Lieut. Col. Stanley T. Adams, who as an Army sergeant won the Medal of Honor in the Korean War for leading a counterattack that left more than 50 enemy soldiers dead in hand-to-hand combat, died on April 19 at the Oregon Veterans Home in The Dalles, Ore. He was 76.

Colonel Adams, who lived in Bend, Ore., had Alzheimer's disease, said his wife, Jean.

In July 1950, Colonel Adams, then a sergeant first class, was serving with the 19th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Division when it was rushed to South Korea from occupation duty in Japan soon after North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. Most of the men in the division were inexperienced, but Sergeant Adams, a native of DeSoto, Kan., was an Army veteran of World War II who had fought in North Africa and Italy and had been wounded in action.

By midwinter of 1951, United Nations forces in Korea were reeling after Chinese Communist troops had staged a large counteroffensive in late November 1950, forcing American soldiers and marines to retreat from the Yalu River and the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. Within six weeks, Communist forces had recrossed the 38th parallel and recaptured Seoul, the South Korean capital.

United Nations troops in the Eighth Army, which included the 24th Division, began a counteroffensive in late January. Sergeant Adams's company set up positions south of Seoul on Feb. 3. His platoon held an outpost on a ridge 200 yards in front of the rest of the company.