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Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant hardbound and up to date 4th edition
Review: In 1949, the Department of Army, and in 1950, the Department of the Navy, published separate books on the United States Medal of Honor. In 1964 the United States Senate issued a consolidated version including late World War 2 awards, Korean War awards and the awards for the unknown servicemen of World War 2 and Korea. The 1973 and 1979 editions included Vietnam War awards.
In 1980 Highland Publishers reissued the Senate print. Although nearly identical to the 1979 Senate edition the Highland version had a hard cover as well as being better bound which is the reason this reviewer has used it in preference to the Senate version for the last 20 years. In November 2003 a friend showed me a copy of the fourth version and I immediately ordered a copy from Amazon.
The fourth edition includes the citations for the 44 Medals of Honor issued since 1980 including the two posthumous awards for Somalia in 1993. The other 42 awards were belated medals mainly for WW2. Most of these awards were Army Distinguished Service Cross awards upgraded to the Medal of Honor. The Medal of Honor has a tradition of making belated awards often years after the action being commended. These late awards merit the Medal of Honor but I prefer the procedure for the Victoria Cross where only three awards have been granted more than five years after the action commended.
Between the 1980 and 2002 editions birth and service details of many entries have been upgraded but imagine my disappointment to find the birth place of Wounded Knee recipient Private Mathew H Hamilton amended from `Australia' to `Hobart, Austria-Hungry'! Opposite the title page of the 1980 edition is a quote from poet Joyce Kilmer who was killed in action in 1918. The fourth edition adds that Kilmer was the recipient of the French Croix de Guerre. However the Croix de Guerre represents being mentioned in dispatches and is not, as stated, the French version of the Medal of Honor.
I had to search for the citation for Major-General Greely which had been moved from the one chapter to another. Greely's citation only mentions his Army service from 1861 to 1906. However, Greely was famous during his lifetime for leading the American 1881-1884 expedition to Smith Sound to set up a meteorological station. One of his team got to within 396 miles of the North Pole, the nearest to that time but the relief ship failed to arrive in 1883 and by the time a rescue was mounted in 1884 just 6 of the 25 man party survived.
The table listing the number of Medals of Honor awarded by wars and campaigns now has a totals column for each campaign as well as each service. Unfortunately not all the totals add up but it manages to get the correct total of 3440 recipients of whom 19 were awarded two awards. Some additional notes could explain how the table was constructed. For instance Gunnery Sergeant Fred W Stockham USMC was one of six marines awarded the Army Medal of Honor in WWI but unlike the other five marines he was not also awarded the Navy Medal of Honor for the same act of valour. Stockham's Army award is counted in the WWI USMC total whereas the five other marines are counted twice being listed in both the Army and USMC totals.
Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients continues the fine American tradition of printing official citations in a separate one-volume work. Although all the citations can be downloaded from a number of websites there will always be a demand for a printed version carrying on President Harry Truman's call to the Army and Navy in 1946 to produce works on the Medal of Honor. However could the fifth edition please correct the error that has been in every version since 1949? The date of the action for the first of two Medals of Honor awarded to 2Lt Thomas W Custer (killed in action serving with his famous brother in 1876) was 2 April 1865 not 10 May 1863. The 1904 Army Medal of Honor List confirms the correct date.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Courage. These stories will move you.
Review: This book is one of the most powerful that I have ever read, though I must admit that I have not read each and every biography that this huge volume contains. It is more of a reference book, but is still enormously valuable. These individuals define patriotism, and will undoubtedly make you have new respect for America. To attempt to describe some of the things that these men did would not be enough. I had always considered myself a good American, even a great American but these stories will put anyone to shame. Even the citations themselves do not do true justice to the tremendous gallantry that these men displayed. Buy this book, and if you can't afford it locate a copy from a library. If you can't find it in a library do a search on the internet...The bottom line is that the actions of the thousands of men in this book must not go unrecognized. The inscription on the Congressional Medal of Honor reads "For conspicuous gallantry and intrepedity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty." These men live up to every word.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference work that includes the latest recipients
Review: This volume is an excellent reference work that contains more than just the official citations of all Medal of Honor recipients, including those from the Somalia campaign. This work also contains a history of the Medal and how it evolved into is present incarnation, a listing of recipients by place of birth, and a listing of still living recipients.The citations themselves are divided by major conflicts, IE First World War, Second World War, Haitian Campaign,Philippine Insurrection, etc, or interim periods when individuals were awarded the Medal in times of peace. There is also an alphabetical listing of each recipient to make research on an individual recipient easier. The citations themselves range from well-detailed summaries of acts of bravery, to rather sparse descriptions. This difference in the citations illustrates the evolution of the Medal from its distinction as the only medal given for courage during the Civil War to its recognition as the ultimate decoration for bravery in later conflicts. Overall, this is a very useful tool for researching American military history.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference work that includes the latest recipients
Review: This volume is an excellent reference work that contains more than just the official citations of all Medal of Honor recipients, including those from the Somalia campaign. This work also contains a history of the Medal and how it evolved into is present incarnation, a listing of recipients by place of birth, and a listing of still living recipients. The citations themselves are divided by major conflicts, IE First World War, Second World War, Haitian Campaign,Philippine Insurrection, etc, or interim periods when individuals were awarded the Medal in times of peace. There is also an alphabetical listing of each recipient to make research on an individual recipient easier. The citations themselves range from well-detailed summaries of acts of bravery, to rather sparse descriptions. This difference in the citations illustrates the evolution of the Medal from its distinction as the only medal given for courage during the Civil War to its recognition as the ultimate decoration for bravery in later conflicts. Overall, this is a very useful tool for researching American military history.
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