Maj, U.S. Air Force — Korean War
Louis Joseph “Lou” Sebille was born on November 21, 1915, in Harbor Beach, Michigan. After attending Wayne State University in Detroit, he moved to Chicago, where he worked as a master of ceremonies — “Lou Reynolds” — in nightclubs. He married, and his son was born in December 1949. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, he joined the Army Air Corps, earning an age waiver to become a pilot at twenty-six.
In World War II he flew B-26 Marauder bombers over Europe from 1943 to 1945, completing 68 combat missions and logging more than 3,000 hours. After a brief turn as a commercial airline pilot, he was recommissioned in July 1946. By the Korean War he commanded the 67th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, 18th Fighter-Bomber Group, flying P-51 Mustangs on close air support missions.
On August 5, 1950, near Hanchang during the Battle of the Pusan Perimeter, Sebille led an attack on a camouflaged concentration of North Korean troops, artillery, and armored vehicles threatening friendly ground forces. Anti-aircraft fire severely damaged his F-51 and wounded him on his first pass. Knowing he had only moments of flight left, he refused to abandon the aircraft or attempt a crash landing. Instead he turned back into the storm of gunfire and deliberately dove his crippled Mustang — with its remaining bomb still aboard — straight into the enemy column, destroying it at the cost of his own life.
The Medal of Honor was awarded posthumously. He was the first member of the newly independent United States Air Force to receive the nation’s highest award for valor — a pilot who, in his own creed, believed that if a man had to die, he should take some of the enemy with him.
Sources: Wikipedia · Congressional Medal of Honor Society