Herbert Miller lay in a ditch with a shattered ankle. A Chinese soldier stood over him, preparing to shoot. Then an unarmed Catholic priest crossed the road, pushed the soldier aside, and helped Miller to his feet. Father Emil Kapaun had just saved a man’s life. He spent the remaining months of his life doing much the same for men who could give him nothing in return.
Kapaun was a Kansas farm boy raised near the little town of Pilsen who became a priest and later an Army chaplain. He served during World War II and returned to military duty because he believed soldiers needed a pastor who would go where they went. In Korea, he celebrated Mass on the hood of a jeep and traveled among foxholes, bringing comfort to men whose next sunrise was never guaranteed.
On Nov. 1 and 2, 1950, Chinese forces surrounded his battalion near Unsan. Kapaun moved through enemy fire to pull wounded soldiers to safety. When he couldn’t move them, he dug shallow trenches to shelter them. As the American position collapsed, able-bodied men withdrew. Kapaun had opportunities to escape. Instead, he remained with those who couldn’t walk.
After his capture, he saw Miller facing execution. Kapaun intervened, then supported the injured sergeant through the prisoners’ brutal march, covering more than 60 miles. Miller later described the encounter in disbelief. He had expected a bullet. Instead, he saw a priest coming toward him, refusing to leave a wounded soldier behind.
From the U.S. Army website:
Sergeant First Class Herbert A. Miller, of Fernwood, New York, whose life was saved by fellow POW Chaplain (Capt.) Emil Kapaun during the Korean War, died on Nov. 22, 2023. He was 97.
During the Battle of Unsan, Korea, Nov. 2, 1950, Chinese Communist forces encircled the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. Chaplain Kapaun moved fearlessly from foxhole to foxhole under direct enemy fire in order to provide comfort and reassurance to the outnumbered Soldiers. Kapaun pushed aside a Chinese soldier preparing to execute Miller, whose injuries prevented him from walking on his own. Kapaun carried and supported the hobbled sergeant over the more than 60 miles they marched to the POW camp. Kapaun’s continued support saved Miller’s life and inspired the other American captives around him.
Captivity offered no relief. At a prison camp near the Yalu River, Americans endured hunger, cold, disease, and despair. Kapaun searched for food, cared for the sick, washed filthy clothing, and improvised containers to boil water. He held prayers despite the guards’ threats. To starving prisoners, a scrap of food mattered.
So did knowing someone still considered them worth saving.
He showed compassion without asking whether a man shared his faith. Fellow prisoners remembered his stubborn resistance to efforts to break their spirits. He conducted services despite his captors’ restrictions. The men could see he was growing weaker, yet he kept giving them what little strength he had left.
Eventually, illness and malnutrition overtook him. His captors moved him to a primitive hospital, a place the prisoners feared. Fellow captives remembered him urging them to keep their faith. Father Kapaun died on May 23, 1951. He was 35 years old. His fellow prisoners had watched a man sacrifice his freedom, his health, and eventually his life for them.
Those who returned home refused to let his name disappear. Their testimony helped secure a posthumous Medal of Honor in 2013. His nephew Ray accepted it at the White House. In 2025, Pope Francis declared Kapaun Venerable, advancing his cause toward sainthood.
But his family had waited for something more personal. Kapaun’s remains had been returned from Korea after the war without identification and buried as an unknown in Hawaii. Investigators exhumed them in 2019, and scientific analysis finally identified him in 2021. That September, an honor guard escorted him home to Kansas for a funeral and burial in Wichita.
From the Defense/POW Accounting Agency:
In 1993, Pope John Paul II declared Kapaun a Servant of God, the first stage toward possible canonization, which is the culmination of the Roman Catholic Church’s recognition of a deceased person as a saint.
At a White House ceremony on April 11, 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Kapaun the Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism and selflessness.
X-14550 Operation GLORY was disinterred as part of the DPAA’s Korean War Disinterment Project on Aug. 19, 2019, and was transferred to the DPAA Laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.
To identify Kapaun’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.
Kapaun’s name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with the others who are still missing from the Korean War. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
Kapaun will be buried Sept. 29, 2021, in Wichita, Kansas.
In the front row of the funeral sat Herbert Miller, with his wife, Joyce. More than 70 years earlier, Kapaun had refused to leave Miller behind. Now the soldier he saved had lived long enough to welcome him home.
Father Kapaun had once stayed because wounded men needed him. In the end, the men he saved made certain their padre was never forgotten.
From Father Kapaun’s Medal of Honor citation:
Chaplain Emil J. Kapaun, while assigned to Headquarters Company, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism, patriotism, and selfless service between Nov. 1-2, 1950. During the Battle of Unsan, Kapaun was serving with the 3rd Battalion of the 8th Cavalry Regiment. As Chinese Communist forces encircled the battalion, Kapaun moved fearlessly from foxhole to foxhole under direct enemy fire in order to provide comfort and reassurance to the outnumbered Soldiers. He repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to recover wounded men, dragging them to safety. When he couldn't drag them, he dug shallow trenches to shield them from enemy fire. As Chinese forces closed in, Kapaun rejected several chances to escape, instead volunteering to stay behind and care for the wounded. He was taken as a prisoner of war by Chinese forces on Nov. 2, 1950.
Once inside the dismal prison camps, Kapaun risked his life by sneaking around the camp after dark, foraging for food, caring for the sick, and encouraging his fellow Soldiers to sustain their faith and their humanity. On at least one occasion, he was brutally punished for his disobedience, being forced to sit outside in subzero weather without any garments. When the Chinese instituted a mandatory re-education program, Kapaun patiently and politely rejected every theory put forth by the instructors. Later, Kapaun openly flouted his captors by conducting a sunrise service on Easter morning, 1951.
When Kapaun began to suffer from the physical toll of his captivity, the Chinese transferred him to a filthy, unheated hospital where he died alone. As he was being carried to the hospital, he asked God's forgiveness for his captors, and made his fellow prisoners promise to keep their faith. Chaplain Kapaun died in captivity on May 23, 1951.
Chaplain Emil J. Kapaun repeatedly risked his own life to save the lives of hundreds of fellow Americans. His extraordinary courage, faith and leadership inspired thousands of prisoners to survive hellish conditions, resist enemy indoctrination, and retain their faith in God and country. His actions reflect the utmost credit upon him, the 1st Cavalry Division, and the United States Army.
