Maxwell had seen action a long time before the occasion he received the Medal of Honor for. The onetime Colorado timber worker served as a "wire man," scaling roofs or trees to hang phone lines that enabled his battalion to communicate quickly on the battlefield.
In North Africa, he had carried an M1 rifle before being classified as a noncombatant. With his heavy wires and tools, his load was too heavy for a rifle. Instead he was given a .45-caliber pistol for the invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy.
At Anzio, where Allies secured a beachhead for the liberation of Rome, Maxwell too shrapnel in both legs while repairing communications wires. For several months afterwards, he was hospitalized in 1944 before rejoining his unit, the 7th Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division, for the invasion of Southern France dubbed Operation Dragoon.
By September, Maxwell's battalion had reached the city of Besancon, near the Swiss border. He was stationed with a few GIs at an old pockmarked farmhouse on the outskirts of town, stringing wire on the observation post's when a German platoon suddenly opened fire with machine guns and 20mm antiaircraft weapons.
Next? --GreGen
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