School will bear name of an 'amazing' Marine (great story about Medal of Honor recipient)

VENICE -- He could see their eyes as they charged up the hill and closed in on him and his friends hour after hour in the moonlight of a sub-zero Korean night.

The Chinese soldiers had the advantage of surprise and superior numbers. Armed with rifles and grenades, they were relentless, but they also were young and cold and probably scared, and Hector Cafferata took no joy in killing them, one by one until the dead from his rifle numbered 15 or 36 or maybe even 100 or more.

"I still think about those poor Chinamen a lot," he says, in his gravely Jersey voice. "Poor bastards got killed just because they were wearing the wrong damn uniform."

He's still a bear of a man today at 75. His catcher's mitt of a hand swallows yours, and the handshake is vise-grip strong. It's not hard to picture him 55 years ago on that snowy hill a world away, in sock feet with a charcoal-hot M1 rifle in one hand and a foxhole shovel in the other, slapping away grenades the way Joe DiMaggio took care of hanging curveballs.

At 21, he was 6 feet 2 and 220 pounds and just a few years removed from semi-pro football. He was an experienced and sure rifleman, having been a hunter since he was 12.

If ever there was a man seemingly custom-built for the Marine Corps, Cafferata was it, just the sort of guy you'd want plugging a hole in a thin line, the only thing standing in the way of a thousand or more of the enemy.

"He prevented the real overrunning of our lines that first night," Cafferata's captain, William E. Barber, says in the book "Beyond Glory."

Both Cafferata and Barber, who retired as a colonel, received the Medal of Honor for their actions on Toktong Pass -- or "Fox Hill," in honor of the company that defended it -- in Korea on Nov. 28-Dec. 2, 1950. Barber died in 2002. Cafferata, a Venice resident, is one of the 124 living recipients of the Medal of Honor, the highest award that can be given to someone in the armed forces for valor in action against an enemy. Cafferata keeps his Medal of Honor locked in a gun cabinet. Though he has been interviewed many times over the years, he remains uncomfortable talking about himself.

The retired sporting goods wholesaler would rather talk about his two passions, hunting and fishing. His yearly hunting and fishing trips take him to places like Alaska and New Mexico. He and his wife of 55 years, Doris, enjoy visiting and eating with friends, including Dick Bonelli, an Englewood resident who served with Cafferata in Korea.

He plans to attend a groundbreaking ceremony next month in Cape Coral where a new elementary school will be named for him. After the district sought suggestions for names for several schools it is building, officials with the state Veterans Affairs and the Medal of Honor Society lobbied to name a school for Cafferata, who lived most of his life in New Jersey before moving to Venice in 1998.

He has gotten to know a number of veterans in Sarasota and Lee counties since he moved here.

"When they called me up and said they were naming a school for me, I asked them if it was a reform school," he said.

"I hate glory-seekers," he said. "I would hate anyone to think that was me. All I did was my job. Someone else would have done the same thing."

According to his Medal of Honor citation and the report of events in "Beyond Glory," the other three members of Cafferata's fire team were hit early on the morning of Nov. 28 by a surprise attack of a regiment of Chinese soldiers.

Cafferata fought in socks because he didn't have time to put on his boots after the gunfire woke him. He was too big to be able to wear his boots in the Marine issued "mummy bags."

Cafferata and his holemate, Kenneth Benson, a high school friend from New Jersey, fell back from their outpost position to the main line of resistance. "We happened to hit a hole that was shot up between the Third and Second Platoons," he said in "Beyond Glory." "So we were filling the hole, plugging the gap." After Benson was flashblinded by a grenade that exploded nearby, he spent the next several hours reloading Cafferata's rifle. [You cannot overcome a Marine]

"I shot a lot of the poor bastards. It's one thing when you are shooting at someone who is a ways off and all you see are arms and legs moving. But it's something else when they are right there," he said, pointing to a tree about 50 feet away.

As grenades were tossed his way, he used a shovel with a 2-foot handle to knock them away. At one point during the night, a grenade landed near several wounded Marines, and Cafferata ran over, picked it up and tossed it away. It exploded as it left his hand, blasting the meat off some of his fingers.

Just before dawn, he was shot in the right arm, severing the nerves in the arm, a wound that even after several operations would never completely heal.

Lt. Robert McCarthy nominated Cafferata for the Medal of Honor. McCarthy commanded the Third Platoon of Fox Company.

"Hector was at the end of my platoon, joining Second Platoon to me," McCarthy said. "He was able to fire down this draw, and he was flat killing Chinamen, I'll tell you that. I figured he killed close to a hundred of the enemy, but we only wrote it up for 36 because we didn't think they would believe it."

The official citation says he killed 15 enemy soldiers and wounded several more during those seven hours of hell. The line Cafferata helped to hold was important because it protected a road that the Chinese wanted to cut in two so they could isolate and wipe out another Marine unit up the road.

"It wasn't a big hill, but it was very important that we held it," Cafferata said.

It was a major early engagement with Chinese forces after the United States and South Korea had gained the upper hand against North Korean forces in the early days of the war that lasted from 1950-53.

Cafferata even remembered that troops had been told earlier in November 1950 that they would be home by Christmas, but that was before the Chinese entered the war in force. Instead of being home by Christmas 1950, U.S. troops would continue fighting for almost three more years before the United States, North Korea and China signed an armistice on July 27, 1953.

President Harry Truman presented the Medal of Honor to Cafferata on Nov. 27, 1952, at the White House. Cafferata remembers that the 5-foot-9 Truman struggled to reach high enough to get the medal around Cafferata's neck.

Marine Private First Class Hector Albert Cafferata, Jr., of Montville, New Jersey, earned the Medal of Honor during the Chosin Reservoir campaign of 1950.

The Medal of Honor was presented to PFC Cafferata by President Harry Truman during ceremonies at the White House, 24 November 1952.

PFC Cafferata was born 4 November 1929, in New York City. He attended elementary school at Parsippany, New Jersey, and high school at Boonton, New Jersey, until 1943, when he went to work for the Sun Dial Corporation of Cauldwell, New Jersey. He played football for three years in high school and for two more years as a semi-pro. He enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve on 15 February 1948, and was a member of the 21st Reserve Infantry Battalion at Dover, New Jersey, until called to active duty on 6 September 1950.

After training at Camp Pendleton, California, PFC Cafferata embarked for Korea in October 1950, joining the 2d Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. Because of the wounds he suffered during the action in which he earned the Medal of Honor, he was evacuated to Japan in December 1950, and returned to the United States the following month for treatment at the U. S. Naval Hospital, St. Albans, New York. He was placed on the retired list on 1 September 1951.

In addition to the Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart awarded for the wounds he received in the action, PFC Cafferata's medals include the Presidential Unit Citation, the Korean Service Medal with one bronze star, the National Defense Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, and the Korean Presidential Unit Citation.

PFC Cafferata is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Hector A. Cafferata, Sr., of Montville, New Jersey.

CAFFERATA, HECTOR A., JR.

Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Company F, 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division (Rein.). Place and date: Korea, 28 November 1950. Entered service at: Dover, N.J. Born: 4 November 1929, New York, N.Y. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a rifleman with Company F, in action against enemy aggressor forces. When all the other members of his fire team became casualties, creating a gap in the lines, during the initial phase of a vicious attack launched by a fanatical enemy of regimental strength against his company's hill position, Pvt. Cafferata waged a lone battle with grenades and rifle fire as the attack gained momentum and the enemy threatened penetration through the gap and endangered the integrity of the entire defensive perimeter. Making a target of himself under the devastating fire from automatic weapons, rifles, grenades, and mortars, he maneuvered up and down the line and delivered accurate and effective fire against the onrushing force, killing 15, wounding many more, and forcing the others to withdraw so that reinforcements could move up and consolidate the position. Again fighting desperately against a renewed onslaught later that same morning when a hostile grenade landed in a shallow entrenchment occupied by wounded marines, Pvt. Cafferata rushed into the gully under heavy fire, seized the deadly missile in his right hand and hurled it free of his comrades before it detonated, severing part of 1 finger and seriously wounding him in the right hand and arm. Courageously ignoring the intense pain, he staunchly fought on until he was struck by a sniper's bullet and forced to submit to evacuation for medical treatment Stouthearted and indomitable, Pvt. Cafferata, by his fortitude, great personal valor, and dauntless perseverance in the face of almost certain death, saved the lives of several of his fellow marines and contributed essentially to the success achieved by his company in maintaining its defensive position against tremendous odds. His extraordinary heroism throughout was in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.