Born: August 15, 1914
Private First Class, United States Army Service# 39920711 17TH TANK BATTALION,
7TH ARMORED DIVISION “LUCKY SEVENTH” Date of Enlistment: September 15, 1943
Home or Place of Enlistment: Preston, Idaho Died: January 22, 1945 Killed in Action while conducting combat operations against Nazi
Germany Forces at the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. |
The 17TH TANK BATTALION, 7TH ARMORED DIVISION is awarded the
FRENCH CROIX DE GUERRE WITH PALMawarded under Decision No. 274, 22 July 1946, by the President of the
Provisional Government of the French Republic, with the following citation: A magnificent unit in morale and discipline. From La Ferte Bernard to Verdun, it harassed the enemy day and night from 14 to 31 August 1944, operated at an advanced point of the 7th Armored Division and seized, almost without any destruction, 15 important French cities. This unit fought 28 battles, among which were those of Chartres, Provins, Traconne, Warmeriville, crossing the Seine at Melun against stubborn enemy resistance, then the Marne, and finally the Meuse, covered 600 kilometers in 16 days, freeing, in record time, 15 French Departments from the German Yoke.
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A fine unit, bold and indefatigable. On 16 December 1944 alerted from Rimbourg (Germany) to come and close up the breach made by the enemy in the Belgian Ardennes, the 17th Tank Battalion was ordered to hold the wave of the panzer divisions breaking toward France. Increasing its counterattacks, it foiled, by the initiative of its bold movements, the intentions of the enemy. It succeeded in holding the enemy on the march on a sector of more than 40 kilometers of the front from 15 to 23 December 1944 by continual engagements, especially bloody at St.-Vith, Rodt, and Gouvy.
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