On the afternoon of 8 January 1945, Technical Sergeant Russell E. Dunham climbed a snow-covered ridge near Kaysersberg, in the Vosges region of eastern France, and single-handedly destroyed three German machine-gun nests. He was shot across the back during the assault and kept fighting anyway. For these actions he received the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest decoration for valor.
Dunham was a technical sergeant, not a private, and the fight took place in France, not Italy. It involved no tanks. The story is a straightforward, brutal infantry assault up a frozen hillside, and it needs no embellishment.
From an Illinois Farm to the 3rd Infantry Division
Russell Everett Dunham was born on 23 February 1920 in East Carondelet, Illinois, just south of St. Louis, one of fourteen children. He dropped out of school before high school to help work the family farm, and later sold soup and tamales on the streets of St. Louis with his brother Ralph during the Great Depression. In 1940, after failing to find work at Caterpillar in Peoria, Dunham and his brother enlisted in the Army.
Both brothers were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. Dunham landed in North Africa in November 1942, fought in Sicily in the summer of 1943, and was wounded at Anzio in Italy. By January 1945 his division had moved to the Alsace region of France, where the 3rd was grinding through the Vosges mountains against determined German resistance.
An Uphill Fight Near Kaysersberg
On 8 January 1945, Dunham's platoon, part of Company I, was pinned down at the base of a snow-covered hill by German artillery and machine-gun fire. The only way forward was up. Dunham pulled a white mattress cover over himself to blend into the knee-deep snow, took twelve carbine magazines and a dozen hand grenades, and began crawling toward the nearest enemy position.
He crawled roughly seventy-five yards under direct fire. Ten yards short of the first nest he rose and charged. A burst of machine-gun fire tore a ten-inch gash across his back and knocked him fifteen yards back down the slope. He got up and kept going. When a German grenade landed beside him, he kicked it clear before it burst, then shot the gunner and his assistant and hauled a third crewman out of the emplacement by the collar.
Bleeding through the white cover that now marked him plainly against the snow, Dunham pressed another fifty yards uphill to a second machine-gun nest and knocked it out with two grenades, then cleared the surrounding foxholes with his carbine. He crawled on to a third and final nest, staggered the last fifteen yards to it, and destroyed its crew with grenades. An enemy soldier fired at him at point-blank range and missed; Dunham killed him and drove the remaining Germans from their positions.
According to his citation, Dunham's assault killed nine German soldiers, wounded seven, and resulted in the capture of two. His commanding general later credited the action with saving the lives of roughly 120 pinned-down American soldiers.
Capture, Escape, and the Medal
Dunham survived. Two weeks after the ridge assault, on 22 January 1945, his unit was overrun by German armor at Holtzwihr and most of the men were forced to surrender. Dunham hid overnight in a barrel before being captured the following day, then escaped from his guards and eventually reached American engineers working on a bridge over the Ill River. A medic he knew recognized him and saved his frostbitten feet from amputation.
On 23 April 1945, at a ceremony in Nuremberg, Germany, Dunham received the Medal of Honor from Lieutenant General Alexander Patch. He had initially been recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross, which was upgraded. He also earned the French Croix de Guerre. He often noted that his brother Ralph, who served alongside him, had earned every decoration he did except the Medal of Honor.
After the War
When Dunham left the Army he returned to Illinois and spent 32 years as a benefits counselor for the Veterans Administration in St. Louis, retiring in 1975. He helped establish a monument at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery honoring the soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division. Unlike many combat veterans, he spoke openly about the war for the rest of his life, at schools and reunions alike. Russell Dunham died at his home in Godfrey, Illinois, on 6 April 2009, at the age of 89, and was buried at Valhalla Memorial Park.
