Henry Breault – No Questions, Just Action

“Although it is not a competition, whose heroic actions that earned the Medal of Honor do you deem most impressive?”

Hands down, the story of the only enlisted submariner to earn the Medal of Honor: Henry Breault.

His citation:

For heroism and devotion to duty while serving on board the U.S. submarine 0-5 at the time of the sinking of that vessel. On the morning of 28 October 1923, the 0-5 collided with the steamship Abangarez and sank in less than a minute. When the collision occurred, Breault was in the torpedo room. Upon reaching the hatch, he saw that the boat was rapidly sinking. Instead of jumping overboard to save his own life, he returned to the torpedo room to the rescue of a shipmate whom he knew was trapped in the boat, closing the torpedo room hatch on himself. Breault and Brown remained trapped in this compartment until rescued by the salvage party 31 hours later.

[Emphasis mine]

A better description of the event can be found here and here, but there are a couple of things I find noteworthy about Breault’s actions:

• There couldn’t have been much time for him to make that decision between personal safety and the fate of the crewman he knew was asleep. Submarines in this situation don’t instantaneously flood, but there is also very little leeway for indecisiveness. Perhaps he figured he could get Chief Brown and they could make their way out before the situation became too critical…
• There was no way that Breault could know that the resources for his rescue were pretty much on site. This was 1923 – a time when submarines were still relatively new in concept and use; safety hadn’t quite gotten to the rigid procedures and specifications of today. Breault had to make a very clear choice: a near-certain and quite possibly slow death by drowning or asphyxiation, or instant safety.

Motivation will always impress me, whether it is how to get my son to want to clean his room, my daughter’s willful stubbornness to figure out this whole standing on her own thing, or how people react in times of crisis… I will never cease to be amazed about the “why” more than what people do.

For Breault… yeah, he is definitely someone I find as one of the most impressive recipients of the Medal of Honor because he never seemed to stop and ask himself “why?”