By Phil Richards, phil.richards@indystar.com

You've probably never heard of Col. James Helms Kasler. It's a pity.

Kasler is Indiana's Sgt. York. Three times Kasler went off to war. Three times he returned home to Indianapolis a hero, and this Memorial Day is an appropriate time to celebrate him.

The Air Force Cross is an award for conspicuous gallantry in combat. It is second only to the Medal of Honor among American military decorations and equivalent to the Army's Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross.

There have been 195 recipients of the Air Force Cross. Three men have received the award twice. Kasler alone has earned it three times.

Setting aside recipients of the Medal of Honor, Kasler is the 10th most decorated serviceman in U.S. history. He is No. 1 among Hoosiers, and on April 24, at age 87, he joined what Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg called "our honored dead."

"The colonel was my mentor and my hero, the most courageous man I've ever known," said John Brodak, his voice flush with feeling. "He was a fierce warrior and a patriot and I'm proud he called me his friend."

Brodak is a retired Air Force colonel who flew with Kasler. And for 15 months of the 6 1/2 years both were North Vietnamese prisoners of war, he was Kasler's cellmate at "The Zoo" and the infamous "Hanoi Hilton."

Kasler flew 198 missions, the first seven over Japan as a teenage tail gunner on a B-29 bomber during World War II. He flew 100 more as an F-86 Sabre pilot in Korea, where he shot down six MiG-15s and became one of America's early jet aces. He was shot down in his F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber during his 91st mission over North Vietnam.

Pilots who survived 100 missions in Vietnam earned a ticket home. Not Kasler; he already had volunteered for another tour of duty and another 100 missions.

Heroism was his profession. The extraordinary was his norm.

Aloft and on attack

May 15, 1952, was the day Kasler shot down his fourth and fifth MiGs and became an ace, and the day his wingman, Albert Smiley, downed another.

North Korean MiGs were routinely piloted by Chinese and Soviet pilots and a U.S. intelligence officer later informed Kasler that the three MiGs he and Smiley killed were the only ones recorded that day.

The officer had another bit of information: One of those three planes had been piloted by the son of Mao Zedong, father of the Chinese revolution and principal founder of the People's Republic of China.

Kasler's actions that day comprise the second half of an episode of the History Channel series "Dogfights."

Hanoi was off-limits to U.S. warplanes during the early years of the Vietnam War. Fearing a wider conflict, Robert McNamara, secretary of defense during the Kennedy and Johnson presidential administrations, drew a 50-mile circle around it and a 30-mile ring around the principal harbor.

When the first strike on Hanoi was authorized, in June 1966, Kasler got the call. He planned and led the mission. It was one of the most successful F-105 raids of the war. It resulted in 90 percent destruction of Hanoi's massive petroleum complex and earned Kasler his first Air Force Cross.

No. 2 came shortly thereafter, on Aug. 8, the day before Kasler's elder daughter, Suzanne, was to celebrate her 16th birthday.

Kasler was leading the formation when his wingman, Fred Flom was shot down. Kasler dropped and flew low-level cover while awaiting the arrival of a combat rescue patrol.

When Kasler went "Bingo," meaning he had only enough fuel to return to base, he instead hooked up with a KC-135 midair refueler and returned to look for Flom.

Kasler's jet was hit. He was forced to bail out and his right thighbone was snapped just above the knee and shattered just below the hip, where its finger-like projections pierced deep into his groin.

So began six years and seven months of imprisonment by an enemy who knew exactly who he was and why to hate him.

It was testimony to the ferocity of the air war that another of Kasler's closest friends, Lewis Shattuck, was shot down and rescued on Aug. 1 and was shot down again, and this time captured, on Aug. 11. And that Brodak went down Aug. 14.

That's three buddies down within 35 days of one another and serving as POWs from 1966 until 1973.

"It was old home week in Hanoi," Shattuck, another retired colonel, joked drily.

Kasler, who was born in South Bend, graduated from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis and attended Butler University. He was the subject of an extensive feature story in a Time magazine issue published four days after he was shot down.

In it, he was characterized as "fast becoming the most famous pilot over North Vietnam."

A wingman called him a "one-man air force." Kasler's nickname – "Destroyer" – was recounted, as were his World War II and Korean exploits. (The nickname was based upon his uniform ability to find secondary targets and expend every bit of his mission ordinance, including all 1,029 rounds of 20-millimeter Gatling gun shells).

The North Vietnamese had a prize. Notoriety saved Major Kasler's life, but it exposed him to unspeakable torture.

His captors gloated. They singled him out. They almost immediately put Kasler on television, so they couldn't kill him without losing face, but they were particularly eager to force a confession or any capitulation, so great would have been its propaganda value.

At one point, during the fall of 1967, Kasler's captors took his clothes and his mosquito net. For three days, they denied him food and water and they beat his back and buttocks with a truck fan belt, every hour on the hour, 6 a.m. until 10 or 11 p.m.

His torturer asked if he surrendered. Kasler finally gasped yes, as recounted in his 2005 book, "Tempered Steel: The Three Wars of Triple Air Force Cross Winner Jim Kasler.

The guard nicknamed "Fidel" by the POWs returned to Kasler's cell the next day.

"You still surrender?" he asked.

"Hell no," Kasler responded.

The beatings resumed and continued for another two days. Kasler suffered a fractured rib, a ruptured eardrum and broken teeth. He was left with "the skin hanging off my rear end down to the floor." His face was so swollen, it hung like a bag, his eyes almost shut.

Kasler's mangled and infected leg, which tormented him throughout his captivity and for years afterward, swelled to the point he feared it would explode.

So it went.

Both Brodak, whom Kasler credited with saving his life, and Shattuck said Kasler's third Air Force Cross, awarded for his stubborn resistance and refusal to yield, could just as well have been a Medal of Honor.

"Some guys really should have had one," said Shattuck, who was all but adopted as uncle Lew by the Kasler family, "and Jim certainly would have had he not been shot down.

"He was a true patriot. He loved his country as much as he loved his family. That really defined who Jim was."

Both Shattuck and Brodak were in Indianapolis for the May 16 memorial service at Crown Hill Cemetery that saluted Kasler in death. It was a grim, gray day, but the rain eased and the sky brightened a bit for the F-15 Eagle flyover, when there was a lump in every throat and a tear in almost every eye.

Flier, family man

Kasler was more than a hero. He was a husband, a father and grandfather.

He was married to his wife, Martha (Rankin), for 65 years. She had moved to Indianapolis from Macomb, Ill., as an eighth-grader.

For seven long years, Martha, daughter Suzanne and twins Jim and Nanette awaited Kasler's return from Vietnam. It came, joyfully and tearfully, on March 8, 1973 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

The twins were 12 when their father left for Vietnam. They were 19 when the family was reunited. Kasler momentarily mistook his son Jim for Suzanne's husband, John Morris.

The confusion was understandable but short-lived. It is testimony to Kasler's enormous strength, and that of Martha and the kids, that normalcy was incredibly, and almost immediately, restored.

"He kind of picked up and we all went back to our lives in a few weeks," said Jim, The Indianapolis Star's "Newspaper Boy of the Year" in 1966 and now a retired Navy commander.

"There really wasn't a big readjustment. I remember a reporter asking him in Dayton: 'How did you get through this?'

"Dad said, 'I believed in my God, my family and my country, maybe not in that order.' He said, 'I don't care what you believe in. I don't care if you believe in your dog. If you believe strongly enough, it will get you through anything."

The Kaslers returned to their home near 38th Street and Post Road to find a pile of hundreds of POW bracelets in front of the door. The city held a parade in Kasler's honor. He served as grand marshal of the 500 Festival Parade.

Kasler was in line for an Air Wing command and a brigadier general's star when he retired from the Air Force in 1975.

He spent the last 39 years of his life as a resident of Momence, an Illinois-Indiana border town where he owned South Shore Golf Course and had interests in banking and real estate, served on a number of boards and received a variety of civic and service awards.

The nearby Kankakee (Ill.) Public Library filmed a video interview at the Kasler home in 2007.

Over the course of 75 minutes, the colonel recounted his Air Force career. Long exposure to combat stamps a man, and Kasler bore the stamp.

He spoke with the sure voice of authority. He was direct, understated, and he said, "I shot down six MiGs" without offering a shred of detail.

His interrogators pressed him for a war story, particulars of a dogfight or two.

"That would take too long," Kasler said dismissively.

He made utterly no reference to his 76 decorations for valor and service, including the three awards of the Air Force Cross, the Silver Star (two awards), the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross (nine awards) and the Bronze Star, all for gallantry, or the two Purple Hearts.

A doting grandpa

Kasler's happiest occupation was grandpa. His six grandchildren served as greeters at his Crown Hill memorial celebration. Each spoke.

One, Ashley Hurley, recalled grandpa's infectious sense of humor and how, when she was little, he would get down on the floor with her and laugh and laugh.

James Kasler was nicknamed "Stoneface" by his Air Force peers, testimony to his toughness, his seriousness of purpose and his mission commitment.

Men like Brodak and Shattuck, his kids and grandkids knew him better. They know he died a hero and a happy man.

Survivors include Martha, whom Shattuck characterized as "probably stronger than Jim;" son Jim, Pensacola, Fla. who served as family spokesman for this story; Suzanne Kasler Morris, who operates a nationally known interior design firm in Atlanta; and Nanette Kasler Valenti, Carmel, owner of NKL Designs.

Call Star reporter Phil Richards at 444-6408. follow him on Twitter: @philrichards6.