Father Emil Kapaun: In Korea, Kapaun saves dozens during Chinese attack

After he hit his head on the ground in a pole vaulting accident last year, they sawed off a third of his skull to relieve the pressure on his swelling brain.

But Chase's family lives near Wichita, where a farm kid named Emil Kapaun was ordained a priest 69 years ago. The Kears prayed thousands of prayers to the soul of Father Kapaun, asking him to bend the ear of God. They chanted his name like a mantra.

His baffled doctors said his survival defied medical science. They told the Vatican later that it was a miracle.

So Chase became the latest chapter in the improbable story of Emil Kapaun, dead since 1951.

The story might become more improbable: The Army has recommended Kapaun for the Medal of Honor. The Vatican might make him a saint — if it decides he performed miracles.

Mike Dowe and William Funchess starved and shivered with Kapaun in a North Korean prisoner of war camp. So did Herb Miller and Bob Wood and Robert McGreevy.

They say Kapaun sometimes swore like a soldier. They say he gave away his own food as he starved.

They say that when all hope seemed lost, he rallied hundreds of filthy and ragged men to embrace life and forgive their enemies.

On that day in North Korea in 1950, Father Emil Kapaun celebrated four Masses for soldiers in the 3rd Battalion of the 8th Cavalry Regiment and went to bed early in his pup tent south of the village of Unsan.

In this undated photo, Father Emil Kapaun, a Catholic priest and Army chaplain, celebrates Mass in the field during the Korean War.

Father Emil Kapaun shows his pipe, which was shot out of his mouth by a sniper during the Korean War.

To my knowledge, Kapaun Air Station in Kaiserslautern Germany is the only military post serving the US military named after a chaplain.

One of the two iconic photographs of Father Emil Kapaun shows him and another soldier carrying an exhausted GI off a battlefield in Korean, early in the war. The photo shows Kapaun to the GI's left. The soldier on the GI's right side was Capt. Jerome A. Dolan;, a medical officer with the 8th Cavalry regiment.

That rifleman had found Miller hiding under a dead body. He put his rifle muzzle to Miller's head; Miller thought the muzzle looked big enough to crawl into. He would die now.

Then he heard footsteps.

So did the soldier about to kill him. The soldier, distracted, looked toward the dugout, his rifle still touching Miller's forehead.

Miller turned to look.

They saw an American officer walking toward them. He was tall, skinny and unarmed, and walked as calmly as a man about to pay his grocery bill.

Kapaun had walked away from his captors, in the middle of a battle, risking a bullet in the back. But his captors held their fire.

Kapaun walked to the rifleman and shoved him aside, brushing the rifle barrel away from Miller's head with his arm.

"Let me help you up," he said. His voice was calm. He got Miller up on one foot, then picked him up piggyback.

Miller turned around to look. The rifleman who had wanted to shoot him aimed his rifle but did not shoot. He looked puzzled.

Kapaun walked toward the Chinese soldiers who had taken him prisoner at the dugout. Miller waited for death. But his would-be executioner just watched them walk away.

"He didn't know what to do," Miller said. "Father Kapaun had that effect on those guys."

Remarkable story!

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