When two American pilots had been downed in enemy territory towards the tip of the Vietnam Battle, quite a few makes an attempt to rescue them by different plane failed. That’s when Navy Lt. Thomas Rolland Norris was referred to as in to guide a floor workforce to search out them. Each missions had been a hit, they usually earned the younger Navy SEAL the Medal of Honor.
Norris was born on Jan. 14, 1944, in Jacksonville, Florida, to Rolland and Irene Norris. He had two brothers, James and Kenneth. Since their dad was within the Navy, the household didn’t keep put for lengthy. They moved to Michigan, Wisconsin after which to the Washington, D.C., space, the place Norris graduated highschool in 1963.
Rising up, Norris turned an Eagle Scout, ran monitor and wrestled — a expertise that served him nicely when he went to the College of Maryland and have become the Atlantic Coast Convention’s 1965 and 1966 wrestling champ. Norris graduated faculty in 1967 with a bachelor’s diploma in criminology and sociology.
Not lengthy after that, when his pupil deferment from the Vietnam Battle draft wasn’t prolonged, he enlisted within the Navy and was commissioned as an officer.
Norris mentioned in an interview later in life that he’d needed to be a Navy pilot since he was a toddler. He joined this system to change into one, however imaginative and prescient points compelled him to drop out. As an alternative, he volunteered for a newly created naval particular warfare unit that turned often known as the SEALs.
Norris earned the Medal of Honor whereas on his second tour of obligation in Vietnam. It was the spring of 1972, and the U.S. was within the means of de-escalation and Vietnamization. There have been few American fight troops left within the nation — U.S. airpower accounted for many of the power nonetheless within the area — and the army advisors who had been nonetheless there have been making ready South Vietnamese troops to proceed the conflict on their very own.
North Vietnam noticed this as a chance, so in late March 1972, its military despatched floor troops, tanks and artillery throughout the demilitarized zone to start a full-blown invasion often known as the Easter Offensive. The U.S. responded by launching B-52 Stratofortress bombers and EB-66 Destroyers, digital warfare plane that would jam missiles aimed on the bombers.
On April 2, one EB-66 plane was shot down slightly below the DMZ. Air Pressure Lt. Col. Iceal “Gene” Hambleton, 53, was the one survivor, and he was trapped within the thick of the enemy offensive. Army helicopters tried to achieve him, however one was shot down and the remaining had been unsuccessful.
The Air Pressure then started its largest rescue mission in historical past, and it didn’t go nicely. In accordance with an Army Battle School textual content, in six days of air rescue efforts, greater than a dozen males had been killed and 6 plane had been both downed or broken. Two Individuals had been taken prisoner, and close-air help pilot Air Pressure 1st Lt. Mark Clark, who had additionally been shot down, was now stranded with Hambleton in enemy territory.
U.S. army leaders determined that the one strategy to get to the 2 pilots was by floor troops, in order that they requested Norris to guide that rescue effort. Norris mentioned he believed he was chosen as a result of he was one of many few particular operators remaining within the nation who had labored with the Vietnamese groups concerned. He was snug working operations with them.
On the evening of April 10, Norris and a workforce of 5 Vietnamese SEALs started their mission via greater than a mile of closely managed enemy territory to search out Clark, the extra just lately downed pilot. After fastidiously maneuvering round enemy models all evening, Norris’ workforce picked up on Clark’s actions in a river that he’d been instructed by radio to drift down.
“I might hear him coming,” Norris mentioned throughout a Library of Congress Veterans Historical past Undertaking interview. “He was respiration arduous.”
It took till dawn, however Norris lastly discovered Clark within the water and satisfied the pilot he can be secure if he adopted his lead.
“I informed him to remain in line, observe me and do no matter I do,” Norris mentioned.
Reversing course, the small workforce moved quietly again via enemy territory and made it to their ahead working base, the place they delivered Clark to the medical assist station.
Later that day, the bottom was hit with an enemy rocket and mortar assault. Norris mentioned that was a day by day incidence, however at the present time’s assault was significantly lethal. Two of the workforce members who’d helped rescue Clark had been killed, and a number of other extra individuals had been injured. A lot of them, together with Clark, had been evacuated by helicopter. Norris stayed behind to proceed the rescue mission.
That night, Norris and the remaining three-man SEAL workforce tried to achieve Hambleton twice, however each makes an attempt had been unsuccessful. For 5 days because the failed plane rescue makes an attempt, Hambleton had been speaking on and off with Air Pressure ahead air controllers by way of radio. They had been serving to him transfer from hiding spot to hiding spot in hopes of getting him to a close-by river so Norris might get to him.
On the afternoon of April 12, a ahead air controller positioned Hambleton and notified Norris. As a result of Hambleton hadn’t gotten survival packages that had been airdropped for him, he was actually struggling, and the FAC pressured to Norris the urgency of discovering the pilot as quickly as doable.
By this level, solely one of many Vietnamese SEALs, Nguyễn Văn Kiệt, needed to proceed serving to Norris with the rescue mission. So, dressed as fishermen, the pair floated all evening in a sampan — a small canoe-like Vietnamese vessel — down the river, passing quite a few enemy encampments alongside the best way. At daybreak, they discovered Hambleton the place he was anticipated to be.
“I parked proper about the place he was sitting,” Norris mentioned. “That was luck.”
Norris and Kiệt put the injured pilot within the backside of the sampan, coated him with life vests, bamboo and vegetation, and commenced their return journey. Alongside the best way, they efficiently sneaked previous enemy rocket positions and even evaded a North Vietnamese patrol that attempted to cease them.
As they approached the relative security of their ahead working base, the small craft was attacked by heavy machine gun fireplace from a North Vietnamese bunker. The trio rapidly beached the sampan and hid. After checking for enemy floor forces, Norris then referred to as in an air strike, which fired on the enemy bunker and supplied a smoke display that gave the trio an opportunity to get again into the sampan and security attain the bottom.
Hambleton was handled for his accidents and finally recovered. If it weren’t for Norris’ undaunted braveness and dedication to the trigger, he and Clark might have by no means made it house.
Six months later, throughout one other fight mission, Norris was shot within the face and suffered extreme head accidents. He was saved by Lt. Michael Thornton, a fellow Navy SEAL who earned the Medal of Honor for that rescue mission.
Norris medically retired on account of his accidents, which included the lack of his left eye. His rehabilitation required quite a few surgical procedures over the span of a number of years.
Norris realized he would obtain the Medal of Honor someday in 1974, however he didn’t get it till March 6, 1976. President Gerald R. Ford introduced the nation’s highest honor for valor to the SEAL throughout a White Home ceremony. His mother and father and each brothers had been current for it, as was Thornton. Norris had attended Thornton’s Medal of Honor ceremony previous to his personal.
In 1979, after getting a incapacity waiver, Norris turned an FBI agent, which is what he’d hoped to do when he entered faculty greater than 15 years earlier. He labored on the company for 20 years and was an unique member of its hostage rescue workforce as an assault workforce chief.
Over the previous a number of years, Norris has taken half in varied Navy and Medal of Honor occasions and discussions that commemorate the that means of the medal. He mentioned he has an excessive amount of delight for what it stands for.
“I’m only a custodian of this medal. I put on it for the members of my groups and the those who served as valiantly and can by no means have the prospect to put on an award like that. There are these on the market who deserved it however had been by no means acknowledged, and the parents that gave their lives for the missions they had been despatched on who won’t ever be again once more,” he mentioned. “It’s an honor for me to put on it, however I don’t think about it mine.”
Naval unconventional warfare operators haven’t forgotten Norris’ legacy. At Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Virginia, the Lt. Thomas R. Norris Constructing is the house of Naval Particular Warfare Group Two.
This text is a part of a weekly sequence referred to as “Medal of Honor Monday,” by which we spotlight one of many greater than 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients who’ve earned the U.S. army’s highest medal for valor.
