Sergeant Henry Erwin.

 He was only 23, but at that moment he wasn't a boy. He was a man in the midst of hell.

Sergeant Henry Erwin was aboard a B-29 bomber, flying over Japan during World War II. His task was clear: to light and release the smoke bombs that would guide the formation in its attack. A technical, trained, almost mechanical gesture. But that day, something went terribly wrong.

One of the smoke bombs didn't come out of the chute. It bounced backward. It exploded inside the aircraft. It hit Erwin full in the face, blinding him, tearing off his nose, burning his skin to the bone. And thick smoke immediately engulfed the entire cockpit: the pilot could no longer see anything. The plane was becoming a flying coffin.

In those conditions, anyone would have given up. But not Henry.

Blinded, in excruciating pain, and with his face burning, he bent down, picked up the burning bomb with his hands, and began to crawl. He had to carry it away, away from his companions. He could only feel his skin giving way, the smoke burning his lungs. But he moved, inch by inch.

In front of him, the navigator's table. An obstacle. He had to lift it to get through. To do so, he was forced to clutch the glowing bomb to his chest.

Then, finally, he reached the cockpit. He touched and groped until he found a window. And with a final effort, he threw it out.

He fell to the ground. He was a burning body. But he had saved everyone. In 13 feet—four meters—he had accomplished the impossible. “It seemed like miles when you're burning,” he said later.

The pilot, who had engaged the autopilot during the emergency, only then realized that the plane had descended to within 300 meters of the sea. With a desperate maneuver, he managed to regain control and head for Iwo Jima, the only available medical station.

Erwin was conscious. He didn't ask for himself, but for his crew. His companions extinguished him with a fire extinguisher and administered morphine. When they reached the island, doctors struggled for hours just to remove the white phosphorus from his eyes—each fragment, upon contact with oxygen, ignited.

No one thought he would survive.

But meanwhile, his superiors were doing the impossible. That same night, they prepared the request for the Medal of Honor. The next morning, they placed it on General Curtis LeMay's desk. He signed it immediately. Within hours, the approval was official. An unprecedented record.

They wanted to deliver it to him before he died.

Yet Henry Erwin was still alive three days later. He was transferred to Guam, undergoing dozens of operations, transfusions, and treatments. And a week later, on April 19, 1945, he received the Medal of Honor. Blindfolded, immobile in a hospital bed, but alive. And with a courage that burned more than the bomb itself.

The medal? It was quickly snatched from an Army display case in Honolulu. The only one available. They couldn't wait. Because some heroes don't come twice.

And Henry Erwin wasn't a survivor. He was a legend.