Honoring Maine's Heroes

By MSG Robert Haskell

"I don't know why and never will know why my life was spared," commented one of four veterans who remember the hell of combat from a half century ago and who stood as tall as the State House behind them in Augusta, Maine, on the first Tuesday in July.

Former Army CPT Edward Dahlgren, from the northern Maine town of Blaine, and the three other men were bonded by the Medals of Honor suspended from bluebird ribbons around their necks on that sultry July 2 when Maine paid tribute to its 76 native sons who have been honored for "conspicuous gallantry...above and beyond the call of duty.

Dahlgren, who earned his Medal of Honor by leading a rescue mission against a German strongpoint in France on Feb 11, 1945, expressed the mixed emotions of many soldiers who are relieved to have survived the horrors of war and who feel guilty because their friends did not.

More than 200 military and civilian onlookers turned out that Tuesday, however, to celebrate extraordinary feats by 76 men who pressed on when they found themselves in harm's way.

"I was afraid before it happened and after it happened," Dahlgren, 76, told the Portland Press Herald. "But in battle I just acted on the spur of the moment."

A 3-foot by 4-foot bronze plaque bearing all 76 names and the wars and campaigns in which they served was revealed to the crowd and will be displayed in the state capitol's Hall of Flags.

"As long as this is the home of the brave, we will be the land of the free," said Maine Gov. Angus King of those who have earned the medal since it was established by Congress on Dec. 21, 1861, eight months into the Civil War.

One of those men was Joshua L. Chamberlain, Maine's most famous war hero. He commanded the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment during the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 at Pennsylvania and earned the Medal of Honor for holding the left end of the Union line against repeated Confederate assaults on the second day.

The July 2 ceremony hosted by the Maine Medal of Honor Committee in Augusta marked the 133rd anniversary of that Civil War action.

The four Medal of Honor winners present for duty that Tuesday and how they earned their medals:

Edward Dahlgren, a sergeant in the 36th Infantry Division, killed or captured about 50 German soldiers during a vicious street fight in Oberhoffen, France, while spearheading the rescue of a U.S. Army platoon that had been surrounded during an enemy counterattack.
Retired Air Force COL Joy Zeamer Jr., Boothbay Harbor, Maine, was an Army Air Corps bomber pilot whose crew shot down at least five Japanese fighters during a photographic mapping mission over the Solomon Islands on June 16, 1943. Zeamer, who volunteered to pilot the mission, was wounded in both arms and legs, shot down one of the enemy planes, and directed his plane to a base 580 miles away despite lapses into unconsciousness.
Retired Army COL Lewis Millett, a Mechanic Falls native, led a bayonet attack against North Korean and Chinese soldiers near Soam-Ni, Korea, on Feb. 7, 1951. Millett, then a "Wolfhound" rifle company commander in the 27th Infantry, bayoneted two enemy soldiers and so inspired his men during a hand-to-hand fight to the crest of a strongly held hill that the enemy fled in wild disorder. Although wounded by grenade fragments, Millett refused to be evacuated until the hill was secured. It is believed to be the last bayonet charge by a rifle company in American military history.
Everett Parker Pope, who was born in Belgrade and graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, led his 1st Marine Division company of about 90 men into point-blank cannon and small arms fire up a steep coral hill on Peleliu Island in the Pacific to protect an Allied force attempting an amphibious landing. Pope and 13 survivors held the hill against repeated Japanese counterattacks throughout the night of 19-20 Sept. 1944. Eight Marines walked off that hill.
Pope, a retired Boston banker and former chairman of the Bowdoin Board of Trustees, is not listed among the 76 names on the new Maine plaque because he joined the Marines in Milton, Mass. But he has summered in Maine for 40 years.

The history of Maine's Medal of Honor recipients parallels this country's history of warfare.

John Bickford of Tremont was the first loader on the pivot gun aboard the U.S.S. Kersage when it sunk the Confederate raider Alabama off Cherbourg, France, on June 19, 1864.
Air Force MAJ Charles Loring Jr. of Portland, for whom Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, was named, dove his F-80 jet fighter into an enemy gun emplacement near Sniper Ridge in North Korea on Nov. 22, 1952.
Army MSG Gory Gordon or Lincoln became one of the most recent recipients by sacrificing his life while rescuing a downed helicopter crew in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Oct. 3, 1993.

The years have not erased the memories of the actions and the men with whom they fought for the four men honored in Augusta on July 2.

Zeamer reminded the audience that many more soldiers, sailors and Marines have distinguished themselves than the 3,401 who have received 3,420 Medals of Honor, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

"For every medal presented there were many cases of actions that were not witnessed and went unreported," Zeamer said. "When I wear my medal, I think it represents these many cases."

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