SPRINGFIELD – The Springfield Veterans’ Activities Committee Inc. awarded the late Gunnery Sgt. Thomas J. Sullivan with its Lt. J. Frank Murphy Medal of Valor at a ceremony at City Hall on May 27.

The award is given on an annual basis to a Springfield citizen who has risked his or her life in saving the lives of others, or to a non-resident who performed such an act while in the city of Springfield. Richard Tyrell, chair of the Springfield Veterans’ Activities Committee, explained to Reminder Publications the award was first presented in 1991 and is not presented every year.

Murphy was one of 121 Army Rangers who participated in the successful and largest rescue mission of more than 513 Allied prisoners at the Japanese’s prisoner of war camp near Cabanatuan in the Philippines in 1945. Murphy’s heroism was detailed in the 2001 book, “Ghost Soldiers: the Epic Account of World War II’s Greatest Rescue Mission” by Hampton Sides.

Sullivan was one of five victims of a shooting in 2015 in Chattanooga, TN. He was credited with helping fellow Marines escape death.