Medal of Honor: Alan Louis Eggers, World War I, September 29, 1918

Name: Alan Louis Eggers
Rank: Sergeant
War: World War I
Date of Action: September 29, 1918
Unit: Machine Gun Company, 107th Infantry, 27th Division
Accredited to: Summit, New Jersey

Summary of Action
Near Le Catelet, France, Eggers, Sergeant John C. Latham, and Corporal Thomas E. O’Shea were cut off by a smoke barrage, finding themselves stranded deep inside enemy lines. From their shell hole, they heard cries for help from a disabled American tank just 30 yards away. Braving furious machine gun and mortar fire, the three men rushed forward. O’Shea was mortally wounded in the dash, but Eggers and Latham pressed on. They rescued a wounded officer and two soldiers, carrying them to safety in a nearby trench sap. Not finished, the pair returned to the tank, dismantled a Hotchkiss gun under fire, and dragged it back to the wounded. All day they used the captured weapon to hold off German forces, then under cover of darkness, carried both the gun and the wounded men back to American lines. Eggers’ courage, teamwork, and defiance turned a hopeless trap into an enduring act of heroism.

Medal of Honor Citation
EGGERS, ALAN LOUIS
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Machine Gun Company, 107th Infantry, 27th Division. Place and date: Near Le Catelet, France, 29 September 1918. Entered service at: Summit, N.J. Birth: Saranac Lake, N.Y. G.O. No.: 20, W.D., 1919. Citation: Becoming separated from their platoon by a smoke barrage, Sgt. Eggers, Sgt. John C. Latham and Cpl. Thomas E. O’Shea took cover in a shell hole well within the enemy’s lines. Upon hearing a call for help from an American tank, which had become disabled 30 yards from them, the 3 soldiers left their shelter and started toward the tank, under heavy fire from German machineguns and trench mortars. In crossing the fire-swept area Cpl. O’Shea was mortally wounded, but his companions, undeterred, proceeded to the tank, rescued a wounded officer, and assisted 2 wounded soldiers to cover in a sap of a nearby trench. Sgt. Eggers and Sgt. Latham then returned to the tank in the face of the violent fire, dismounted a Hotchkiss gun, and took it back to where the wounded men were, keeping off the enemy all day by effective use of the gun and later bringing it, with the wounded men, back to our lines under cover of darkness.