Medal of Honor Recipient Robert Maxwell Dies in 2019-- Part 3: The Fight at the Farmhouse

As a hail of bullets sheared tiles from the roof, Maxwell leaped to the ground, taking shelter behind a short rock wall topped with a mesh wire fence.  The German forces had evidently outmaneuvered the American rifle companies nearby, coming within ten yards of the wall and nearly as close to Maxwell's battalion commander, Lt. Col.  Lloyd B. Ramsey, who was inside the post with other officers.

Maxwell and his three comrades marshaled a defense, armed only with their .45s.

"Maxwell's courage was what held us together, " Cyril McColl, a technician fourth grade later told Collier's Magazine.  "The machine-gun fie was just clearing his head, but he sat there taking pot shots at everything that moved.  Our wall was beginning to crumble, and I was thinking how nice it would be to get out of there, when a grenade came over the chicken wire, and hit the cement floor right at our feet."

It was about 2 a.m. when Maxwell fell on the grenade and lost consciousness.  By most accounts, when he came to, the post was deserted, his fellow soldiers apparently believing he had died, had been ordered to evacuate.

Maxwell stumbled into the house, where he found the last American left in it, a lieutenant gathering phone wire.

--GreGen

Medal of Honor Recipient Robert Maxwell Dies in 2019-- Part 1: Fell on a Grenade

From the May 16, 2019, Chicago Tribune "Medal of Honor recipient fell on grenade to save lives" by Harrison Smith, Washington Post.

He heard the hand grenade before he saw it,  And as the seconds ticked away and Robert Maxwell searched blindly through the darkness, he decided that the only thing worse than running away was picking it up and attempting to throw it back at the enemy -- an act that risked killing the three soldiers crouched alongside him.

When he finally found the grenade lying on the cement courtyard outside his battalion's embattled observation post in eastern France, he did the only thing that made sense.  Clutching a blanket to his chest, he dropped on top of the device, absorbing the full force of the explosion and saving the lives of his comrades.

"It's not the case that I was brave or a hero or anything like that," Maxwell, an Army Technician fifth grade during World War II, said years later.  "Because I just did what the only alternative was at the time.  There was nothing else to do."

For his actions early that morning on September 7, 1944, Maxwell was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration for valor.  He was 98, the oldest surviving Medal recipient when he died May 11, 2019, in Bend, Oregon, leaving only three surviving recipients from World War II.

--GreGen

Don't Forget D-Day-- Part 3: Incoming Tide Claims Wounded

"Among the books about D-Day is Rick Atkinson's "The Guns At Last Light."  In it he describes the ferocious battle scenes, quotes the participants and honors the dead at Omaha, Utah and other beaches.

" 'By 8:30 a.m., the Omaha assault had stalled.  The rising tide quickly reclaimed the thin strip of liberated beach, drowning those immobilized by wounds or fear.  ...Only where escarpment turned to cliff, four miles west of Omaha, did the early-morning assault show promise.

"Three companies from the 2nd Ranger Battalion scaled the headland at Pointe du Hoc, first climbing freehand despite a rain of grenades, then using grapnels and braided ropes fired  from mortar tubes."

--GreGen

Back in 2012: A Toddler Finds Live WWII Grenade on Easter Egg Hunt

From the April 7, 2012, Mail (UK) "Toddler on Easter egg hunt stumbles on a live grenade...which has to be blown up by bomb squad."

A three-year-old boy was found standing on it. as an Easter egg hunt with more than 25 kids under the age of 5 were on hand.

The World War II grenade was found just yards off busy A39 after the child spotted it while looking for eggs and thought it was on.

The big question was how did it get there.

One reader commented that there was an American Army base nearby.

Another said to "Track down the Easter Bunny and Terminate him with Eggstreme prejudice."

Oh, Well, It Could Have been a Horrible Thing.  --GreGen