Alone at a critical gap in the line, he stopped the assault with his rifle fire. When the enemy broke through, he climbed from his foxhole and hunted them down himself.
When his outnumbered force began to fall back, one man chose to stay behind. He stood alone against the attack so others could live.
He attacked enemy airfields again and again at treetop height through walls of flak. When his shattered aircraft could no longer fly, he still tried to bring it home.
A bomb buried his comrades alive while enemy bullets swept the ground around them. He rose into the fire to dig them out, one by one.
Shot again and again, unable to use either arm, he still refused evacuation. All night long he kept the line alive until dawn broke over a position still held.
In his first offensive action, he became messenger, squad leader, machine gunner, and defender of the line. Outnumbered and under constant fire, he turned chaos into victory.
Mortally wounded and only yards from the enemy, he refused to stop directing fire. His last orders were to keep the guns firing.
