{"id":125699,"date":"2022-05-10T07:00:46","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=125699"},"modified":"2022-05-09T19:22:06","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T23:22:06","slug":"puerto-rican-naval-officer-of-both-world-wars-might-receive-a-delayed-upgrade-to-moh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=125699","title":{"rendered":"Puerto Rican naval officer of both World Wars might receive a delayed upgrade to MoH"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rear Admiral Frederick Riefkohl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There’s been a lot of revisiting past bravery awards over the past 30 or so years. This has generally been to right the wrongs of history in regards to past racism, but not always. Rear Admiral Frederick Riefkohl of the US Navy is one of 214 in the latest round of awards that are being looked at for an upgrade.<\/p>\n

From Military Times<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Frederick Riefkohl was the first Puerto Rican to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy. A World War I hero who led a successful showdown with a German submarine. And a World War II ship commander who retired as a rear admiral \u2014 he even has his own Wikipedia page.<\/p>\n

But Riefkohl did not receive the Medal of Honor, America\u2019s highest award for valor in combat, to commemorate his WWI gallantry.<\/p>\n

Why? The former Merritt Island resident may have been unfairly discriminated against by military brass because of his island heritage, a team of Great War researchers says.<\/p>\n

Riefkohl is one of 214 WWI minority veterans identified thus far by the Valor Medals Review Project, a Congress-authorized study spearheaded by Park University near Kansas City, Missouri.<\/p>\n

Park University officials say this is the first such systematic review of minority veterans of the Great War. Research will continue until 2025, when documentation supporting Medal of Honor nominations will be forwarded to the Department of Defense for possible action, including posthumous awards.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s more at the source. His Navy Cross from WWI, reads thusly;<\/p>\n

The Navy Cross is awarded to Lieutenant Frederick L. Riefkohl, U.S. Navy, for distinguished service in the line of his profession as Commander of the Armed Guard of the U.S.S. Philadelphia, and in an engagement with an enemy submarine. On August 2, 1917, a periscope was sighted, and then a torpedo passed under the stern of the ship. A shot was fired, which struck close to the submarine, which then disappeared.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve read a lot of award citations. The lack of detail isn’t entirely without precedent. Particularly during the Great War and before, they were very succinct to the point of being terse. Many Navy officers received Navy Crosses for similar actions during WWI. I don’t see anything here that says racism played a role in it. His award seems commensurate with awards given to his white contemporaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s been a lot of revisiting past bravery awards over the past 30 or so years. … Puerto Rican naval officer of both World Wars might receive a delayed upgrade to MoH<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,119,217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical","category-navy","category-we-remember"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=125699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=125699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=125699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=125699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}