I was able to meet and interview Elmer Heindl in Rochester



Elmer Heindl was born in Rochester, NY on June 14, 1910. Despite being in a line of work that would have made him exempt from military service, he enlisted in the US Army in March 1942 and was assigned to the 37th Infantry Division. The 37th Division was an Ohio National Guard Unit that served in the Pacific.

He was a most unlikely hero yet was awarded three of the four medals for bravery during the war.


Captain Heindl was awarded the Bronze Star Medal w/ V device for his actions in the Solomon Islands in 1943 and 1944. In July 1943 he was assisting a graves detail in completing their task of burying the dead when they came under attack by Japanese snipers. Their only refuge was the open graves they had dug. Although not a combat arms officer, Captain Heindl maintained control of the situation and was able to calmly and diligently lead the men to safety.


He was awarded the Silver Star for his actions during the campaign for Baguio in the Philippines. Upon receiving word that the regimental commander was overdue, Captain Heindl volunteered to accompany the men who went to look for him. They were rounding a hairpin turn in the mountains when they unexpectedly came upon two Japanese tanks traveling toward them. In the chaos of the ensuing firefight, Captain Heindl fell down the side of the mountain and improbably came to rest near the overturned jeep of the regimental commander. He rendered first aid to the unconscious man and was able to get him to safety.


Captain Heindl received the Distinguished Service Cross for action in February 1945 in the Philippines. During the liberation of Bilibid Prison in Manila, he and a medic came to the aid of two men who became trapped in a guard tower. The men had climbed into the tower to use it as an observation post to direct the American effort. Upon discovering the men in the tower, the Japanese concentrated their weapons on it. Despite the withering enemy fire, Captain Heindl and the medic twice entered the tower to retrieve both men although one of them would eventually succumb to his wounds.

Two days later, he left the protection of his foxhole to pull a wounded officer to safety while mortar shells and rockets rained down upon them. Three days after that, he dragged several wounded men to safety during a firefight that killed nine others.


What makes Elmer Heindl’s exploits so remarkable was that he carried them out without firing a single shot. In fact, Elmer Heindl did not carry a weapon. Elmer Heindl was a Roman Catholic Priest.

LTC Elmer W. Heindl Armed Forces Reserve Center Fort Benning

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[ssgross]

These stories are amazing.
Just to expand on something for the awareness of others, the writeup states that Heindl didn't carry a weapon. Military Chaplains are non-combatants and, at least in the US, are strictly prohibited from carrying arms in combat. Heindl was not an exception in being unarmed. The circumstances of Father Nguyen are very different in that he was not a commissioned officer, and so not a Chaplain in this definition.

In fact, there have been 9 US Chaplains who have been awarded the Medal of Honor. https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/lis...ain-recipients

[browningautorifle]

9 US Chaplains who have been awarded the Medal of Honor.

And two Padres awarded the Victoria Cross...

[Mark in Rochester]

And two Padres awarded the Victoria Cross...

John Weir Foote, VC CD (May 5, 1904 – May 2, 1988) was a Canadian military chaplain and politician. He received the Victoria Cross for his actions during the Dieppe Raid in 1942. Foote is the only Canadian chaplain to be awarded the Victoria Cross. After the war he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario and served as a Progressive Conservative member from 1948 to 1959. He represented the riding of Durham. He served as a cabinet minister in the government of Leslie Frost.



One man stood out among a group of beleaguered soldiers, first for his size and then for his heroism. Reverend John Weir Foote, a 6’3” McGill grad, and Chaplain of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, continually exposed himself to intense fire to help the wounded and comfort the dying.


“I simply did my job as I saw it,” John Weir Foote told the Montreal Star in 1946. “It was a very ordinary piece of work.”
Time and again over a period of eight hours, Foote ran from cover to sling stricken soldiers across his powerful shoulders and carry them from the open beach to the Regimental Aid Post. “Moving about the beach, I wonder why I was never hit,” he told the Montreal Star in 1946. “And I have never ceased to wonder why I am alive today.”

When the order was given to evacuate the beach, Foote carried the wounded to landing craft. With German troops closing in, it was clear that some 1,900 men would be left behind. Foote refused to climb aboard, choosing instead, to return to the beach. There were still men to serve. “I don’t think a man should be a padre of a regiment and not go where they go,” he told the Montreal Star.

Captured by the Germans, Foote and the other POWs were driven on a two-day, forced march to a detention camp. Foote was barefoot, having discarded his heavy, water-logged boots on the beach so he could get to the wounded quicker. By the time his group finally reached the POW camp, his feet were worn raw.

Foote spent three years in various POW camps, sometimes enduring horrific conditions, including a 30-day forced march. Through it all, Foote never stopped tending to his flock. Regardless of denomination, every man was treated with the same compassion. Defying the German’s orders, Foote ended each service, which he delivered atop stacked Red Cross boxes, with the singing of the national anthem.

On April 25, 1945, Foote and his fellow POWs were liberated by British forces at Stalag 10B, near Bremen,

[browningautorifle]

John Weir Foote

I understand there is something missing from this. There was an account from a man who told of Foote being on board a boat outbound and was at the Gunwale mumbling and looking towards the shore. The man asked him "What Padre? What are you saying?" "Back" he said..."I've got to go back"... With that the man last saw his heel plates as he disappeared into the water and started swimming back.

I suspect this is the real reason for his boots being absent on the shingle beach. The UK members can attest to the harshness of those type of beaches to bare feet and one wouldn't just discard one's footwear.

Also I was out of count with the UK Chaplains and the VC. There are three from WW1.

The Reverend Edward Noel Mellish VC, MC.
The Reverend William Robert Fountains Addison VC, Order of St George, Russia.
The Reverend Theodore Bayley Hardy VC, DSO, MC.

Also one from earlier.

James Williams Adams VC
Bengal Ecclesiastical Establishment (Indian Army)
Chaplain to the Kabul Field Force
Battle of Killa Kazi, Afghanistan
Victoria Cross in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery, Imperial War Museum

[Ovidio]

We Alpini are proud to have had Don Carlo Gnocchi as chaplain in the Tridentina Division during the Russian campaign.
His book Christ with the Alpini is something great, unsettling.
He has been beatified in 2009.
One of the most loved persons in Italy's history, I'd dare to say.
He cared. For the human being.
About the retreat in the winter 1942/43 he said: "In those fateful days I can say that I finally saw the man. The naked man; completely stripped, by the violence of events too great for him, from all restraint and convention, in total mercy of the most elementary instincts emerged from the depths of being."
Amen!

[Mark in Rochester]

We Alpini are proud to have had Don Carlo Gnocchi as chaplain in the Tridentina Division during the Russian campaign.
His book Christ with the Alpini is something great, unsettling.
He has been beatified in 2009.
One of the most loved persons in Italy's history, I'd dare to say.
He cared. For the human being.
About the retreat in the winter 1942/43 he said: "In those fateful days I can say that I finally saw the man. The naked man; completely stripped, by the violence of events too great for him, from all restraint and convention, in total mercy of the most elementary instincts emerged from the depths of being."
Amen!

[Ovidio]

There he is… The Great Man of God.

[Ovidio]

A bit busy these days...
Now I have a picture I really like of Don Gnocchi in uniform.