Valor Friday

The photo is famous the world over. You’ve probably seen it more than once. The scene is 1933 and German Jewish shopkeeper stands smirking while a Nazi Brownshirt stands nearby to intimidate him. The day was 1 April and marked the start of a Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.

The young Nazi looks a little cowed, as if the tables have turned and it is he who is intimidated, because the Jewish shopkeeper is displaying his coveted Iron Cross medal. The Iron Cross medal was a prestigious award given for battlefield bravery during both World Wars, and is comparable to the American Silver Star or Bronze Star Medal w/ “V”.

The World War I hero and shopkeep was Richard Stern. Next to his bedding store was his brother’s print shop. Both men were veterans of the Great War, as was their father. In response to the 1933 Nazi boycott of Jewish stores, Richard Stern had his brother print off pamphlets he wrote.

The pamphlets explained how he had enlisted into the Imperial German Army during World War I, as had the other men in his family. He rhetorically asked, “Has the German Jew become a second class human, only tolerated as a guest in his fatherland?

“We see this action against German Judaism as an insult to the memory of 12,000 German combat soldiers of the Jewish faith killed in action,” Stern wrote.

Stern ultimately had his business and livelihood destroyed during the infamous Kristallnacht in 1938, which was a state-sponsored assault against Jewish businesses and communities that saw widespread looting and destruction.

Before that happened though, Stern had been sent a medal for his World War I heroics. Hitler’s government, not realizing apparently that Stern was a Jew, awarded him the Hanseatic Cross. The Hanseatic Cross was an award for battlefield bravery or merit awarded by three Hanseatic city-states, only awarded during WWI, and was the citys’ version of the Iron Cross. Only ~80,000 were awarded.

In 1927, Richard had promised his dying father he’d look after his sister (whose marriage had fallen apart) and her son. He never married or had his own children, but he became legal guardian of his nephew. This helped him secured their safe passage to the US when Richard was able to emigrate in May 1939 at age 40, just months before war would erupt in Europe. Problems with the paperwork kept his sister and nephew from arriving until August, just weeks before the war began.

The 1940 census shows that Stern was living in Brooklyn, New York and working as a bus boy. He was living with his two sisters, a niece, a nephew, and his brother-in-law.

Soon the US would enter the war. Stern had only been in America for a little more than two years when he decided to serve his adopted homeland. He enlisted into the US Army on 13 October, 1942, 10 months after Pearl Harbor. At 43, Stern was decidedly older than most recruits. He wasn’t even a US citizen yet. He did bring with him German proficiency, combat experience, and an understandable hatred of the Nazis.

I can only imagine the vetting that went into Stern when he joined up. He’s an ethnic German who recently arrived in the US, just before the war mind you, and he very quickly enlists into the American Army? Whatever they put him through, he passed.

Stern was a combat engineer assigned to Company A, 48th Engineer Combat Battalion. The 48th Engineer Combat Battalion had trained in Oklahoma before being sent to Europe. They arrived in Africa in late 1943, conducted still more training, and saw their first tastes of combat at Naples, Italy. Naples would become the rearguard location for the fight at the Winter Line. The Winter Line was a series of lines across the Italian Peninsula the German forces had erected to halt the Allied advance up the peninsula.

Winter in Italy for the battalion consisted of a miserable, near constant rain described as lasting “months.” In the unit’s chronicle “We the 48th” they wrote;

The rain would pound itself into the ground in large drops, and then it would slacken off into a fine drizzle that would steam the ground and form a haze over the valleys. Then perhaps for an hour or two, it would be damp and wet. The sun might even come out temporarily, but the moment we removed our raincoats, the storm would begin again.

As each line of German defenses was assaulted by the Allies, the engineers would have to work tirelessly clearing mines and building and maintaining roads. The weather conditions and the dangerousness of the job took many mens’ lives that winter.

Despite this, there were moments of normality. Thanksgiving saw the men receiving a day off in celebration and the men had also gotten a chance earlier to see Pompeii, with Mt. Vesuvius being active at the time.

Leading up to and through Christmas though, the battalion was tasked with creating a road, “Highway 48”, in six days for a major offensive. They were at the front, taking fire from German patrols and artillery, as they rode their heavy equipment to construct the highway and necessary bridges. They received a commendation from the US Fifth Army for their efforts in constructing (and maintaining) the five mile stretch.

As 1944 began, the men of the battalion would then be at the vanguard of what became the Battle of Monte Cassino. Highway 48 was to be one of the staging places for the costly assaults the Allies conducted against the Winter Line in the Cassino Valley.

Briefly the battalion was moved up to the front to serve as infantry. They spent a day as the reserve force before being relieved to return to their duties maintaining Highway 48, but hours later they were told to be prepared to be infantry once more.

By now a Sergeant Stern was with Able Company as they were the last to return from their first stint as infantry. They had only thirty minutes notice that they were moving out again. It was about 1400 hours on 6 January when the men began to move up to replace the heavily battered infantry formations.

While Able Company’s third platoon gathered for a brief from their lieutenant the dangers of what would face them that night came screaming at them in the form of a German shell. Landing within their midst, it luckily penetrated deep into the ground before exploding, not hurting anyone. Just then, one of A Company’s sergeants shot himself while cleaning his rifle. The noise apparently drew the enemy’s attention because several German 170mm shells came into Able Company’s area, killing two men.

The men of Able moved out, single file, in silence towards the front.

It was already dusk when Stern and his company received their orders to support an armored infantry unit as it assaulted Mt. Porchia, a 931ft tall craggy rock outcrop that held a German position at its peak. The company commander, First Lieutenant Orville “Bill” Munson, led his men from the front through the night. At one point ordering the men to run as fast as they could up the mountain as they moved up to find new cover. Running himself, he turned around to find none of his men following. He returned, ordered again, and once more took off running himself. Turning, nobody was following him still. Just before he was set to return for the second time, all of the men of the company took off running screaming after their lieutenant. For leading his company of engineers in this arduous infantry assault Munson would receive the Distinguished Service Cross. His performance on that night is worthy of its own article, that’s for sure.

As the men of Able Company moved up the mountain, the terrain became more and more treacherous. The Germans waited until the Americans got to within grenade throwing range to engage. In the pitch black of night, the Germans would respond with machine gun fire to any sound they heard from the men.

One man, Sergeant Joe C Specker of Odessa, Missouri volunteered to go alone to the top of the mountain to silence the machine gun. With a machine gun of his own and a box of ammunition he moved out alone. Within sight of the enemy, he was cut down by a burst of enemy fire almost immediately. Unable to walk, he clawed his way forward, dragging himself, machine gun still in hand. Arriving at the spot he’d picked to place his gun, he set up the automatic weapon and laid withering fire into the enemy position, silencing it and scattering the enemy within. When the rest of the company moved up they found Sergeant Specker dead at his gun. He posthumously received the Medal of Honor. He was 22.

Baker and Charlie Company had joined the assault up the mountain. Nearing the top of the ridge, as daylight would soon come, the bodies of American men littered the hill. Of those that had survived the night’s hellish journey up the mountain many were wounded, but continuing to fight.

During the battle the Germans had been calling out to the Americans, in English. At one point they requested to speak to an officer. An infantry lieutenant was the only one available and walked out to meet the enemy as requested (presumably to talk terms of surrender, as was custom). Standing in the open, half-way to the enemy lines, the Americans watched as the Germans opened fire on the lieutenant, killing him where he stood.

Nearing the top of the hill, the men of Able company, including Stern, were running low on supplies. Their commander Lieutenant Munson returned down the mountain for more supplies while his men fought on. He was happened upon by a patrol of Germans who shot him. Feigning dead, the lieutenant was stripped of his weapons by the enemy and left behind.

Trying to get back to his company, Lieutenant Munson found his men were nearly surrounded. The Germans had started to encircle Able Company and had them pinned on three sides.

As Able Company attempted to move down the only path available to them, they didn’t make it far before machine gun fire ripped through them, wounding several men. Sergeant Stern, near the center of the company’s line stood up and ran forward in plain view of the enemy and called to them and his own troops to cease fire. He then called to the enemy in German, telling them they were surrounded and to surrender.

The Germans, it could be said, denied the request and resumed firing at Stern. Remaining in the open, standing tall, Stern  again called a cease fire and said to them in German, “Come out. We will not shoot you. If you stay where you are, American troops in your rear will surround you in minutes.”

There was a moment of silence followed by some scuffling in the bushes. Then out came six Germans and their machine guns. His ruse had not only saved the lives of an untold number of his own men, but had resulted in the capture of six enemy. His insanely brave scheme, which easily could have been his last act, had worked.

For his acts in those early hours on 7 January 1944 Stern received the Silver Star. He thus joined a short list of men who had received valor awards from both the German and American military.

For the next day and a half the men of the 48th Engineer Combat Battalion would fight for Mt. Porchia as infantrymen. With all the cold, wet, hungry, deplorable conditions that come with it. By the end, many of the men had gone three days without sleep and all had been without warm food for that long. After four days of battle, the mountain was finally theirs. The unit earned a Presidential Unit Citation for their actions.

In the weeks that the 48th Engineer Combat Battalion had been in Italy working on Highway 48 and then fighting up Mt. Porchia, they lost nearly 100 men.

Having retreated from Mt. Porchia, the Germans began aerial bombardment of the area, including Highway 48. To the men of the 48th Engineer Combat Battalion, who had seen interpersonal combat up close and first hand, the air raids were nothing. As “We the 48th” puts it,

To most of the frontline soldiers, an air raid was a very good show and had a movie beat. There was a lot of difference in a good air raid and a shelling. Somehow, an air raid wasn’t something to be afraid of. It was just a chance to let people far back in the rear know that a war was going on up the valley.

The men of the 48th maintained Highway 48 for a couple more months before they too were moved along with the rest of the warmachine up the peninsula. They went through Southern France and into Germany. The 48th went all the way to Berchtesgaden, the popular vacation spot of the highest ranking Nazis, and feared to be the place the most fanatic Nazis would make a last stand (they chose Berlin instead).

After the war Stern returned to New York City. We the 48th lists a Corona, Queens address for him. Like many veterans, Stern didn’t speak of the war. One of Stern’s great nephews, when he was about seven, heard the story of Great Uncle Richard’s World War II heroics. He asked him about it the first chance he got. Stern showed the young boy, Jack Romberg (now a rabbi in Florida), the medal. He had it at the bottom of a drawer in his dresser.

Stern’s medal is now in Romberg’s care. Romberg wrote a book on his uncle titled A Doorway to Heroism.

Where are Stern’s other medals though? According to family lore, Stern turned in both his Iron Cross and Hanseatic Cross as scrap metal sometime during 1942. At the time, war drives were collecting metal. Stern’s hatred of the Nazis was enough that he turned in those once prized possessions, earned with blood, so that they could be turned into bullets to defeat his former homeland.

Category: Army, Historical, Silver Star, Valor, We Remember