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Unsung Hero: Surprising Facts About a Medal of Honor Recipient Who Fought Franco, Hirohito, and Hitler

Khalid Elhassan March 17, 2025 13 min

Black - Edward Allen Carter Jr., and the Medal of Honor he earned but did not receive during his lifetime — Edward Allen Carter Jr., and the Medal of Honor he earned but did not receive during his lifetime. Pinterest

14. An Extraordinary Life

Edward Allen Carter Jr. first put on his cape and went crusading at age fifteen to fight Japanese militarism in China. He then took a whack at fascism, fighting General Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Then, like a video game character working his way up to the highest level to take on the Big Boss, he capped it off by taking on Hitler’s Nazis in World War II, earning a Medal of Honor in the process. Our OG antifascist hero was born in California in 1916 to an African American father and an East Indian mother. His parents, Christian missionaries, took him with them to India, to start a church in Calcutta. It was in India that young Edward grew up, and where he first became fascinated by the military. As a child, he frequently snuck away from home to watch maneuvers at a nearby British military base.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.