Don Carlos Faith Jr.

In the frozen darkness east of the Chosin Reservoir, Lieutenant Colonel Don Carlos Faith Jr. faced an ordeal few commanders could have survived. Surrounded by overwhelming Chinese forces, cut off from friendly troops, and responsible for a column filled with wounded men, Faith repeatedly placed himself wherever the fighting was most dangerous. He would not survive the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, but his leadership during five desperate days of combat became one of the most extraordinary stories of the Korean War and earned him the Medal of Honor, the United States' highest military decoration for valor.

Don Carlos Faith Jr. was born on 26 August 1918 in Washington, Indiana, into a family already closely connected with the United States Army. His father, Don Carlos Faith Sr., was an Army officer, and the younger Faith spent portions of his childhood in China, the Philippines, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. He later attended Georgetown University. In June 1941, months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States fully into the Second World War, Faith entered the Army and began the career that would eventually take him from the airborne battlefields of Europe to the mountains of North Korea. After basic training and Officer Candidate School, he received his commission in February 1942 and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division.

World War II quickly transformed the young officer into a combat veteran. Faith served with the 82nd Airborne Division and later with airborne headquarters in campaigns across North Africa and Europe. His wartime service took him through North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany, including airborne operations associated with some of the most demanding campaigns fought by American forces in the European theater. His performance brought rapid advancement, and by June 1945 he had reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. Official Department of Defense accounts credit Faith with two Bronze Star Medals and the French Croix de Guerre for his World War II service. These decorations reflected a combat record already distinguished before he ever reached Korea.

The end of World War II did not end Faith's Army career. He served briefly in the Philippines, returned to the United States for duty as Army secretary to the United Nations Military Staff Committee, then served in China in 1948 before joining American occupation forces in Japan. When the Korean War erupted in June 1950, Faith was already in the Far East. As a lieutenant colonel, he received command of the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, and soon led his battalion into Korea.

By late November 1950, United Nations forces had advanced deep into North Korea. Faith's battalion was operating with elements of the 31st Regimental Combat Team on the eastern side of the Chosin Reservoir when Chinese forces struck in enormous strength during the night of 27 November. The Americans suddenly found themselves surrounded in brutal winter conditions. Faith moved through heavy enemy fire directing his battalion's defense and personally led counterattacks when Chinese troops broke into American positions. His Medal of Honor citation records that when his battalion was ordered to link with another isolated American force, Faith personally reconnoitered the route, directed the first elements across the ice-covered reservoir, and remained behind to supervise vehicles carrying wounded soldiers through enemy fire. Only after the rest of his command had crossed did he follow.

The situation became even more desperate when the commander of the 31st Regimental Combat Team, Lieutenant Colonel Allan D. MacLean, was lost during the fighting. Command of the isolated force passed to Faith. The battered formation would later become known as Task Force Faith, a name permanently associated with the Army's stand east of Chosin. With ammunition dwindling, casualties mounting, and Chinese forces tightening their grip, Faith was ordered to fight south toward Hagaru-ri. The withdrawal was not a simple movement to the rear. It was a running battle through roadblocks, ambushes, freezing temperatures, and repeated attacks against a column crowded with wounded soldiers.

Again and again, Faith went forward when the column stalled. According to his Medal of Honor citation, when enemy fire stopped the retreat, he ran to the front, got his exhausted soldiers moving, and personally led attacks through the Chinese encirclement. At a roadblock near a hairpin turn, Faith organized one group to strike the enemy flank, then placed himself at the head of another assault. Armed with his pistol and grenades, he advanced directly against the position under intense fire. When he had closed to roughly thirty yards, he was struck and mortally wounded by grenade fragments. Even after being hit, Faith continued directing the attack until the roadblock was overrun.

The official Medal of Honor citation summarized five days in which Faith repeatedly disregarded his own safety, sought out the places of greatest danger, and inspired men who were physically exhausted and fighting for survival. The award covered his actions from 27 November through 1 December 1950. Importantly, the Medal of Honor did not simply accompany an earlier Korean War Silver Star. The official award specifically superseded the prior Silver Star First Oak Leaf Cluster, announced in Headquarters X Corps General Orders No. 32 of 23 February 1951 for Faith's gallantry on 27 November. His Medal of Honor was published in Department of the Army General Orders No. 59, dated 2 August 1951. His family received the Medal of Honor on his behalf at the Pentagon from General Omar N. Bradley.

Faith had been seriously wounded during the breakout on 1 December 1950. Postwar eyewitness accounts and casualty records concluded that he subsequently died from those wounds on 2 December. Battlefield conditions made recovery of his body impossible, and for decades he remained among the thousands of American servicemen still unaccounted for from the Korean War.

His story, however, did not end beside the Chosin Reservoir. In 2004, a joint United States and North Korean team investigated the area where Faith had last been seen and recovered remains from a burial site. Specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory combined historical and circumstantial evidence with dental examination and mitochondrial DNA analysis. The DNA matched Faith's brother, helping establish the identification. His remains were formally identified in August 2012, nearly sixty-two years after his death.

On 17 April 2013, Lieutenant Colonel Don Carlos Faith Jr. was finally buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. The commander whose men had once fought to bring their wounded comrades out of an impossible battlefield had, after more than six decades, finally come home. His name remains inseparable from Task Force Faith and the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, but his legacy reaches beyond a single battle. From the airborne campaigns of World War II to his final stand in Korea, Faith's career was defined by leadership under fire and an extraordinary willingness to share the dangers faced by the soldiers he commanded.