Who is the most decorated soldier in history?
Audie Murphy is the most decorated soldier in our ranking, with 43 of 50 points: the Medal of Honor for Holtzwihr in 1945 on top of the Distinguished Service Cross and two Silver Stars, all won under fire. Georgy Zhukov, four times Hero of the Soviet Union, ties him on points and is second, and Douglas MacArthur is third.
No country keeps a common scoreboard of medals, so "the most decorated soldier" always depends on what you count. This list takes fifteen soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, from the Boer War to Korea, and ranks them by score rather than by a count of ribbons: the weight of their honors as recorded in official citations and gazettes, with courage under fire counting for more than command, plus recognition, consequence, memory and certainty. Political and birthday awards do not count. One of the fifteen, a German pilot, remained an unrepentant Nazi, and we say so plainly: a record is not a recommendation. See how we chose and ranked them.
1 Audie Murphy, 1942 to 1945
- Lived
- 1924 to 1971 (the official birth year; he may have been a year younger)
- Served
- US Army, 1942 to 1945: private to second lieutenant, Company B, 15th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division
- Highest honors
- Medal of Honor (Holtzwihr, 1945); Distinguished Service Cross (1944); Silver Star twice
- Record
- Eight campaigns, wounded three times; 28 medals by Arlington's count, 33 awards by the Handbook of Texas
- Legacy
- Played himself in To Hell and Back (1955); buried at Arlington
Audie Murphy, a sharecropper's son from Hunt County, Texas, enlisted in the Army in June 1942 after the Marines turned him away; Arlington National Cemetery says he altered his birth certificate to look a year older than he was. With the 3rd Infantry Division he fought in eight campaigns from Sicily to Germany, was wounded three times and rose from private to second lieutenant.1
The Audie Murphy Research Foundation, working from his Army personnel file, lists two Bronze Stars at Anzio in 1944, the Distinguished Service Cross for an action near Ramatuelle on 15 August 1944 and two Silver Stars in the Vosges that October. On 26 January 1945, near Holtzwihr, six tanks and waves of infantry came at his company. His Medal of Honor citation says he sent his men back, climbed onto a burning tank destroyer and held the attack off with its machine gun for an hour, killing or wounding about 50 Germans. France and Belgium later added their Croix de Guerre.2
Myth vs fact: no single count makes him "the most decorated": Arlington gives 28 medals, the Handbook of Texas 33 awards, citations and decorations. The Handbook stresses instead that he received every American award for valor.3
Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, the weight of the honors and memory: the Medal of Honor tops a Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars and two Bronze Stars, all for deeds under fire. Differing totals hold certainty to 4, and one soldier's stand changed no campaign, so consequence is 2. Level with Zhukov on 43, he is No. 1 because his is the better known name, the one most lists put first.
2 Georgy Zhukov, 1915 to 1957
- Lived
- 1896 to 1974
- Served
- Imperial Russian cavalry from 1915; Red Army from 1918; Marshal of the Soviet Union, 1943; minister of defense until 1957
- Highest honors
- Hero of the Soviet Union four times (1939, 1944, 1945, 1956); Order of Victory twice; St George Cross twice
- Record
- Won Khalkhin Gol, Moscow and Berlin; accepted Germany's surrender on 8 May 1945
- Legacy
- Six Orders of Lenin and 17 foreign orders and medals, by the Presidential Library's count
Georgy Zhukov, a peasant's son from Kaluga province, was conscripted into a cavalry regiment in August 1915. In World War I he won the St George Cross twice, by the Presidential Library's account for distinction in battle and for capturing a German officer; Moscow's monuments register records both. He joined the Red Army in 1918.4
His first Hero of the Soviet Union star came on 29 August 1939, for the defeat of the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia. Against Germany he commanded or coordinated fronts from Leningrad and Moscow to Stalingrad, Kursk and Operation Bagration; on 18 January 1943 he became the first Marshal of the Soviet Union named during the war, and on 8 May 1945 he accepted Germany's unconditional surrender at Karlshorst. The four Hero stars are dated 1939, 1944, 1945 and 1956, and he twice received the Order of Victory. Gateway to Russia, a site of the Russian state broadcaster, ties the first three to Khalkhin Gol, Bagration and Berlin, and the fourth not to a battle but to his 60th birthday. Removed as minister of defense in 1957, he was forced into retirement.5
Why it ranks here: Honors this high would earn full marks, but apart from two St George Crosses of World War I they were won for command, not under fire, and by Gateway to Russia's account the fourth star marked his 60th birthday, so the weight of the honors is 4. Moscow and Berlin give him full marks for consequence; level with Murphy on 43, he is second because his name is less known outside military history.
3 Douglas MacArthur, 1903 to 1951
- Lived
- 1880 to 1964
- Served
- US Army, 1903 to 1951: 42nd Division in France, 1917 to 1918; the Philippines, 1941 to 1942; Korea, 1950 to 1951
- Highest honors
- Medal of Honor (1942); two Distinguished Service Crosses and seven Silver Stars (1918)
- Record
- Recommended for the Medal of Honor in 1914 and 1918, turned down both times
- Legacy
- He and his father Arthur both won the Medal of Honor; relieved by Truman on 11 April 1951
Douglas MacArthur, born in Little Rock in 1880, graduated first in West Point's class of 1903; his father, Arthur, was a Civil War hero with the Medal of Honor. At Veracruz in 1914 Douglas killed seven attackers with a revolver behind the lines and was nominated for the Medal of Honor, which was refused. In France in 1918, as the 42nd Division's chief of staff and then a brigadier general, he won two Distinguished Service Crosses, the Distinguished Service Medal and seven Silver Stars, and in 1932 two Purple Hearts followed for two gas attacks. A board recommended him again for the Medal of Honor; Pershing gave him less, and PBS calls him the most decorated American officer of that war.6
Myth vs fact: his Medal of Honor of 1942 was not for a deed under fire. Its citation praises his "conspicuous leadership in preparing the Philippine Islands to resist conquest" and the defense of Bataan. Pacific Wrecks documents that George Marshall wanted the award to offset enemy propaganda about MacArthur leaving his command and admitted that no specific act justified it under a literal reading of the law; PBS's film says he received it "for prolonging a lost cause". Father and son now both held the medal. On 11 April 1951, after their public quarrel over Korea, Truman relieved him.7
Why it ranks here: The Silver Stars and crosses were won at the front, but the top award was for leadership, so the weight of the honors is 4, like recognition, consequence and memory; full marks for certainty put him alone on 41.
4 Chesty Puller, 1918 to 1955
- Lived
- 1898 to 1971
- Served
- US Marine Corps, 1918 to 1955: Haiti, Nicaragua, China, World War II, Korea
- Highest honors
- Five Navy Crosses (1930 to 1950) and the Army's Distinguished Service Cross (1950); never the Medal of Honor
- Record
- Navy Crosses for Nicaragua (two), Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester and the Chosin Reservoir
- Legacy
- Retired a lieutenant general; recruits still say "Good night, Chesty, wherever you are!"
Lewis Puller, born in West Point, Virginia, in 1898, left the Virginia Military Institute to join the Marines in August 1918. Cut back to private after the war, he fought in 42 engagements against Caco rebels in Haiti and regained his commission only in 1924.8
His first two Navy Crosses, the second highest American award for valor in combat, came in Nicaragua, in 1930 and 1932, leading patrols of the Nicaraguan National Guard. The third came on Guadalcanal in October 1942 with his battalion of the 7th Marines, the fourth at Cape Gloucester on New Britain, in the fighting of December 1943 and January 1944. In Korea he took the 1st Marines ashore at Inchon on 15 September 1950 and won a Silver Star; at the Chosin Reservoir that winter the Army gave him its Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy his fifth Navy Cross, and there he is quoted as saying: "We're surrounded. That simplifies things." Task & Purpose calls him the most decorated Marine ever; the Marine Corps museum, more cautiously, one of the most decorated. Myth vs fact: the tale that his chest was shot away and replaced with steel is only a legend, and the museum says the nickname's origin is unclear. He retired in 1955 after a stroke.9
Why it ranks here: A long list of gallantry awards, but without the Medal of Honor the weight of the honors is 4, and outside the Corps the name is less known, so recognition and memory are 4. Level on 39 with Charles Upham, he goes first on consequence, 3: Guadalcanal and Chosin mattered more than any company fight.
5 Charles Upham, 1939 to 1945
- Lived
- 1908 to 1994
- Served
- 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force, 1939 to 1945: 20th Battalion; prisoner of war from July 1942
- Highest honors
- Victoria Cross (Crete, May 1941) and Bar (Ruweisat Ridge, July 1942)
- Record
- Wounded on Crete and repeatedly at Ruweisat; captured, he ended the war in Colditz
- Legacy
- One of only three men with two VCs; his medals are in New Zealand's National Army Museum
Charles Upham, born in Christchurch in 1908, was a government land valuer when he enlisted on 18 September 1939, aged 30. He went to Egypt with the 20th Battalion and was commissioned in 1940.10
On Crete, between 22 and 30 May 1941, sick and wounded, he led his platoon against German paratroopers, knocked out machine guns with grenades and carried a wounded man to safety; the Victoria Cross was announced in the London Gazette of 14 October 1941. On the night of 14 to 15 July 1942, at Ruweisat Ridge in Egypt, he led his company against strongpoints and destroyed a German tank and several guns and vehicles with grenades; with his arm broken by a machine-gun bullet he fought on until he was wounded again and captured, his company down to six men. The bar was gazetted on 26 September 1945. After repeated escape attempts the Germans sent him to Colditz, and only after liberation, on 11 May 1945, did the King hand him his first cross. The National Army Museum in London counts three men with two VCs; the other two, Martin-Leake and Chavasse, were doctors, which makes Upham the only fighting soldier among them.11
Why it ranks here: Two Victoria Crosses won fighting give full marks for the weight of the honors, and both citations are in the London Gazette, so certainty is 5. But a company commander's fights changed no campaign, so consequence is 2, and he is a hero mainly in New Zealand, so recognition and memory are 4; level on 39 with Puller, he follows him on consequence.
6 Manfred von Richthofen, 1911 to 1918
- Lived
- 1892 to 1918
- Served
- Prussian army: cadet corps to 1911, uhlan lieutenant from 1912, air service from 1915; led Jasta 11 and Jagdgeschwader 1
- Highest honors
- Pour le Mérite, Prussia's highest military order, January 1917
- Record
- 80 aerial victories credited, the most of any pilot of the war; killed on 21 April 1918
- Legacy
- A German air force fighter wing has carried his name since 1961
Manfred von Richthofen, born in Breslau, now Wrocław, in 1892, went through the cadet corps and joined an uhlan regiment, becoming a lieutenant in 1912. He moved to the air service in May 1915 as an observer; Oswald Boelcke took him into his fighter squadron in 1916, and he scored his first victory on 17 September.12
By January 1917 he had 16 victories and received the Pour le Mérite, Prussia's highest military honor, together with command of Jasta 11. In "Bloody April" 1917, when by the RAF Museum's count the Royal Flying Corps lost 275 aircraft, his tally rose to 52. A head wound in July 1917 kept him out for months; he shot down his 80th opponent on 20 April 1918, more than any other pilot of the war, and was killed the next day over the Somme. Myth vs fact: the Canadian pilot Roy Brown was credited at the time, but later research points almost conclusively to a single shot from an Australian unit on the ground, though the German Historical Museum still calls the question open.13
Why it ranks here: The Pour le Mérite and 80 credited victories give his honors a 4, and the Red Baron lives on in books and films, so memory is 5; but he is rarely named on lists of decorated soldiers, so recognition is 4, and air duels changed little on the Western Front, so consequence is 2. The 80 victories are German credits that none of our sources says were checked against British losses, so certainty is 4, as for Pokryshkin's official tally; that leaves him alone on 38.
7 Hans-Ulrich Rudel, 1936 to 1945
- Lived
- 1916 to 1982
- Served
- Luftwaffe, 1936 to 1945: Stuka pilot on the Eastern Front; finally colonel commanding the Immelmann wing
- Highest honors
- Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds (1945), its only holder
- Record
- Credited with 2,530 missions and 519 tanks: wartime claims, not verified counts
- Legacy
- An unrepentant Nazi; the 1976 Rudel affair ended two German generals' careers
Hans-Ulrich Rudel joined the Luftwaffe as an officer candidate in 1936 and from June 1941 flew Stuka dive-bombers on the Eastern Front; on 23 September 1941, at Kronstadt, he sank the Soviet battleship Marat.14
He was credited with 2,530 sorties and with destroying 519 tanks. These are wartime claims, not verified counts; Nazi propaganda made him a legend. The Knight's Cross came in 1942, the Oak Leaves and Swords in 1943, the Diamonds in 1944, and in 1945 the Golden Oak Leaves, a grade no one else ever held.15
He remained an unrepentant Nazi to the end of his life: in the Neue Deutsche Biographie's words, he made no secret of his National Socialist convictions after 1945. He moved to Argentina in 1948, advised Perón's air force and met Josef Mengele, and in 1953 headed the list of the far-right German Reich Party. In 1975 he gave the Hitler salute at the funeral of the SS officer Otto Skorzeny; the Bundeswehr's own military history center calls him a Nazi through and through. When an air force base welcomed him in 1976, the defense minister retired the two generals who had approved and defended the visit. His medals record what the Nazi state chose to reward, not a cause to admire.16
Why it ranks here: A grade of the Knight's Cross that no one else held gives full marks for the weight of the honors, and that alone puts him seventh, which is not praise. The missions and tanks are unverified claims, so certainty is 3; he is remembered as much for his Nazism as for the war, so memory is 3, and consequence is 3.
8 Alvin York, 1917 to 1919
- Lived
- 1887 to 1964
- Served
- US Army, drafted 1917: Company G, 328th Infantry, 82nd Division; home by June 1919
- Highest honors
- Medal of Honor; Distinguished Service Cross; French, Italian and Montenegrin awards
- Record
- One action, 8 October 1918: by the citation, 4 officers, 128 men and several guns taken
- Legacy
- The film Sergeant York (1941), starring Gary Cooper
Alvin York, from Pall Mall, Tennessee, was a fine shot from years of hunting. After a religious conversion in 1914 he joined a church that questioned fighting in war, and when he was drafted in 1917 his claim as a conscientious objector was turned down three times.17
On 8 October 1918, near Chatel-Chehery in the Argonne, a patrol of 17 men under acting Sergeant Bernard Early got behind a German position and took more than 80 prisoners before a hidden machine gun opened fire and killed six of them. His Medal of Honor citation says that Corporal York, with three other NCOs down, took command and, leading seven men, charged the machine-gun nest, which was taken together with 4 officers and 128 men and several guns. The East Tennessee Veterans Memorial Association lists the Distinguished Service Cross as well, and the Department of Veterans Affairs adds the French Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honor, the Italian Croce di Guerra and the Montenegrin Silver Medal for Bravery. In 1941 the film Sergeant York, starring Gary Cooper, brought his story to a new generation.18
Myth vs fact: he did not do it alone. The historian James Gregory argues that the other survivors of the patrol lost their share of the credit to the legend.19
Why it ranks here: Every honor was for one morning, so the weight of the honors is 3 and consequence 2; the film keeps memory at 5, and the dispute over his comrades' share holds certainty to 4. Level on 36 with Doss, Freyberg and Chavasse, he leads the last two on recognition and Doss, his equal on recognition and consequence, because his service began first.
9 Desmond Doss, 1942 to 1946
- Lived
- 1919 to 2006
- Served
- US Army, 1942 to 1946; unarmed medic, 307th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division
- Highest honors
- Medal of Honor (Okinawa, 1945); two Bronze Stars for valor (Guam and Leyte, 1944)
- Record
- Guam, Leyte and Okinawa; lowered the wounded down the Maeda Escarpment, April to May 1945
- Legacy
- First conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor; the 2016 film Hacksaw Ridge
Desmond Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist from Lynchburg, Virginia, would neither kill nor work on his Sabbath, yet sought no deferment when the Army took him in the spring of 1942. He refused to carry a rifle and was harassed for it in training. As a medic with the 307th Infantry he won a Bronze Star for valor on Guam in 1944 and a second on Leyte.20
On Okinawa his battalion stormed the Maeda Escarpment, a cliff about 400 feet high. His Medal of Honor citation says that fire on the summit caused about 75 casualties and drove the others back, while Doss stayed in the fire-swept area and lowered the wounded one by one on a rope-supported litter down the cliff. He kept going out under fire until he was badly wounded on 21 May 1945, and on 12 October Truman gave him the medal; he was the only conscientious objector to receive it in World War II. Myth vs fact: the citation's 75 counts the men hit on the summit, not the men he saved; Doss put that number near 50, the Eisenhower Foundation gives 75 to 100, and some historians as many as 120.21
Why it ranks here: The Medal of Honor on top of two Bronze Stars for valor gives weight of the honors 4, but one medic's rescues changed no campaign, so consequence 2; how many men he saved is uncertain, so certainty 4, and wide fame came only with a 2016 film, so recognition 4. He ties Alvin York on 36 and follows him because York began to serve first, but leads Freyberg and Chavasse on recognition.
10 Bernard Freyberg, 1914 to 1945
- Lived
- 1889 to 1963
- Served
- Royal Naval Division and British Army from 1914; commander of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force, 1939 to 1945
- Highest honors
- Victoria Cross (1916); Distinguished Service Order (1915) with two bars gazetted in 1919 and a third gazetted in July 1945, for Italy
- Record
- Victoria Cross north of the Ancre, 13 November 1916; commander on Crete, lost in May 1941
- Legacy
- Governor-General of New Zealand, 1946 to 1952
Bernard Freyberg, born in London in 1889 and raised in Wellington, New Zealand, won a commission in 1914 in the Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division. At Gallipoli, on the night of 25 to 26 April 1915, he swam ashore alone towing flares to fake a landing, which won him the Distinguished Service Order.22
On 13 November 1916, north of the Ancre at Beaucourt on the Somme, he led his battalion through the German front trenches, held on through the night and next morning took a fortified village and, by the citation, five hundred prisoners. Wounded four times, he was gazetted for the Victoria Cross on 15 December 1916. Two bars to the DSO followed in 1919, the first for his brigade near Gheluvelt in September 1918; his regiment's museum ties the second to the bridge at Lessines on Armistice Day.23
From 1939 he commanded the New Zealand forces. On Crete in May 1941 Ultra decrypts warned him of an airborne attack, but he kept his strength on the coast against a sea landing; the Germans took an airfield and the island fell. His command in Italy brought a third bar to the DSO, gazetted in July 1945, and from 1946 to 1952 he was Governor-General of New Zealand.24
Why it ranks here: The Victoria Cross with the DSO and three bars gives weight of the honors 5, the cross, the order and all three bars are in the London Gazette, so certainty 5; his commands, Crete among them, decided no war, so consequence 3, and few outside New Zealand know him, so recognition 3. He ties Noel Chavasse on 36 and goes first on consequence.
11 Noel Chavasse, 1913 to 1917
- Lived
- 1884 to 1917
- Served
- Royal Army Medical Corps from 1913; medical officer of the Liverpool Scottish in France and Flanders
- Highest honors
- Victoria Cross and bar (1916, 1917, the bar after his death); Military Cross (gazetted January 1916)
- Record
- Military Cross for rescues at Ypres, June 1915; VC at Guillemont, 9 August 1916; bar at Wieltje, 31 July to 2 August 1917
- Legacy
- The only double VC of World War I; the only headstone carved with two Victoria Crosses
Noel Chavasse, a bishop's son born in Oxford in 1884, was a doctor and, according to the Royal British Legion, ran the 400 meters for Britain at the 1908 London Olympics. As medical officer of the Liverpool Scottish he won the Military Cross for twelve hours of rescuing casualties at Ypres in June 1915; it was gazetted in January 1916.25
At Guillemont on the Somme, on 9 August 1916, he tended the wounded in the open all day under heavy fire and searched the ground in front of the German lines for four hours that night. Next day he carried a man 500 yards to safety and was hit by a shell splinter; his citation credits him with saving some twenty badly wounded men. At Wieltje, in the first attack of Passchendaele on 31 July 1917, he was badly wounded early but refused to leave his post, going out again and again for two days to bring in the wounded. A shell hit his aid post early on 2 August, and he died on 4 August, aged 32. The bar to his cross was gazetted in September 1917. Of the three double VCs he alone won both in World War I, and his grave at Brandhoek is the only one with two crosses on the headstone.26
Why it ranks here: The Victoria Cross twice and the Military Cross, all in the London Gazette, give weight of the honors 5 and certainty 5, but saving the wounded changed no battle, so consequence 2, and he is little known outside Britain, so recognition 3. He ties Bernard Freyberg on 36 with the same recognition and goes second on consequence.
12 Alexander Pokryshkin, 1932 to 1985
- Lived
- 1913 to 1985
- Served
- Soviet Army from 1932; fighter pilot and commander 1941 to 1945; in active posts to 1981, then an inspector-adviser without command in the Defense Ministry's Group of General Inspectors until his death
- Highest honors
- Hero of the Soviet Union three times (May 1943, August 1943, August 1944), the first man so honored
- Record
- 59 aircraft shot down by the Soviet count; 156 or 157 air battles and over 600 or over 650 sorties, by source
- Legacy
- Marshal of aviation (1972); his fighter tactics studied in Soviet military academies
Alexander Pokryshkin, a worker's son from Novonikolayevsk, now Novosibirsk, joined the Red Army in 1932 as a trainee aircraft mechanic and qualified as a pilot only in 1939. He flew fighters from 1941 and made his name over the Kuban in spring 1943 in an American-built Airacobra; Rossiyskaya Gazeta tells of a day in April 1943 near Krymskaya when he shot down seven German aircraft.27
He was made Hero of the Soviet Union on 24 May 1943, again that August and a third time on 19 August 1944, the first man to hold the title three times. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia credits him with more than 600 sorties, 156 air battles and 59 aircraft shot down; Rossiyskaya Gazeta in 2020 gave more than 650 sorties and 157 battles. His formula of "altitude, speed, maneuver, fire" and his patrol tactics were first branded a breach of regulations, then adopted on every front.28
After the war he held senior posts in the air defense forces, and in 1972 he became marshal of aviation and chairman of the DOSAAF defense society, which he led until 1981. After that he held no command: a 2023 exhibition by a Krasnodar teachers' institute library lists him from November 1981 as an inspector-adviser in the Defense Ministry's Group of General Inspectors until his death in Moscow on 13 November 1985.29
Why it ranks here: Three Hero stars for air combat give weight of the honors 5, tactics taken up across the Soviet air force give consequence 3, and his sorties and battles are counted differently by each source, so certainty 4, and he is little known in the West, so recognition 3.
13 Adrian Carton de Wiart, 1899 to 1947
- Lived
- 1880 to 1963
- Served
- British Army from about 1899 to his retirement in 1946 or 1947 (sources differ): Boer War, Somaliland, Western Front, Norway, Poland, China
- Highest honors
- Victoria Cross (1916); Distinguished Service Order; silver cross of the Polish Virtuti Militari
- Record
- VC at La Boisselle, 2 to 3 July 1916; wounded 11 times by his regimental museum's count
- Legacy
- Lost his left eye and left hand; prisoner of the Italians, 1941 to 1943
Adrian Carton de Wiart was born in Brussels in 1880, of Belgian and Irish descent, and joined the British Army around 1899 as a trooper in the Middlesex Yeomanry for the Boer War. With the Somaliland Camel Corps he won the Distinguished Service Order and lost his left eye; on the Western Front, near Ypres, he lost his left hand.30
At La Boisselle on the Somme, on 2 to 3 July 1916, he commanded the 8th Gloucesters. His citation says that when three other battalion commanders fell he took over their commands too, held the ground won "at all costs" and passed again and again through the barrage. Myth vs fact: he is famous online for eleven wounds, which is his regimental museum's count; the British government's account says only that he was shot several times.31
In 1939 he headed the British Military Mission to Poland, and his medals include the silver cross of the Virtuti Militari and two Polish Crosses of Valour. In 1941 his plane came down in the sea on the way to Yugoslavia; he swam ashore into Italian captivity, tunneled out of a camp, and in August 1943 the Italians sent him to Lisbon to negotiate their surrender. He ended his service as Britain's military representative with Chiang Kai-shek.32
Why it ranks here: The Victoria Cross, the DSO and foreign awards give weight of the honors 4; his own fights changed no battle, so consequence 2, and the famous wound count rests on his regiment's tally rather than on records, so certainty 4. His name is known far beyond military history, so recognition 4, which puts him ahead of Smedley Butler on 34.
14 Smedley Butler, 1898 to 1931
- Lived
- 1881 to 1940
- Served
- US Marine Corps, 1898 to 1931: Cuba, China, Central America, Mexico, Haiti, France
- Highest honors
- Medal of Honor twice (Veracruz 1914, Fort Rivière 1915); Marine Corps Brevet Medal; Army and Navy Distinguished Service Medals
- Record
- Wounded in the Boxer Rebellion, 1900; led the storming of Fort Rivière, Haiti, 17 November 1915
- Legacy
- War Is a Racket (1935)
Smedley Butler, born in 1881 into a Pennsylvania Quaker family, lied about his age to win a Marine commission in 1898 and was wounded twice in China in 1900. His brevet for Tientsin later brought him the Marine Corps Brevet Medal, created in 1921 for officers then barred from the Medal of Honor.33
His first Medal of Honor was for leading his battalion at Veracruz, Mexico, on 22 April 1914. Myth vs fact: two Medals of Honor sound like two rare feats, but the first was one of 56 for Veracruz, by East Carolina University's count the most ever given for a single battle, and Butler, embarrassed, sent it back until ordered to wear it. The second was different: on 17 November 1915 he led the attack on Fort Rivière in Haiti, where Marines poured through a gap in the old French bastion's wall and took it hand to hand.34
He retired as a major general on 1 October 1931 and turned on his own wars: in 1935 he published War Is a Racket, an attack on the profits behind them; by HistoryNet's account he also told Congress that businessmen had tried to recruit him for a coup against Roosevelt, a disputed affair.35
Why it ranks here: Two Medals of Honor would score full marks, but the first was a mass award he tried to return, so weight of the honors 4; every award rests on an official citation, so certainty 5, and consequence 3 is our judgment that his turn against war profits has outlasted his battles. Of the three on 34 he trails the better known Carton de Wiart and passes Daniel Daly on consequence.
15 Daniel Daly, 1899 to 1929
- Lived
- 1873 to 1937
- Served
- US Marine Corps, 1899 to 1929 (in the reserve from 1919): China, Haiti, Mexico, France
- Highest honors
- Medal of Honor twice (Peking 1900, Haiti 1915); Navy Cross and Distinguished Service Cross (Belleau Wood, 1918); French Médaille Militaire
- Record
- Held a lone post on the Tartar Wall, 1900; took a machine-gun post alone at Belleau Wood, 10 June 1918
- Legacy
- Turned down a commission; the destroyer USS Daly (1943)
Dan Daly, born in Glen Cove, New York, in 1873, joined the Marines in 1899. In the summer of 1900 he was with the legation guard besieged in Peking, and on 14 August, by HistoryNet's account, he held a lone post on the Tartar Wall through the night against repeated attacks; his citation says only that he "distinguished himself by meritorious conduct".36
The second medal came in Haiti. On the evening of 24 October 1915 his mounted patrol was fired on from three sides by about 400 Cacos; the Marines fought to a good position, held it overnight and at daybreak scattered the attackers. At Belleau Wood, aged 44, he put out a fire in an ammunition dump at Lucy-le-Bocage on 5 June 1918, and on 10 June took a German machine-gun post alone with grenades and his pistol, deeds cited for both the Navy Cross and the Army's Distinguished Service Cross; France added the Médaille Militaire. Myth vs fact: the battle cry "do you want to live forever?" credited to him at Belleau Wood is repeated by HistoryNet as fact, but none of his four citations records it. He retired as a sergeant major on 6 February 1929.37
Why it ranks here: Two Medals of Honor for separate deeds and the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Cross on top give weight of the honors 5, and official citations give certainty 5, but he is known mainly to Marines, so recognition 3, and his fights decided no battle, so consequence 2. He trails Smedley Butler on consequence and edges Albert Jacka and Eddie Rickenbacker, also on 34, because he began to serve first.
How we chose and ranked these soldiers
We counted one soldier, sailor, airman or marine of any rank and any army, and judged each on the honors recorded in official citations, gazettes and service records, not on the totals repeated online, which often count every campaign and service medal. What an award was for matters as much as how high it was: courage under fire weighs more than command, and honors given as political or birthday gifts, such as Leonid Brezhnev's four Hero of the Soviet Union stars, do not count. Heroism judged on its own is ranked in America's greatest military heroes, generalship in the greatest military commanders, and the Poles who fought in other nations' wars in For Your Freedom and Ours.
We considered 25 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of who the most decorated soldiers in history were; the weight of the honors, consequence and memory count twice, and certainty once:
- Recognition (×3). 5 if the name is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of the most decorated soldiers, 1 if only specialists know it.
- Weight of the honors (×2). The highest awards, how many, and for what: 5 for the nation's highest award won more than once, a top grade held by no one else, or the highest award with a long list of other awards for gallantry; 4 for the highest award once with several others, the second highest many times, or honors won mainly for command; 3 for the highest award for a single action and little else; 1 for honors for service rather than deeds.
- Consequence (×2). 5 if what the soldier did decided a war or changed how armies fight, 1 if it changed nothing beyond one fight.
- Memory (×2). 5 if the soldier lives on in films, monuments, books and the names of ships and bases, 1 if forgotten.
- Certainty (×1). 5 if every award and deed is confirmed by official citations, gazettes and service records, 1 if the count rests on the soldier's own account or on totals repeated online; a disputed count or unverified claims behind an award lower the score.
The list is ranked by total score, not by date or by a count of ribbons. Ties go to the better known soldier, then to the one whose deeds changed more, then to the one who began to serve first. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them. It explains, for example, why Daniel Daly, one of only nineteen men with two Medals of Honor, is only fifteenth: his honors score full marks, but few people outside the Marine Corps know his name, and his fights, brave as they were, decided no battle. Kill counts credited by a soldier's own side, such as Richthofen's 80 victories and Pokryshkin's 59, hold certainty to 4 at most, and to 3 where the claims run into the hundreds and no one has verified them, as with Rudel's 519 tanks and Erich Hartmann's 352 victories. Rudel is seventh on the weight of his honors alone, which is not praise: he remained an unrepentant Nazi to the end of his life.38
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×3 | Weight of the honors ×2 | Consequence ×2 | Memory ×2 | Certainty ×1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Audie Murphy | 5 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 43 |
| 2 | Georgy Zhukov | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 43 |
| 3 | Douglas MacArthur | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 41 |
| 4 | Chesty Puller | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 39 |
| 5 | Charles Upham | 4 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 39 |
| 6 | Manfred von Richthofen | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 38 |
| 7 | Hans-Ulrich Rudel | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 37 |
| 8 | Alvin York | 4 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 36 |
| 9 | Desmond Doss | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 36 |
| 10 | Bernard Freyberg | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 36 |
| 11 | Noel Chavasse | 3 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 36 |
| 12 | Alexander Pokryshkin | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 35 |
| 13 | Adrian Carton de Wiart | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 34 |
| 14 | Smedley Butler | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 34 |
| 15 | Daniel Daly | 3 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 34 |
Close calls
Five soldiers came close and did not make the fifteen:
Albert Jacka, 1914 to 1919. He won the first Victoria Cross awarded to an Australian in the war, at Gallipoli on 19 May 1915, for his part in repelling a Turkish counter-attack, then the Military Cross at Pozières in August 1916 and a second for his work before the attack at Bullecourt in April 1917. The official historian Charles Bean wrote that everyone who knew the facts knew he had earned the Victoria Cross three times. A legend in Australia but little known elsewhere, he ties Daniel Daly on 34 points and misses the fifteen only because Daly began to serve first.39
Eddie Rickenbacker, 1917 to 1919. America's highest-scoring ace of World War I, with 26 victory claims for the 94th Aero Squadron, earned seven Distinguished Service Crosses; an eighth, for attacking seven German aircraft alone near Billy-sous-les-Côtes on 25 September 1918, was upgraded to the Medal of Honor, which President Hoover presented in 1930, Pacific Wrecks records. His honors score full marks, but lists of decorated soldiers rarely name him, so recognition 3, and on 34 points he misses the fifteen as the one who began to serve last.40
Erich Hartmann, 1940 to 1970. The German fighter pilot is credited with 352 Allied aircraft shot down, most of them Soviet, in some 1,400 missions, which History Hit counts as the most of any fighter pilot in history, and he received the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. Claims in the hundreds that no one has checked against Soviet losses hold his certainty to 3, and the Diamonds grade was shared with others and outranked by Rudel's, so honors 4 and 33 points. He spent ten years as a prisoner in the Soviet Union before his release in 1955.41
Ivan Kozhedub, 1940 to 1991. Three times Hero of the Soviet Union, in February and August 1944 and in August 1945, he flew 330 sorties, fought 120 air battles and shot down 62 aircraft by the Great Soviet Encyclopedia's count, three more than Pokryshkin. Like Pokryshkin's, his tally is his own side's official count, so certainty 4, but his victories changed no campaign, so consequence 2, and on 33 points he misses the fifteen by one point.42
Arthur Martin-Leake, 1899 to 1919. On the earlier version of this page. A doctor, he was the first of the three men ever to win the Victoria Cross twice: as a surgeon with the South African Constabulary at Vlakfontein on 8 February 1902, and again, with a bar, for rescuing wounded men near Zonnebeke between 29 October and 8 November 1914. His honors score full marks, as Chavasse's and Upham's do; he misses on recognition and memory, since few outside medical and regimental history know his name, and on 32 points he is two short of the fifteen.43
Why do lists of the most decorated soldiers disagree?
Because they count different things. The American Medal of Honor and the British Victoria Cross top separate systems, each with its own ladder of lesser awards; some lists count every ribbon a man wore, including campaign and service medals, others only awards for gallantry, others the highest award won more than once. Even one man's total moves with the method: Arlington National Cemetery credits Audie Murphy with 28 medals, three of them French and one Belgian, while the Handbook of Texas counts 33 awards, citations and decorations.44
Systems also differ in how often they repeat an award. The Soviet Union made Leonid Brezhnev Hero of the Soviet Union four times, three of them on his birthdays, and Germany's Knight's Cross came in ascending grades, the highest held by Hans-Ulrich Rudel alone. That is why this list weighs what an award was for, not how many there were.45
Who was the most decorated soldier of World War II?
It depends on the army. For the United States it is Audie Murphy, first on this list; for the Commonwealth, Charles Upham, the only fighting soldier with two Victoria Crosses; for the Soviet Union, Georgy Zhukov among the commanders and Alexander Pokryshkin, the first man made Hero of the Soviet Union three times, among the fighting men; and for Nazi Germany, the Stuka pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel, the only holder of the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, who remained an unrepentant Nazi after the war.46
Has anyone won the Medal of Honor or the Victoria Cross twice?
Yes. History.com counts 19 men who have received the Medal of Honor twice; the best known, the Marines Smedley Butler and Daniel Daly, won theirs for separate actions and are both on this list. Only three men have won the Victoria Cross twice, the National Army Museum records: two doctors, Arthur Martin-Leake in 1902 and 1914 and Noel Chavasse in 1916 and 1917, and the infantry officer Charles Upham in 1941 and 1942.47
What the medals do not tell you
Several of these men said the medals belonged to others. Upham shunned the limelight and claimed that others deserved the honors more than he did, Christchurch City Libraries notes; Daly, by HistoryNet's account, called all medals "a lot of foolishness"; and the survivors of Alvin York's patrol spent years asking for their share of the credit for 8 October 1918. Behind every "most decorated" headline the real record is a citation, a date and a place.48
For more stories of individual courage, see America's greatest military heroes, and for generalship, the greatest military commanders.
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