Valor Friday

Colonel Lloyd Burke

Jeff LPH sent an article to me about Lloyd Burke. I’ll post that below, but I did very briefly talk about Colonel Burke before. During my series on the “Most Decorated” men for the various wars and branches, he came up by my count as the most decorated Army officer of the Korean War.

Starting his career as a combat engineer serving in Italy during World War II, he used the GI Bill to go to college after the war. He then commissioned through ROTC, just in time for the next war. Now an infantry officer, he was on his way back home when he stood in the command post and heard his men fighting for their lives. Instead of going to catch his flight home, he rushed to their assistance. He found his company reduced to just 34 battered men pinned in their fox holes against several enemy bunkers. What followed was a one-man warpath of destruction.

With grenades in hand, then-First Lieutenant Burke rushed forward and tried to silence the bunkers. When that failed, he returned to get an M1 rifle. He single-handedly assaulted the first enemy bunker, permanently silencing it. He then attacked, again alone, at the next bunker. Lobbing grenades, he found himself being encircled by three enemy troops as his grenades failed to kill them. So he drew his sidearm and killed all three.

Burke’s men were now rallying behind their seemingly invincible commanding officer. Burke was already assaulting the third enemy bunker alone. With the enemy tossing grenades at them, Burke caught several and returned them to sender, and was now joined by his men in taking out the third position.

Once more pinned down by enemy further up the hill, Burke grabbed a light machine gun and three ammo boxes. He moved through the area of intense enemy fire to set the machine gun up in an open knoll. From there he poured withering fire into the enemy, killing an estimated 75 (which joined the roughly half dozen to a dozen he’d killed attacking those three bunkers moments earlier).

Wounded by now, Burke called for more ammo instead of retreating to a safer position. His fire was accurate enough that he took out two mortar teams and a machine gun crew. He called his men forward, and while cradling the machine gun in his arm, led them into the now retreating enemy, to secure the objective. Along the way he’s said to have killed another 25 enemy.

Army MOH

Burke got the Medal of Honor for this action. This followed his receipt of a Distinguished Service Cross eleven months previous for much the same thing.

When his men were bogged down by intense enemy fire, he personally led them in an assault to break out. Repulsed, he continued to rally his men a further three more times. It takes quite the officer to get his men to follow him in such an assault after being knocked back, but it’s a truly exceptional man that can get others to follow him into certain death over and over again.

Spotting an enemy machine gun that was the crux of the resistance, Burke crawled through heavy enemy fire to get within grenade range. He silenced the nest with accurate hand grenade fire, and then led his men in a fifth charge. They were finally successful.

Burke was also a recipient of two Purple Hearts before leaving Korea as he’d been scheduled to. He remained in the Army as a career, eventually retiring as a colonel. Along the way, he served in Vietnam, earning two more Purple Hearts, and two Bronze Star Medals w/ “V”.

Here’s the Military Times article that Jeff sent me;

On Oct. 28, 1951, 1st Lt. Lloyd Burke was at his unit’s command post, looking at the ticket in his hand. His 13-month tour of duty in Korea was ending and two miles to the rear an airplane was waiting to fly him out.

He’d soon be reunited with his wife and infant son back in Arkansas. At that very same time, however, his unit, G Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, was trying to advance across the Ch’ongch’on River and assault Chong-dong, but things were not going well.

For the past few days Chinese soldiers dug in on Hill 200 had ground the company’s progress to an exhausted halt. The lieutenant visited the 35 remaining troops of his platoon and recognized in their the “thousand mile stare” of broken men.

“Scooter” Burke, as his men called him, had no requirement — in fact, no authorization — to push his luck any further, but he picked up some grenades and rejoined his men. Later, he explained, “I couldn’t see leaving my guys up there without trying to do some something.”

Born in Tichnor, Arkansas, on Sept. 29, 1924, Burke dropped out of Henderson State College in 1943 to join the U.S. Army and served as a combat engineer in Italy, rising to sergeant when World War II ended.

In 1946, he returned to Henderson State, where he graduated in 1950 as a member of Phi Sigma Epsilon fraternity, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and his school’s Distinguished Military Graduate. When he returned to Regular Army service in Korea, he was a commissioned second lieutenant. It was thus, as he was finishing his tour, that he plunged into his most unnecessary —and most distinguished — day of battle.

Calling on his troops to a renewed effort on the hill, Burke obtained an M1 rifle and a grenade throwing adaptor and led an assault on three key enemy emplacements to what his citation called an “exposed vantage point.”

There he led an assault on one of the emplacements, taking the center of the bunker and killing three of the enemy. As he charged the third enemy position, Chinese soldiers threw grenades at him, only to see him pick them up and hurl them back.

Inspired by his example, his men overran another position, but were then pinned down again. Securing a .30-caliber Browning M1919 machine gun and three boxes of ammunition, Burke dashed over an open knoll, set his weapon up in an advantageous position and killed 75 enemy troops.

Although he himself was wounded in the fight, Burke retired only to obtain more ammo and return to his machine gun, with which he and his platoon wiped out two mortars and a machine gun position. Then, cradling the heavy M1919, he joined his men in securing the bunker complex, having killed another 25 Chinese in the process.

Having played an unofficial role in reversing his platoon’s fortunes, Burke returned home with a Silver Star. On April 11, 1952, however, he was called to Washington to receive an upgrade from President Harry Truman — to the Medal of Honor.

Continuing his Army career, Burke entered his third conflict as commander of 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam — only to see the Viet Cong achieve what the Chinese could not. On July 22, 1965, his helicopter was shot down near Bien Hoa and his injuries put him out of the war. After recovering, he was stationed in Germany and later served as the Army’s liaison officer to the U.S. Congress.

In 1978, Burke retired as a colonel with the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross and five Purple Hearts. Lloyd L. Burke died in Hot Springs, Arkansas on June 1, 1999, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Category: Army, Distinguished Service Cross, Historical, Korea, Medal of Honor, Valor, We Remember