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Records do not support award claims by actor

The late Ben Chapman, star of the 1954 film “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” didn’t confine his acting to playing the part of a classic movie monster.

He also fictionalized parts of his own life, telling family and fans alike that he had earned medals for valor after fighting at the legendary battle of Chosin Reservoir.

Chapman, who died Feb. 21 at 79, never received the Silver Star, Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts he had claimed for decades, according to Marine Corps officials and a copy of Chapman’s military Report of Separation.

In fact, while Chapman deployed to Korea with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, records show he did not arrive there until Dec. 17, 1950, 11 days after the Battle of Chosin Reservoir ended.

The discovery comes one month after obituaries published in newspapers across the country — including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Marine Corps Times — memorialized Chapman as a decorated war hero.

Chapman’s family in Hawaii disputed the notion that Chapman may have been a faker.

“I don’t know; it must be wrong,” said his son, Benjamin Chapman III. “I have a box with all of his awards.”

But Chapman III, 29, a former Marine sergeant who served in Iraq in 2003, said his father kept no documentation for his medals. And officials at the Marine Corps Awards branch in Quantico, Va., said Chapman’s name does not appear in a database of Silver Star recipients.

The records call into question decades of stories Chapman told reporters and family members alike.

In one 2005 interview with the Web site Icons of Fright, for example, Chapman said he arrived in Korea as part of the Inchon Landing, a successful amphibious assault in September 1950 against North Korea’s People’s Army. He also recalled the battle at Chosin Reservoir, which took place from Nov. 27 to Dec. 6, 1950.

“The military said it was a bad situation and everyone should pull out — like a retreat,” he said. “The Chinese came down with 20 divisions and they surrounded us. When they found out they had the USMC surrounded, the word was, ‘No prisoners. Kill every one of them.’ So we fought our way out and we did make our way out.”

But records show Chapman was at Camp Pendleton, Calif., during the Inchon Landing and the Battle at Chosin. For his time in Korea, he received a Korean Service Medal with one star — a medal bestowed on anyone who served in Korea during wartime — and a United Nations Medal, but nothing more.

Chapman III also said in two interviews with Marine Corps Times that his father always said he left the Corps as a sergeant, but documents and officials said Chapman’s highest rank was corporal, even after he re-enlisted as a reservist through 1955.

Marine Corps Times launched an inquiry into Chapman’s record after family members said he received two Purple Hearts for frostbite suffered during the Chosin campaign — a claim that is all but impossible, said Doug Sterner, a decorated Vietnam-era Army veteran recognized by Congress for uncovering fraudulent medal claims.

Unable to reach a conclusion by press time, Marine Corps Times ran a March 10 story noting Chapman’s death and ties to the Corps, attributing his purported medals to Chapman III. The newspaper received a copy of Chapman’s Report of Separation after publication.

Sterner said Chapman’s obituaries are just one example of the lives of veterans being overstated after their deaths.

In one recent example, the service record of Billy Walkabout, an Army veteran decorated for service in Vietnam, was exaggerated after he died March 7, 2007. Several organizations, including The Associated Press and VFW Magazine, reported initially that he received a Distinguished Service Cross, a Purple Heart, five Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars.

VFW Magazine ran a correction in its March 2008 issue stating that a check with the National Personnel Records Center revealed Walkabout actually received a Distinguished Service Cross upgraded from his single Silver Star, one Purple Heart, one Bronze Star and the Army Commendation Medal.

DISCUSS: Another faker?