An Unforgettable Chaplain of the "Forgotten War": Father Emil Kapaun

Military and naval Chaplains have been honorably and faithfully serving God, country, and the members of our armed forces and their families since 1775.  Theirs is a special religious and patriotic calling, as chaplains often share the same hardships and dangers as the sailors, Marines, soldiers and airmen that they serve.  In the service of God and country, chaplains have been killed, wounded, injured and taken prisoner.  Chaplains are considered “non-combatants,”  but on the battlefield, bullets and bombs make no distinction between combatants and non-combatants.

 
One chaplain in particular has a compelling and inspiring story. 

Emil Kapaun was born in 20 April 1916 in Pilsen, Kansas.  His parents Enos and Elizabeth were Czech immigrants.  Educated by religious sisters, Emil received a call to the priesthood in his early teens.  With the assistance of his bishop, he studied theology at Kenrick Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri and was ordained a priest on 9 June 1940.  He spent the first several years of his priesthood as a parish priest at his home parish of St. John Nepomucene.  

 
In 1943, Father Kapaun’s bishop assigned him the collateral duty of serving as an auxiliary chaplain at a nearby U.S. Army Air Force base.  Based upon this experience, Father Kapaun felt a calling to military chaplaincy and so in July 1944, he entered the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps.  He completed the Army’s Chaplain School at Fort Devens, Massachusetts and served in Georgia for several months.  Then he was deployed to Burma and India where he served the spiritual needs of service members there until the end of the war.  

 
After the war, now Captain Kapaun was discharged from military service and used his GI Bill funds to earn a Masters of Education degree at Catholic University in Washington DC.  For the next couple years afterwards, he served as a parish priest in his home diocese of Wichita.  

 
Father Kapaun felt a strong calling to return to military chaplaincy.  With his bishop’s permission, he re-entered the U.S. Army in late 1948.  After a period of service at Fort Bliss, Texas, Chaplain Kapaun was sent to join the 1st Cavalry Division in Japan in early 1950.  

 
On 25 June 1950, Communist North Korean forces suddenly invaded South Korea and made rapid advances against meager resistance.  Chaplain Kapaun’s 1st Cavalry Division was sent to repel the North Koreans two weeks later.  The early fighting of the Korean War was disastrous as the heavily outnumbered U.S. / South Korean (Republic of Korea ROK) / United Nations forces desperately fought to halt the Communist invasion.  Stubborn U.S. / ROK / UN defense ultimately halted the North Koreans around the southern port of Pusan. A brilliantly bold amphibious assault by U.S. Marines deep behind enemy lines at Inchon forced the North Koreans to retreat back north.  The U.S., ROK and UN forces pursued them north across the 38th Parallel and were heading towards the Chinese border when Communist China suddenly entered the war with massive forces.  The U.S. / ROK / UN forces were driven back south again below the 38th Parallel before being able to stabilize the situation.  For the next three years, the U.S. / UN / ROK and the North Koreans / Communist Chinese fought a brutal slugfest with each side successively advancing and retreating but never moving far from the 38th Parallel.  Finally an armistice in late July 1953 ended the fighting but not the war…a war that continues in hiatus to this day.  The two Koreas remain divided roughly along the 38th Parallel…a dramatic study in contrasts between Communist oppression and democratic freedom.

During the initial North Korean invasion, the U.S. / UN counter-attack and the Communist Chinese intervention, the 1st Cavalry Division was in the midst of heavy fighting and suffered heavy casualties.  Then serving with the 8th Cavalry Regiment, Father Kapaun was often in the thick of the fighting, taking care of the wounded, administering sacraments - especially the Holy Eucharist and Anointing of the Sick, and attending to the physical and spiritual needs of his soldiers.  He was often under direct enemy fire, yet he never wavered in his devotion to his soldiers and his God.  “He totally disregarded danger,” Army doctor Captain Clarence Anderson later said of him.  “He felt that as long as God wanted him to go on caring for the battle victims nothing would happen to him.”

 
Then in the first days of November 1950, the 8th Cavalry Regiment was surrounded and overwhelmed by a vastly superior Communist Chinese force in the vicinity of Unsan.  As the 8th Cavalry fought to extricate itself from the Communist encirclement, Chaplain Kapaun and Captain Anderson voluntarily stayed behind with the wounded.  Captured by the Communist Chinese, Father Kapaun and his fellow American prisoners of war were marched nearly a hundred miles to a makeshift POW camp near Pyoktong, North Korea.  Throughout the brutal march under awful weather conditions, Father Kapaun inspired his soldiers, many of whom were wounded, to press forward and not give up hope.  

 
Father Kapaun spent the remainder of his life in this dreadful Communist POW camp.  The winter was brutal.  Living conditions were horrendous.  Food was meager and medical treatment virtually non-existent.  Father Kapaun’s steadfast courage and faith was an inspiration to his fellow POWs.  He countered Communist hatred, mistreatment and abuse with faith, hope and love.  He scrounged food for his soldiers, administered sacraments and held worship services and devotions in secret in defiance of his Communist guards.  “His self-sacrifice, his love of his fellowmen, and even his love of his enemy marked him more saint than man,” fellow POW Major Gerald Fink, USMC, later wrote.  

In April 1951, Father Kapaun suffered a blood clot.  Denied proper medical treatment and nutrition by his Communist captors, Father Kapaun’s physical condition steadily declined.  He died on 23 May 1951, having given his last full measure of devotion to his God, his country and his fellow prisoners.  

 
For his heroism and self-sacrifice on the battlefield and in the POW camp, the U.S. Army awarded Father Kapaun the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously.  In 2013, the award was upgraded to the Medal of Honor, our nation’s highest award for combat valor.  

 
After his death, the Communist Chinese buried Father Kapaun’s body in a location unknown to his fellow POWs.   Then in March 2021, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced that they had identified his remains.  Apparently his remains had been included in a large group of unidentified remains returned to the U.S. by the North Koreans following the Armistice.  These remains had been re-interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.  Seven decades later, the DPAA had disinterred many of these remains in an effort to identify them.  Father Kapaun’s remains were fortunately identified and solemnly transferred to the Diocese of Wichita.  With all Catholic and military honors due him, Father Kapaun was entombed in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, Kansas in September 2021.  

Father Kapaun has been recognized as a “Servant of God” and his Cause for Canonization is currently under consideration by the Congregation for Causes of Saints in Rome.  The canonization effort is being led by the Diocese of Wichita.  For more information and to learn how you can help with this effort, visit 

https://frkapaun.org/  

Prayer for Canonization of Father Kapaun

 Lord Jesus, in the midst of the folly of war,

your servant, Chaplain Emil Kapaun,

spent himself in total service to you

on the battlefields and in the prison camps of Korea,

until his death at the hands of his captors.

We now ask you, Lord Jesus, if it be your will,

to make known to all the world the holiness of

Chaplain Kapaun and the glory of his complete

sacrifice for you by signs of miracles and peace.

 In your name, Lord, we ask, for you are the source

of peace, the strength of our service to others,

and our final hope. Amen.

 
Servant of God, Father Emil Kapaun, pray for us!

[My special thanks to the Father Kapaun Guild for their permission to reprint the Prayer for Canonization.  Captain Anderson and Major Fink quotes are from Father Arthur Tome’s The Story of Chaplain Kapaun:  Patriot Priest of the Korean Conflict (Emporia, KS:  Didde Publishers, 1954).]