In 1953, when their guards finally released them, POWs walked south carrying a grim-looking, hand-carved, almost 4-foot-long, hand-carved crucifix, from North Korea to South Korea. First they were debriefed by Army officers. Then they carried the crucifix to the war correspondents standing nearby. They said they had a story to tell. They talked for a long time, holding the crucifix like a relic. Within hours, people all over the world heard about a daring and resourceful priest from Kansas who had been murdered by the Chinese guards. His name was Emil Kapaun.Kapaun’s father was a Czech farmer from Kansas. Before Kapaun joined the Army as a chaplain, he was a priest in his little hometown of Pilsen. Kapaun was recklessly brave on many battlefields, dragging wounded soldiers through machine gun fire, getting a tobacco pipe shot out of his mouth, saving dozens of lives in the battle of Unsan, where he was captured. Kapaun saved hundreds of lives in the camps, making homemade pans so prisoners could boil water to stave off dysentery and stealing food from the guards to feed the starving prisoners.
On Jan. 16, 1954, a story in the Saturday Evening Post brought Kapaun’s heroism to a worldwide audience. But this was not enough; years passed, old soldiers began to die, and people began to lose hope.
Read more on how the story unfolds here. For more on Latham’s new book, in which Fr. Kapaun figures prominently, click here.
