HM3, U.S. Navy — Korean War
Edward Clyde Benfold was born on January 15, 1931, on Staten Island, New York. His father, a Merchant Marine engineering officer, was killed when his ship was torpedoed by a U-boat in 1942, and Edward grew up in Haddon Heights and Audubon, New Jersey. After graduating from Audubon High School in 1949, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and trained as a hospital corpsman.
Benfold served first as a neuropsychiatry technician, married his high school sweetheart Dorothy Groff in June 1951, then completed Fleet Marine Force field medical training at Camp Lejeune. In July 1952 he reached Korea and was assigned as a corpsman to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division, on the Bunker Hill front.
On September 5, 1952, during a night attack by a force estimated at battalion strength, Benfold moved from position to position under artillery, mortar, and small-arms fire, treating wounded Marines and encouraging them. When the platoon area was attacked from front and rear, he crossed an exposed ridgeline to reach two wounded Marines lying in a large shell crater. As he approached, an enemy soldier threw two grenades into the crater and two others charged. Benfold seized a grenade in each hand, leaped from the crater, and hurled himself against the two attackers, pressing the grenades to their chests. The blasts killed the attackers — and Benfold — but the two wounded Marines survived.
Benfold was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor; on July 16, 1953, it was presented to his one-year-old son, Edward Joseph. He is buried in Beverly National Cemetery, New Jersey, and the guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG-65) carries his name.
Sources: Wikipedia · Congressional Medal of Honor Society