Word: hardison
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Thus Lieut. Colonel Felix Hardison, 31-year-old pilot of the Suzy-Q, won his ninth decoration. Staff Sergeant Kenneth Gradle of St. Louis, 2 2-year-old radioman on the plane that flew MacArthur out of the Philippines, received his eighth award, became the U.S.'s most decorated enlisted hero (he already wore the D.F.C. with oak leaf cluster, the silver star with two oak leaf clusters, the Purple Heart with one). Sergeant Gradle had flown on 60 missions, more than any other man in the 19th, and shot down six Zeros-more than enough to call himself...
First full colonel among the 19th's pilots is 29-year-old Richard Carmichael, the group's commander until it was relieved, now a bombardment officer on Lieut. General ("Hap") Arnold's staff. A sure bet to get a colonel's eagles was Felix Hardison, assigned as operations officer of General Olds's Second Air Force Bomber Command. Lieut. Colonel Ted Faulkner, already assigned to a Kansas air base, and Lieut. Colonel James Connally, assigned to a bombardment tactics school in Florida, were also in line for higher rank. Many enlisted men were being commissioned...
...enough American fighters into action to earn for them more than 3.838 medals.* Army heroes won 2,298; the Navy's, 1,388; Marines, 147; Coast Guard, 5. Most decorated: the Navy's Lieut. Commander John Bulkeley, 5; the Army's Lieut. Colonel Felix Hardison...
Other groups will have to break a prodigious record if they win more decorations than the 19th. Over 1,000 medals have been awarded to the living and the dead of the 19th. Major Felix M. Hardison wears the D.S.C., Purple Heart, D.F.C. and Silver Star with three Oak Leaf Clusters. More than 50 men of the 19th have won the D.S.C., including the late Captain John L. DuFrane. who flew missions seven straight days before he was killed in the Celebes. The 19th's own candidate for the Medal of Honor is Captain Harl Pease of Plymouth...