Talk:List of Medal of Honor recipients

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If this list is about recipients of the US Congresional Medal of Honor, why is there a list of foreign Unknowns at the bottom of the page? Have these countries' Unknown soldiers been granted Medals of Honor by the United States Congress? It looks to me like someone stumbled upon this unknown section by accident and placed the non-US unknowns there. I mean no disrespect to these soldiers, but I don't think they belong on this list. --Jpbrenna 02:44, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

---

Ok, I checked, and General Pershing presented a medal to the Unknown Warrior in Britain on behalf of Congress. I suspect this must have been done for the other allied nations that established Unknown Soldier monuments in the 1920's as well. My mistake!--Jpbrenna 03:12, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As of a couple months ago, when I re-organized the list into its current form, every one of the entries was checked against the list on the Army's Medal of Honor website. --Carnildo 06:33, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would like to thank those of you who have created this page to honor these brave men and women who served in the name of our country.

---

Could someone check the links at the bottom of this article? The link for "Unknown Soldier of France" went to the Arc de Triomphe, which doesn't seem right.

Also, the President's speech at the presentation of Paul R. Smith's award included the following statement: "I want to thank the Medal of Honor recipients who have joined us today: John Baker, Barney Barnum, Bernie Fisher, Al Rascon and Brian Thacker. Honored you all are here. "

Some of these guys seem to be omitted from the list. I will look at it when I get time, if no-one else does. Manning 05:11, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Since the medal has been awarded to 3,409 people, I'd say we're missing a few ;-) The French "Unknown Soldier" goes to the Arc de Triomphe because that's where the French Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is. --Carnildo 06:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Recipient Pages 2 3,400 Medals of Honor 3 Baldomero Lopez 4 Regarding Desmond T. Doss Sr. 5 Richard Anderson and James Anderson 6 Little Big Horn 7 Presuming that this list is incomplete 8 Complete Civil War list 9 Complete Indian Wars list 10 Missing Wars (conflicts)? 11 The numbers 12 Obscurity concerns 13 Double awardees list?

[edit] Recipient Pages

I hate to be a nitpick but over 3000 have received the Medal of Honor. Anyone can just list the names but it would be better if those listed also had individual pages. --Dysepsion 04:09, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Quite a while since the above comment was posted, but along these lines I've recently gone through the Korean War section and created pages for the Army and Air Force personnel who didn't have pages yet (the Navy and Marines had already been done). As I was working on these, I was thinking that if I continue into a different era, I'll first create a 'standard template' (lack of better words, it wouldn't be a Wiki template) that I could cut 'n paste for each page/person, then fill in with the citation text and whatever other info was available. But first, I'm thinking it would be better to go back through the Korean War section and see what, if any, additional info could be found for those individuals, and see if maybe a better description of the 'area' (like name of a famous battle or whatever), could be found. Most of the names supplied for the location are pretty meaningless (and probably mis-spelled), so a better geographical reference would be nice. wbfergus 14:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 3,400 Medals of Honor

Here's my idea:

MoH citations are all PD. So, what I'm going to do is make sub-lists by conflict, or where appropriate combine conflicts, or even break down further, etc. in this format:

Name	Rank	Place of action	Date of action	Citation summary
James F. Adams	Private	Nineveh, Va.	12 November 1864	Capture of State flag of 14th Virginia Cavalry (C.S.A.)
John G. B. Adams	Second Lieutenant	Fredericksburg, Va.	13 December 1862	Seized the 2 colors from the hands of a corporal and a lieutenant as they fell mortally wounded, and with a color in each hand advanced across the field to a point where the regiment was reformed on those colors.
Michael Aheam	Paymaster's Steward	On board USS Kearsage, near Cherbourg, France	19 June 1864	Carrying out his duties courageously, PmS. Aheam exhibited marked coolness and good conduct and was highly recommended by his divisional officer for gallantry under enemy fire.

Although my own POV is that all 3,400 or so are notable enough to warrant their own articles, I don't think that all will make it beyond this list.

Anyway, let me know what you think, oh, and 3,400 entries will take a long time to finish, so bear with me... --Easter Monkey 09:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

If you dont include the citation summary... but merely link to it on the army mil site, you'll save yourself a hell of a lot of time.  ALKIVAR™ 22:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Meh, I'll have to get the names, ranks, battles, and dates anyway, citations is just one more field...plus the early ones are mostly short enough that the whole thing can get put in. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Plus I anticipate this being a long term project anyway, so no big deal. --Easter Monkey 04:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Good luck Easter Monkey. Quite a project. Let me know if you need help. --Dysepsion 04:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, there will be plenty of work to go around. On the citations, I was looking at the current version of this list and thought that even a summary of the citation might be to much from a purely aesthetic point of view. I don't like how it scrunches up the date in the wikitable. Maybe a "Notes" column, ah but there again, that would tend to turn out to be akin to summarizing the citation anyway. Hrm, I'll have to think about it. Any thoughts? Easter Monkey 08:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Like i said before if you made each Citation summary a link to the army mil page, you wouldnt have issues. for example:

Name	Rank	Place of action	Date of action	Citation summary
James F. Adams	Private	Nineveh, Va.	12 November 1864	Citation
John G. B. Adams	Second Lieutenant	Fredericksburg, Va.	13 December 1862	Citation
Michael Aheam	Paymaster's Steward	On board USS Kearsage, near Cherbourg, France	19 June 1864	Citation

You'll notice that both the name, place, and date all no longer wrap.  ALKIVAR™ 08:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

It might also be worth noting that http://www.medalofhonor.com/recipients/ has each individual citation on an individual page as opposed to one REALLY LONG list. As content is PD, it doesnt matter which site we link to. Apparently so does http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/war/1_a_main.html  ALKIVAR™ 08:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

also of interest on the http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/ page is a list of all PURGED MOH recipients.  ALKIVAR™ 08:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Aha, thanks for that, it's a learning process... That looks a whole lot better and much more appropriate for the lengthy lists. I think though for the more notable entries on the List of Medal of Honor recipients page that we would be well served to post a link and and a summary of the citation, in an effort to show why each is in fact notable. --Easter Monkey 10:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I think posting the summary on this page is just needless clutter and extra text. Any citation data should go into a stub article on the specific individual.  ALKIVAR™ 11:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to change it to a "Notes" column and put whatever truly notable things about various individuals. I took a look at the medalofhonor.com site, looks like somebody got bored, the individual pages only go up to James Allen. Anyway, I think for the big lists I won't put a citation column or notes, well, we'll see, I've only just barely begun. --Easter Monkey 17:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, my bad, I found that out after I really started browsing... now the Home of the Heroes site on the other hand does in fact have citations for just about 99% of them. The guy who runs that site is used by the FBI to identify fake medal of honor winners.  ALKIVAR™ 21:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, got it, I see it, I could do without the music when you first open the page though. Oh well. --Easter Monkey 04:37, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest a somewhat more complicated table format, to reduce wrapping, e.g.

Name	Rank	Place of action
	Service	Date of action
Citation summary
James F. Adams	Private	Nineveh, Va.
	U.S. Army	12 November 1864
Capture of State flag of 14th Virginia Cavalry (C.S.A.) (Full citation)
John G. B. Adams	Second Lieutenant	Fredericksburg, Va.
	U.S. Army	13 December 1862
Seized the two colors from the hands of a corporal and a lieutenant as they fell mortally wounded, and with a color in each hand advanced across the field to a point where the regiment was reformed on those colors. (Full citation)
Michael Aheam	Paymaster's Steward	On board USS Kearsarge, near Cherbourg, France
	U.S. Navy	19 June 1864
Carrying out his duties courageously, PmS. Aheam exhibited marked coolness and good conduct and was highly recommended by his divisional officer for gallantry under enemy fire. (Full citation)
NAME	RANK	ACTIONPLACE
	SERVICE	ACTIONDATE
CITATION [LINK (Full citation)]

(Hmm, the separator between entries didn't come out the way I expected.)

Mr. Woods, I like it, but how about this:

Name	Rank	Place of action
	Service	Date of action
James F. Adams [1]	Private	Nineveh, Va.
	U.S. Army	12 November 1864
John G. B. Adams [2]	Second Lieutenant	Fredericksburg, Va.
	U.S. Army	13 December 1862
Michael Aheam [3]	Paymaster's Steward	On board USS Kearsarge, near Cherbourg, France
	U.S. Navy	19 June 1864
NAME	RANK	ACTIONPLACE
	SERVICE	ACTIONDATE

I'll use the homeofheroes links instead. I think I'm going to have to spend more time and write something to semi-automate the process. --Easter Monkey 04:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I think both of these multi-line per entry variations will make this table needlessly long. I still think my version above with one line per entry is better. Frankly any additional commentary on the person really belongs in a stub on them.  ALKIVAR™ 13:38, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

On second thought I tend to agree. I'll work here and then post to the final. I think that this will end up being the final format. --Easter Monkey 16:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Baldomero Lopez

1LT Baldomero Lopez, USMC needs to be added in Korea.--ProdigySportsman 04:31, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

• done--Looper5920 06:34, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding Desmond T. Doss Sr.

MoH recipient Desmond T. Doss Sr., 87, recently died on March 23 this year. He was the only conscientious objector to receive the medal. I hope no one minds, I notated this in the "notes" section. Rarelibra 19:02, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

==Charles DeGlopper== I'm pretty new to wikipedia, at least editing entries, so shouldn't there be a link (even an inactive link) to CharlesDeGlopper, the only Glider trooper rewarded an MOH? --V. Joe 06:06, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Richard Anderson and James Anderson

I once sailed on an United States MSC vessel named "PFC James Anderson, Jr." The vessel was named after a marine who received the medal for actions very similar, almost suspiciously so, to Richard Anderson (rolling onto an enemy grenade). See http://www.msc.navy.mil/inventory/citations/anderson.htm That would tell me there are two Andersons who received the Medal of Honor for actions in Vietnam. Anyone care to update the list?Thedukeofno 11:46, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The external links on the article page go to the complete list of citations. There were, in fact, two Marines named Anderson who recieved the Medal for rolling on a grenade. Please note that the list here is incomplete and is expanded when people like you add to it. Rmhermen 16:14, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Little Big Horn

Pym and Thompson are shown as getting their medals for actions on 28 June. According to Battle of the Little Big Horn, the fighting was 25/26 June and indians retreated on 27 June. -- Beardo 22:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Presuming that this list is incomplete

I came to this article expecting to find someone on it from the Vietnam war (lt col Andre Lucas), but he was not on it, so I added him last night. Crockspot 19:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Complete Civil War list

I wrote a page scraper that pulls data from the U.S. Army Center of Military History sites. It's not perfect, the resulting lists need a lot of post-processing. I finished post-processing the Civil War list, and there were a few issues:

• "Elmer E. Ellsworth" was on our list but does not appear on the official Army listing, so I left him out
• "William E. Johnston" was on our list, there was a "Willie Johnston" on the official Army list, but the date/place/notes didn't match up. I left out "William E. Johnston" and kept in "Willie Johnston".
• "Mary E. Walker" was on our list with a single date and place listed, but the Army list gives many dates and places. I put "various" for both date and place.
• This list is huge now, the Civil War list should probably get it's own page and maybe be broken up further

Jwillbur 07:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Jwillbur, Nice job. Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth has an interesting story. He was one of the first deaths in the war. He was leading a group of men into Alexandria, VA. He saw a confederate flag at an inn and cut it down. The innkeeper shot and killed him. One of his men, Frank Brownell, then killed the innkeeper. Brownell got a Medal of Honor, Ellsworth didn't. Your list is correct. Brownell's medal is now at the Smithosonian. Ydorb 17:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing it up, Ydorb Jwillbur 19:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Bah, I just moved the Civil War list to List of Civil War Medal of Honor recipients, but now I'm thinking it should be at List of Medal of Honor recipients: Civil War A-L and List of Medal of Honor recipients: Civil War M-Z instead. I don't know. Jwillbur 19:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Complete Indian Wars list

Indian Wars list is complete. A few issues:

• Henry Hogan - rank for second award was on our old list but not given in citation. Left it out.
• James Pym - discrepency between what was on our old list and the official citation for date and notes. Went with what was on the citation.
• Peter Thompson - discrepency between our old list and citation for the date. Went with date on the citation.

Jwillbur 19:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

If this website is correct the Indian Wars list is not complete. A veteran by the name of Frank West fought during the Indian Wars. That web site has a list of all Medal of Honor recipients buried Arlington Cemetery. A good resource to cite from. Throw 22:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Frank West is on the list, see List of Medal of Honor recipients: Indian Wars. Thanks for the tip about the Arlington site. -- Jwillbur 23:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

My mistake. Though he's listed as a Colonel on Arlington Cemetery's website and a First Lieutenant on Wikipedia. Throw 01:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

No problem. The ranks on this list are the person's rank at the time of thier Medal of Honor action, although that is not made clear on the page. That should be added somewhere, but I'm not sure the best place for it. -- Jwillbur 03:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I added it to the opening paragraph. Do you think that's clear enough? Throw 04:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing Wars (conflicts)?

Hey all,

I came upon this list after reading about the Marine who has been awarded the MoH. I am wondering, where's the list of MoH holders for: Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the War on terrorism? - Thanks, Hoshie 01:03, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

There weren't any MOH's awarded during those conflicts. Rmhermen 01:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, look at Jason Dunham. bahamut0013♠♣ 17:24, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

That was awarded two months after the question was asked. Rmhermen (talk) 17:43, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The numbers

I know that it can get very confusing, but according to the most thourough ref I've ever seen (http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/war/1_a_main.html), the final numbers are:

A total of 3,464 Medals of Honor have been awarded to 3,445 soldiers and civilians for 3,459 individual actions. "Medals of Honor have been awarded to 3,464 American Soldiers."
This statement is FALSE for several reasons. The first is in the actual numbers: Since it was established in 1862 a total of 3,464 Medals of Honor (Army, Navy/Marine Corps, and Air Force) have been awarded for specific acts of heroism. During World War I, however, FIVE MARINES received BOTH the Army Medal of Honor and the Navy Medal of Honor for THE SAME ACTION. This means that there have actually been 3,459 SEPARATE ACTS OF VALOR THAT HAVE BEEN RECOGNIZED WITH A MEDAL OF HONOR AWARD. Of the 3,459 heroic actions, 14 were performed by men who had previously been awarded Medals of Honor for a different action (these 14 + the 5 World War I Marines comprise the 19 DOUBLE AWARDEES of the Medal of Honor). When these 14 SECOND ACTIONS by a previous Medal Recipient are subtracted from the total number of Medal of Honor actions, the statement becomes more correct if stated: "3,464 Medals of Honor have been awarded to 3,445 individual American Soldiers." There are 2 additional corrections that are required of this final sentence, however. Of the 3,445 INDIVIDUALS who have received Medals of Honor, FIVE were awarded to FOREIGN NATIONALS (the unknown soldiers of Belgium, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Rumania.) Eight civilians have received Medals of Honor including Dr. Mary Edwards Walker (the only woman to ever receive the award), one civilian scout and two civilian Naval pilots during the Civil War, and 4 civilian scouts during the Indian Campaigns (including William Cody..."Buffalo Bill").

Add to that the 911 names that were struck from the Honor Roll in 1917, 17 sailors removed, 6 civillians restored, as well as a number of conflicting or incorrect data in the Roll. However, I am willing to trust the assertation that "A total of 3,464 Medals of Honor have been awarded to 3,445 soldiers and civilians for 3,459 individual actions." enough to put it in our encyclopedia. Any thoughts? bahamut0013♠♣ 17:24, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

This is fully discussed and properly sourced in the article on the award itself, Medal of Honor. Rmhermen (talk) 17:45, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

A tiny tweak toward accuracy is required, and I'm too much a wiki-rookie to do it. I have discovered there were actually 20 double recipients of the MOH, not 19. Five of these were duplicate awards for the same act, awarded during WWI. These went to Louis Cukela, Ernest Janson, Matej Kocak, John Joseph Kelly, and John Henry Pruitt. These five Marines were in a USMC unit under US Army command and received both Army and Navy MOHs.I remember this much from long ago, but can give no citation offhand. The other 15 won medals for two separate acts of valor. I will list them below, one per line, by name, branch, and theater[s] of action. Frank D. Baldwin, USA, Civil War & Indian Campaigns. Smedley D. Butler, USMC, Vera Cruz & Haiti John Cooper, USN, Civil War Thomas Custer, USA, Civil War Dan Daley, USMC, China Relief Expedition & Haiti Henry Hogan, USA, Indian Campaigns John King, USN, 1901, 1909 John Lafferty, USN, Civil War, 1881 Patrick Leonard, USA, Indian Campaigns John McCloy, USN, China Relief Expedition & Vera Cruz Patrick Mullen, USN, Civil War Robert Sweeney, USN, 1881, 1883 Albert Weisbogel, USN, 1874, 1876 Louis Williams, USN, 1883, 1884 William Wilson, USA, Indian Campaigns I compiled this list via Internet search, mostly within Wikipedia. I hope someone can render it into usability. ````George J. Dorner```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.161.17 (talk) 08:55, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the work George, but I think there are still only 19 double recipients. The two medals awarded to "Patrick Leonard" during the Indian Wars were actually to two different guys - one to Patrick J. Leonard and one to Patrick T. Leonard. jwillbur 17:31, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Obscurity concerns

I had decided it would be good (as some have suggested on this very talk page) to ensure that every MOH recipient has a page of their own. I've put up three new articles, but one (John Mapes Adams) was flagged for speedy deletion within hours.

Personally, I think that there's no such thing as an obscure MOH recipient, but I'm worried that some of these guys from the pre-WWI days could be ejected because they're just not as heavily documented as the more recent guys.

Anyone have suggestions to combat this?

ChrisClukey (talk) 03:11, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I was under the impression that any MOH recipient is always notable. Every Victoria Cross recipient has a Wikipedia page, even the early ones. ----Ðysepsion † ^{Speak your mind} 05:32, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

The basic notability guideline is that the subject must have received significant coverage in reliable sources. I've never run across a MOH recipient that hasn't been covered in at least a few sources, although they are definitely harder to find for pre-WWI people than for more recent recipients. A good source to check for Civil War recipients is the Deeds of Valor book (Vol. 1, Vol. 2 (also covers the Indian Wars)). There are also books on MOH recipients by war, by battle, by home state, by branch of service, etc. I've never seen a MOH article get deleted for lack of notability. A few have been flagged, like John Mapes Adams, but they have all been kept. I say you should keep creating articles, and if you are at a loss for sources, feel free to ask here and we'll see what we can find. Happy editing, jwillbur 20:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't let it bother you, some people have different views of notibility. I also think that the format you used might have been a factor. If you use the format on this pageMichael Madden (Medal of Honor recipient) You shouldn't have a problem. Also, there are several references that I use when creating articles for MOH recipients and they are:

• The find a grave website at http://www.findagrave.com/
• The U.S. Army Center for Military History has a complete listing of all the MOH recipients at http://www.history.army.mil/moh.html.
• The Marine Corps Historical Division Who's Who page for USMC MOH recipients at http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/HD/Whos_Who.htm.
• MOH recipients buried at Arlington National Cemetery at http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/medalofh.htm. This is not a public domain website so you can't cut and paste from this site but its a good reference.
• There are a lot of others also and I recommend reviewing the references links on some of the other recipient pages already out there.

Please feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you have any questions or run into any problems. Good Luck and Happy editing.--Kumioko (talk) 22:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Double awardees list?

19 heroes have received the award twice. Maybe we should create a list?

Pros of creating that list: 1. It's interesting to readers. When people see that the number of recipients is less than the number of medals handed out, they naturally are curious it. 2. Maybe they should get more recognition--14 had two separate acts of heroism.

Cons: 1. I could see concern that elevating some recipients could belittle the heroism of the others.

Thoughts? Agnamus (talk) 05:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure, go for it. There is already a category, Category:Two-time Medal of Honor recipients, but it only gives their names and we usually don't link to categories from an article, so it would be nice to have a list to link to. There are a few other lists which single out groups of recipients (see List of African American recipients and List of Hispanic recipients, for example), you could use those as a template to start with. jwillbur 14:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC)