Emil Kapaun
Emil Joseph Kapaun was an American Catholic priest and United States Army captain who served as a chaplain during World War II and the Korean War.
Kapaun was a chaplain in the Burma Theater of World War II, then served again as a chaplain with the U.S. Army in Korea, where he was captured. He died in a prisoner of war camp. In 2013, Kapaun posthumously received the Medal of Honor for his actions in Korea. He is the ninth American military chaplain awarded the Medal of Honor. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Kapaun's body was accounted for on March 2, 2021.
In 1993, Pope John Paul II declared him a Servant of God, the first stage on the path to canonization in the Catholic Church. In 2025, Pope Francis declared him Venerable, the next stage on the path to canonization.
Early life
Emil Joseph Kapaun was born on April 20, 1916, and grew up on a farm southwest of Pilsen, Kansas, on rural 260th Street of Marion County, Kansas. His parents, Enos and Elizabeth Kapaun, were Czech immigrants. He graduated from Pilsen High School in May 1930. Kapaun also graduated from Conception Abbey seminary college in Conception, Missouri, in June 1936 and Kenrick Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1940.Priesthood
On June 9, 1940, Kapaun was ordained a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Wichita by Bishop Christian Herman Winkelmann at what is now Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. He celebrated his first Mass at St. John Nepomucene Catholic Church in Pilsen, Kansas. In January 1943, Kapaun was appointed auxiliary chaplain at the Herington Army Airfield near Herington, Kansas.U.S. Army service
World War II
Kapaun entered the U.S. Army Chaplain School at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts in August 1944, and after graduating in October began his military chaplaincy at Camp Wheeler, Georgia. He and one other chaplain ministered to approximately 19,000 servicemen and women.He was sent to India and served in the Burma Theater from April 1945 to May 1946. He ministered to U.S. soldiers and local missions, sometimes traversing nearly a month by jeep or airplane. He was promoted to captain in January 1946. He was released from active duty in July 1946. Under the G.I. Bill, he earned a Master of Arts degree in Education at Catholic University of America in February 1948.
In September 1948, he returned to active duty in the U.S. Army and resumed his chaplaincy at Fort Bliss near El Paso, Texas. In December 1949, Kapaun left his parents and Pilsen for the last time, bound for Japan.
Occupation of Japan
In January 1950, Kapaun became a chaplain in the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, often performing battle drills near Mount Fuji, Japan. On July 15, 1950, the 1st Cavalry Division and Kapaun embarked and left Tokyo Bay sailing for Korea, less than a month after North Korea had invaded South Korea.Korean War
1st Cavalry Division
The 1st Cavalry Division made the first amphibious landing in the Korean War on July 18, 1950. The Division was soon moved up to help slow the North Korean Korean People's Army 's advance until more reinforcements could arrive. The division engaged in several skirmishes with the KPA but had to retreat each time. Kapaun and his assistant learned of a wounded soldier stranded by enemy machine gun and small arms fire during one of these retreats. Knowing that no litter bearers were available, the two braved enemy fire and saved the man's life, for which Kapaun was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with a "V" device for valor.The KPA drove the U.S. forces back into a perimeter around the port city of Pusan. Kapaun continued to make the rounds to encourage and pray with the troops of the 8th Regiment. His main complaint was lack of sleep for several weeks at a time. Finally, in mid-September and after the landing at Inchon, Kapaun and the rest of the United Nations Command forces broke out of the perimeter and pursued the KPA northward. On October 9, the division crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea, capturing the capital of Pyongyang and advancing to within of the Chinese border.
Throughout the months of fighting, Kapaun gained a reputation for bravely serving the troops, rescuing the wounded and dead, and ministering to the living by performing baptisms, hearing confessions, offering Holy Communion and celebrating Mass on an improvised altar set up on the front end of a Jeep. Several times his Mass kit Jeep and trailer were destroyed by enemy fire. In letters home, he shared that he was thoroughly convinced that others' prayers helped him survive.
Prisoner of war
The United Nations forces progressed northward but were met by a surprise intervention by the Chinese People's Volunteer Army. The first engagement with this new enemy took place at the Battle of Unsan near Unsan, North Korea, on November 1–2, 1950. Nearly 20,000 PVA soldiers attacked Kapaun's 8th Cavalry Regiment. Despite pleas for him to escape, he stayed behind with the 800 men of the 3rd Battalion as the rest of the regiment retreated. During the battle, he braved enemy fire and rescued nearly 40 men, for which he was later awarded the Medal of Honor. The U.S. 5th Cavalry Regiment attempted several times to rescue the beleaguered 3rd Battalion, but was unsuccessful. Kapaun and other members of the 3rd Battalion were taken prisoner and marched to a temporary prison camp at Sombakol, near the permanent camp at Pyoktong, North Korea, where they were later held. Kapaun was able to persuade some prisoners, who had ignored orders from officers, to carry the wounded.In the prison camp, sometimes up to two dozen men died a day from malnutrition, disease, lice, and extreme cold. Kapaun refused to give in to despair. He dug latrines, mediated disputes, gave away his food and raised morale. He was noted among his fellow POWs as one who would steal food for the men to eat. He also stood up to communist indoctrination, smuggled dysentery drugs to the doctor, Sidney Esensten, and led the men in prayer.
Death and burial
Kapaun developed a blood clot in one of his legs, besides having dysentery and pneumonia. Weakened as the months passed, he managed to lead an Easter sunrise service on Sunday, March 25, 1951.He was so weak the prison guards took him to a place in the Pyoktong camp they called the "hospital," where he died of malnutrition and pneumonia on May 23, 1951. It was originally reported Father Kapaun was buried in a mass grave near the Yalu River. However, in 2005 one of Kapaun's fellow POWs, William Hansen, said he and other prisoners had buried Kapaun separately in a single grave on higher ground, marking the gravesite with stones.
He was one of twelve chaplains to die in Korea. Four U.S. Army chaplains were taken prisoner in 1950, all of whom died while in captivity.
As part of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement, Kapaun's remains were among the 1,868 which were returned to U.S. custody in Operation Glory, although they were not able to be identified. His remains were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, around 1956. His remains were disinterred and identified as part of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s Korean War Disinterment Project, a seven-phase plan begun in 2018, to disinter all remaining Korean War Unknowns from the NMCP.
On March 4, 2021, U.S. senator Jerry Moran and the Catholic Diocese of Wichita confirmed the remains of Emil Kapaun had been identified.
On September 29, 2021, a Mass of Christian Burial was held in Kapaun's home state of Kansas at the Hartman Arena in Park City, near Wichita. Afterwards, a horse-drawn caisson carried his remains to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, where he was buried with full military honors inside the church.
Awards and decorations
Kapaun's Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded by the U.S. Army to the Medal of Honor on April 11, 2013. He was awarded the following U.S and foreign military awards:Medal of Honor
On August 18, 1951, he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary action on November 1–2, 1950. However, his fellow soldiers and POWs felt that Kapaun deserved the Medal of Honor. In 2001, U.S. representative Todd Tiahrt began a campaign to award the Medal of Honor to Kapaun. Before leaving office on September 16, 2009, Secretary of the Army Pete Geren sent Tiahrt a letter, agreeing that Kapaun was worthy of the honor. Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also agreed.The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 contained an authorization and a request to the president to upgrade Kapaun's Distinguished Service Cross to the Medal of Honor for acts of bravery during the Battle of Unsan on November 1–2, 1950, and while a prisoner of war until his death on May 23, 1951. President Obama presented the medal awarded on behalf of Kapaun to Kapaun's nephew at the White House on April 11, 2013.
His Medal of Honor citation reads:
Legion of Merit
Whereas the Medal of Honor is an award given to recognize extraordinary courage during battle, the Legion of Merit is awarded not primarily for heroism, but for exceptionally meritorious service in some other capacity. It was awarded to Chaplain Kapaun in recognition for his extraordinary actions as a prisoner of war, even while sick and suffering himself.Bronze Star Medal
Kapaun was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with "V" Device on September 2, 1950, for his actions on August 2, 1950:Taegeuk Order of Military Merit (Republic of Korea)
Kapaun was awarded the Taegeuk Order of Military Merit from President Moon Jae-in on behalf of the Republic of Korea on July 27, 2021. This is the highest military recognition awarded by the Republic of Korea.Cause of beatification and canonization
The following is a general narrative from the many reports of Kapaun's ordeal as a prisoner of war given by many repatriated American soldiers after their release from prison camps. He was most remembered for his great humility, bravery, constancy, love, kindness, and solicitude for his fellow prisoners. "He was their hero... their admired and beloved "padre." He kept up the POWs' morale, and most of all, helped a lot of men to become good Catholics."Reports received noted that Kapaun's feet had become badly frozen, but he continued to administer to the sick and wounded. He continuously went out under heavy mortar and shelling to rescue wounded and dying soldiers, risking capture or death.
Many accounts have been given of the many creature comforts he provided his comrades of the 8th Cavalry Regiment during imprisonment. They were both spiritual and physical. He provided endless hours of prayer and what nourishment he could find to all he could to keep them from starving to death.
A detailed account of Kapaun's life is recounted in Arthur Tonne's Chaplain Kapaun: Patriot Priest of the Korean Conflict:
In a very definite sense, we are all beneficiaries from the life of Fr. Kapaun. He has left us a stirring example of devotion to duty. He has passed on to us a spirit of tolerance and understanding. He has given us a share of dauntless bravery – of body and soul. He has transmitted to every one of us a new appreciation of America and a keener, more realistic understanding of our country's greatest enemy – godlessness, now stalking the world in the form of communism. He has bequeathed a picture of Christ-like life. What Fr. Kapaun willed to us cannot be contained in memorials, however costly or beautiful. It is a treasure for the human soul – the spirit of one who loved and served God and man – even unto death.
When Kapaun was assigned to the 8th Cavalry Regiment, which was surrounded and overrun by the Chinese army in North Korea in October and November 1950, he stayed behind with the wounded when the Army retreated. He allowed his capture, then risked death by preventing Chinese executions of wounded Americans too injured to walk. Following his death, as Kapaun's actions became known, Catholic faithful began to offer devotional prayers to him; these prayers came from U.S. service members, laymen and women across the United States, as well as those in East and Southeast Asia.
In 1993, Kapaun was named a Servant of God by Pope John Paul II, the Vatican's first step toward possible canonization.
On November 9, 2015, the Bishop of the Diocese of Wichita in Wichita, Kansas, Carl A. Kemme, presented the positio, a 1,066-page-long report on his life, ministry, virtues, holiness, and other aspects, that must be compiled by the sponsoring diocese, approved by the bishop, and sent to the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in the Roman Curia at the Vatican, Cardinal Angelo Amato, for review. If the CCS and the pope approve this report, he will be given the title Venerable. If the pope then grants a declaration of martyrdom or approves a miracle posthumously attributed to Kapaun, he can be beatified.
A team of six historians gathered on June 21, 2016, and voiced their approval of the cause.
In January 2022, Fr. John Hotze, the chief investigator for Kapaun's cause for canonization, announced that the Vatican was considering whether to declare Kapaun a martyr for the Catholic faith, which if granted would hasten the process of canonization.
In February 2025, Kapaun was declared Venerable by Pope Francis, the Vatican's second step toward possible canonization.