Who was Marine Capt. John Ripley? US Marine Corps veteran, who single-handedly destroyed key bridge during Vietnam War, gets approval for Medal of Honor; all about his heroics

Marine Capt. John Ripley, a decorated United States Marine Corps colonel who received the Navy Cross for his actions in combat during the Vietnam War, is apparently set to receive the Medal of Honor. His heroics in 1972 single-handedly destroyed a major bridge in Vietnam. On April 2, 1972, Captain Ripley hung from the Dong Ha Bridge for three hours while setting charges under the bridge to stop the North Vietnamese (PAVN) advance, according to the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

His three-hour, one-man assault prompted his fellow Marines, friends, and advocates to push to see the Navy Cross he was awarded for the battle upgraded to a Medal of Honor. Ripley, the US Marine Corps officer, served for 35 years.

According to the Task & Purpose website, Ripley, who was a senior advisor to the 3rd Vietnamese Marine Battalion in 1972, single-handedly destroyed the Dong Ha bridge in Vietnam, swinging hand-over-hand across its steel girders to plant explosive charges even as an enemy tank fired at him, now appears set


Now, after several decades, Ripley, who died in 2008, seems to receive the Medal of Honor posthumously after the Senate approved special legislation that cleared the way for the award. However, the final approval from US President Donald Trump is still pending before it becomes official.

Ripley's 1972 heroics

In April 1972, Ripley was ordered to stop two oncoming North Vietnamese Army divisions after a Marine battalion unit suddenly found itself in their path, along with a column of tanks, according to Task & Purpose. The army tanks were reportedly larger than his own and backed by armor. “Hold and die" were the words passed over the radio, as quoted by the website.

To execute the orders and halt the advance, he carried explosives around his shoulders and climbed into the steel I-beam girders beneath a key bridge over the Cua Viet River.

“I’m dangling under the bridge and hanging by my arms with a full load of explosives,” he told the U.S. Naval Institute, as quoted by Task & Purpose. “I would drop down out of the steel, grabbing the flanges of the I-beam; swing sideways, and leap over to handwalk all the way out over the river.”

The North Vietnamese repeatedly tried to force him out of position, first using sniper fire from the opposite bank and later deploying a tank that fired a round at his location beneath the bridge. The shot ricocheted and exploded on the riverbank. He was inducted into the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame in 2008. Ripley swung hand over hand beneath the bridge for over three hours. He made five trips out over the water and eventually placed 500 pounds of explosives.

John Ripley: Education, Training, and Career

John Walter Ripley was born on 29 June 1939 in Radford, Virginia. He completed his graduation in June 1957 from Radford High School. He went on to enlist for one year in the Marine Corps before entering the United States Naval Academy. At the Naval Academy, he obtained an appointment from the Secretary of the Navy.

On 6 June 1962, he graduated with a bachelor's of science degree in electrical engineering and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps, according to US Marine Corps University. Upon completion of Basic School, 2dLt Ripley was assigned sea duty with the Marine detachment, USS Independence, and was promoted to first lieutenant on 6 December 1963.

Ripley returned to Vietnam in 1971, and by the time he arrived in Dang Hu, he was an extraordinarily well-trained and experienced Marine officer, with almost a decade of elite training and combat tours in both Vietnam and other combat zones with elite units of foreign allies.

Ripley retired in 1992 as a colonel. Later, he became the president of a small college in Virginia and served as the director of the Marine Corps History and Museums Division.