Thinking about Russell Dunham today, a great American leader, who earned the Medal of Honor for knocking out three German machine gun nests despite being badly wounded himself, saving the lives of over 120 fellow Americans. Honor and remember him!

Dunham’s company was pinned down near Kaysereberg, France, fixed by a combined arms mix of machine gun fire and artillery. Dunham realized that “the only way to go was up” and first crawling and the rushing, crossing 100 yards of open ground to the first machine gun nest, jumping up to rush the last fifteen yards. Just short of the nest, he was hit by a German bullet and tumbled back down the hill, but he go back up, tossed a grenade, shot two Germans and bodily threw the third German down the hill to be captured. 

Dunham then attacked the next nest, fifty yards away, tossing grenades and silencing the gun pit, before targeting the third guns one 65 yards further. It sounds like the his last assault was more methodical, as he was under machine gun fire the whole way, but he killed the Germans in the pit, again by tossing grenades. Dunham killed nine Germans, wounded seven and captured two on his own, while another thirty Germans were captured because of his successful rush. 

Dunham received the Medal of Honor in April 1945 in the ruins of the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg, Germany. (This is where Triumph of The Will was filmed.) General Alexander Patch credited Dunham with saving the lives of 120 Americans by his actions.