Lewis Millett was incensed when he heard the intelligence reports from the Chinese while serving during the Korean War.

“We had acquired some Chinese documents stating that Americans were afraid of hand-to-hand fighting and cold steel,” Millett said in an interview shortly before his death in 2009. “When I read that, I thought, ‘I’ll show you, you sons of bitches!’

“So I had every rifleman in the company fix his bayonet to his rifle and leave it fixed, 24 hours a day. I fixed my bayonet to my M1 and left it there. We had bayonet drill when we could. On the march, we’d attack bundles of straw in the fields; we’d practice thrusts into mud banks.”

A native of Mechanic Falls who attended Bates College, Millett had Korean women use grinding wheels to make the bayonet blades razor sharp.

On Feb. 7, 1951, with one of the company’s platoons pinned down by heavy fire near Soam-Ni, Korea, Millett and his men sought higher ground.

Leading the charge through a snowy rice paddy, Millett ordered the other two platoons to follow him up the fortified hill in an all-out bayonet charge. That charge became the last major American bayonet charge in military history, and for his bravery, Millett would be recognized with the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor in the U.S. armed forces.

With bayonets fixed, his men raced up the hill screaming. At the first line of foxholes, the men led with their bayonets, and the cries of agony were reportedly heard over the roar of battle.

“There was a man at the point and two others, one at each end of the V,” Millett said. “The man at the point was the gunner. I bayoneted him. I guess the other two didn’t realize I was that close. The next man reached for something, I think it was a machine pistol, but I bayoneted him — got him in the throat. At about that time the third man turned and — I was straddling a very narrow trench — he froze. He had a submachine gun but I guess the sight of me, red-faced and screaming, made him freeze. Otherwise he would have killed me. I lunged forward and the bayonet went into his forehead.”

Millet got so far in front of his men he had to dodge grenades as he charged an antitank gun firing at him point blank. He took it out with a few grenades.

During the fierce fight, Millett stabbed multiple enemy soldiers with his bayonet, threw a bunch of grenades, then clubbed and bayonetted his way through more enemy fighters, urging his men forward. During the assault, Millett received shrapnel wounds to his legs and back. He refused treatment until his men had secured the hill.

Millett’s leadership inspired his men to reach the top of the hill. Estimates vary on the number of enemy combatants killed, ranging from nearly 50 to approximately 100.

“Captain Millett was an awesome soldier and officer,” Scott Daubert, the director of the National Infantry Museum in Fort Benning, Georgia, said Tuesday. “His story is so unique.”

Five months after the battle, in a ceremony at the White House, President Harry Truman awarded Millett the Medal of Honor for his performance that day.

Millet’s citation notes that “his dauntless leadership and personal courage so inspired his men that they stormed into the hostile position and used their bayonets with such lethal effect that the enemy fled in wild disorder.”

“That medal is more indicative of the men that I led into battle than about me,” Millett said. “You can go running up the hill all by your lonesome and get shot. If they all hadn’t gone, I’d be dead — just as simple as that.”

In addition to the Medal of Honor, Millett also received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, two Legions of Merit, three Bronze Star Medals, four Purple Hearts, three Air Medals and several campaign and service medals.

His 35-year military career spans three wars — World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

EAGER TO FIGHT

Millett was born Dec. 15, 1920, in Mechanic Falls. Millett grew up hearing stories about his great-grandfathers, who served in the Civil War and fought with bayonets. Attending high school in Massachusetts, Millett was vice president of his class and joined the National Guard while still in high school.

He was eager to fight when war broke out in Europe and joined the Army Air Corps in 1938. However, he deserted and joined the Canadian Army after he heard President Franklin D. Roosevelt state, “No American boys would be sent to fight in any European wars.” By the time he was sent to England to serve as an anti-aircraft gunner, the U.S. had joined the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Serving in London, Millett turned himself in to the U.S. Embassy. He rejoined the Army and was assigned to the 1st Armored Division.

He served with distinction in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. While in Tunisia, he earned the Silver Star for saving several Allied soldiers when he jumped into a burning halftrack filled with ammunition. Millett drove it away from the other soldiers and jumped out just before it exploded.

On another occasion, Millett shot down a German fighter plane using a vehicle-mounted machine gun.

By the time Millett got to Italy, his desertion to join the Canadian forces finally caught up to him. He was court-martialed and fined $52. Within days he received a battlefield commission to second lieutenant.

After World War II, he joined the Maine National Guard and matriculated at Bates College. His studies were interrupted five months before he was set to graduate when he was called back into active duty.

Millet went to Korea with the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division. It was during that pivotal assault that became known as the Battle of Bayonet Hill when Millett earned his Medal of Honor.

After Korea, Millett continued with his military career. He went to Ranger School and eventually ran a 101st Airborne Division school for reconnaissance training. He made five combat paratroop jumps in his career and according to military reports, Millett is the first officer ever to rappel from a hovering helicopter.

He went to Vietnam in 1960 and served as an advisor in numerous special operations, serving as an intelligence officer. He also helped to establish the Royal Thai Army Ranger School.

Retiring from the Army in 1973 as a colonel, Millett went on to serve for more than 15 years as the honorary colonel of the 27th Infantry Regiment Association.

Millett’s later life was spent living in Idyllwild, California, remaining active in the veteran community. Millett was one of eight Korean War veterans who returned to South Korea to serve as keynote speaker at the Army’s 225th Birthday Ball.

Millett died from congestive heart failure at the age of 88 on Nov. 14, 2009, in Loma Linda, California.

One of his final acts was serving as grand marshal of a Salute to Veterans parade in April 2009 in Riverside, California.