Rodolfo Hernández
On a rainy, windswept slope in Korea this corporal was seriously wounded but refused to abandon his position, confronting an onrushing enemy with a one-man bayonet charge
True story of bravery from the Korean War
It was another miserable night on a hillside in Korea. Rain was pelting down on the men of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team entrenched about 15 miles south of the village of Wontong-ni. Corporal Rodolfo P. “Rudy” Hernández and other men of Company G, 2nd Battalion, hunkered low in their foxholes, waiting. At approximately 2.00am the shrill whine of North Korean bugles pierced the uneasy calm as the enemy marshalled its strength for an all-out assault on the American positions along the barren slope of Hill 420. The precious high ground was an otherwise innocuous promontory in the rugged terrain of northern Korea, but in the predawn darkness of 31 May 1951, it became a killing field, the focal point of a life and death struggle.
Ten months after the communist Korean People’s Army had surged across the 38th parallel on 25 June 1950, invading South
Korea in an attempt to unify the peninsula by force, United Nations troops had fought the North Koreans and later their allies of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army to a bloody stalemate. Combat ebbed and flowed, and American forces bore the brunt of the fighting alongside the army of the Republic of Korea. By the spring of 1951, the most recent communist offensive had been blunted and subsequently pushed back almost to its starting line by the determined UN forces.
As overtures of peace talks began to circulate, the commanders of the UN counteroffensive that had successfully reversed the enemy’s fortunes were ordered to essentially suspend major offensive operations, consolidate their positions, and conduct only small-scale manoeuvres to maintain security, gather intelligence on North Korean troop movements, and generally harass the enemy.
For Rodolfo Hernández and others like him, however, the order meant to dig in, while the fighting, dying, and muddling through a miserable existence continued just the same. Hernandez, a native of Colton, California, was one of eight children born into a family of farmworkers. In 1948, at the age of 17, he obtained permission from his parents and enlisted in the US Army, volunteered for parachute training, and was assigned to the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment. A few months later, his unit was shipped to Germany as a component of the post-world War II occupation forces. Then, two months after the eruption of the Korean War, the regiment was reorganised, reinforced, and designated the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team.
Among the first American and UN units to reach the Korean peninsula intact following the outbreak of hostilities, the 187th Airborne RCT deployed to the combat zone from
Japan in late August 1950. Nicknamed the “Rakkasans” due to the literal translation of the English “airborne” to Japanese as “falling with umbrellas”, the unit completed a parachute insertion near the towns of Sukchon and Sunchon, fought Chinese troops at Wonju, and then executed a follow-up airdrop in the Munsan-ni Valley on 23 March 1951, the second airborne operation of the Korean War. During its combat service the 187th Airborne RCT earned a Presidential Unit Citation.
Hernández remembered his 11th parachute jump vividly as the troopers exited their transports from an altitude of just 600 feet. “We jumped into the enemy … Before the jump I felt like John Wayne. By the time my chute
“FEARLESSLY ENGAGING THE FOE, HE KILLED 6 OF THE ENEMY BEFORE FALLING UNCONSCIOUS FROM GRENADE, BAYONET, AND BULLET WOUNDS BUT HIS ACTION MOMENTARILY HALTED THE ENEMY ADVANCE…” Medal of Honor Citation
“SHRAPNEL TORE MY HELMET FROM MY HEAD AND [INJURED] A LARGE PART OF MY SKULL AND A PART OF MY BRAIN. I WAS PARALYSED, UNCONSCIOUS… IN A COMA FOR A MONTH” Corporal Rodolfo Hernández
opened, I was already on the ground. The first round that went over my head was artillery. Afterward, I felt this big,” he related, holding two fingers about an inch apart. “I knew they meant business.”
Although it was not their first time in combat, the encounter at Hill 420 was one of the most intense the troopers of the
187th experienced during their entire tour of duty. As the high-pitched communist bugle calls subsided, an intense artillery and mortar barrage erupted. Shells of varied calibre screamed down on the American line, blasting craters and spewing shrapnel in every direction. Machine-guns chattered, and rifle fire crackled as a wave of North Korean troops surged forward, attempting to drive the defenders from the high ground.
Hernández and the rest of Company G fired steadily at the shadowy mass of enemy troops streaming wildly up the slope, peppering their line with automatic weapons fire and stopping long enough to shower the American positions with hand grenades. Early in the fighting both Hernández and his foxhole mate were wounded. The enemy onslaught appeared unstoppable, and as ammunition supplies dwindled the order was passed for the 187th to pull back.
“I was struck all over my body by grenade fragments,” remembered Hernández. “I was hurt bad and getting dizzy.” Still, he kept shooting at the approaching North Koreans
“THESE ARE WONDERFUL CITATIONS. THEY SHOW JUST EXACTLY WHAT THE FIBER OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IS MADE OF. THEY SHOW EXACTLY HOW THE YOUNG MEN FEEL TOWARD THEIR GOVERNMENT” President Harry s. truman at Medal of Honor ceremony
until his rifle jammed when a cartridge cooked off in the chamber. Within seconds he was stunned as a shell fragment sliced through his helmet, inflicting a grievous wound that tore away a portion of his skull and some brain matter.
Hernández hurled hand grenades at the onrushing enemy until his supply was exhausted. “My buddy was firing, and I was firing, and my platoon leader said ‘Withdraw!’ I didn’t want to withdraw. I couldn’t fire more because of the ruptured cartridge. I had six grenades, and I threw all six. At that time I was wounded … I thought no doctor was going to repair me. I might as well go out all the way. I put my bayonet on my rifle and said ‘Here I come!’.”
Hernández emerged from cover, rushing forward and bayoneting the first enemy soldier he encountered. “Every time I took a step, blood rolled down my face. It was hard to see. I killed one with the bayonet, and the second one got me here,” he said, pointing to his chin.
“But he didn’t go very far. He took some of my teeth out. I killed six of them before falling unconscious.”
The one-man bayonet charge rocked the attackers, who hesitated just long enough for Company G and the rest of the 187th Airborne RCT to reorganise and counterattack, regaining the summit of Hill 420. The Americans held on grimly until the North Korean onslaught melted away before daylight.
As soon as they were able, medical personnel moved in. Corpsman Keith Oates was the first to reach Hernández, lying surrounded by the bodies of the six enemy soldiers he had bayoneted to death. Oates did what he could, dressing wounds from enemy bayonets in the soldier’s back and lower lip and sending Hernández down the hill on a litter. Bloody and spattered with mud, his large head wound appearing lethal, Hernández was declared dead as he lay at the aid station. Attendants placed him in a body bag and started to carry him away. Just then, one of them noticed a slight movement of his fingers. Miraculously, he was alive. After evacuation, he remained unconscious for a month. During his recovery, the hero was transferred to several hospitals. Doctors repaired his shattered lower jaw and replaced the missing piece of skull with a plastic plate. His wounds were devastating.
“I had to learn how to swallow, eat, feed myself, walk, and speak,” Hernández recalled. “Months passed before I was able to speak a single word. It took 12 years for me to recover from the massive injuries that I sustained. I underwent multiple surgeries for five years and spent the next eight years working to regain control of my body. I still do not have complete use of my right arm and hand, but I learned to write and do most things with my left hand.”
Early in his recovery Hernández was informed that he would receive the Medal of Honor for his heroism at Hill 420. On 12 April 1952, he was able to stand during the ceremonies in the White House garden as President Harry S. Truman presented the medal to Hernández and two other recipients, Army 1st Lieutenant Lloyd Burke and Technical Sergeant Harold E. Wilson, US Marine Corps.
Hernández’s citation read in part, “His comrades were forced to retire due to lack of ammunition but Cpl. Hernández, although wounded in an exchange of grenades, continued to deliver deadly fire into the ranks of the onrushing assailants until a ruptured cartridge rendered his rifle inoperative. Immediately leaving his position, Cpl.
Hernández rushed the enemy armed only with rifle and bayonet.”
After the war, Rodolfo Hernández returned to civilian life, attending college and working for the Veterans Administration in the Los Angeles area as a counsellor to other wounded veterans. He retired to North Carolina, regularly receiving honours and recognition for his valour in Korea. During a Veterans Day parade 56 years after the fateful engagement at Hill 420, he reunited with medic Keith Oates, who had helped save his life. Hernández died in 2013 at the age of 82.