Valor Friday

Sgt. William Shemin

David (not Hardin) sent me the story of Sergeant William Shemin, whose valor wasn’t properly recognized for nearly a century. While he was recommended for the Medal of Honor at the time, he got the DSC instead. When asked about the downgrade, Shemin said, “War is not about medals. I love my country. I love my men. That’s all that counts.” In that short quote is everything I need to know about Mr. Shemin to know his character.

Here’s the story from Military Times:

War brings out the best and worst in its participants. One seldom knows what qualities one brings onto the battlefield until a situation arises when that service person has to make a fateful choice. In the case of William Shemin, World War I presented more than one call beyond duty.

Born on Oct. 14, 1896, to Russian Jewish immigrants in Bayonne, New Jersey, Shemin played semi-professional baseball while attending the New York State Ranger School, graduating in 1914. His ambitions to take up forestry had to be postponed, however, when America declared war against Germany on April 6, 1917. Shemin enlisted on Oct. 2, and after training at Camp Greene, North Carolina, he shipped out for France, where he was assigned to G Company, 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, 4th Division, American Expeditionary Forces.

On Aug. 3, 1918, the Second Battle of the Marne took a turn in which the last German offensive on the Western Front was thrown back and the Allies were taking the initiative. In the area of Bazoches-sur-Vesle, the 4th Division relieved the battered 42nd Division and was joined by the 32nd Division in keeping up the pressure on the retreating Germans.

Shemin had advanced to the rank of sergeant when G Company was among the 4th Division units to secure Bazoches on Aug. 7. The Vesle River was swollen, however, and the Germans took advantage of that to hold their ground, using machine gun nests and occasionally mustard gas.

Amid the fighting, Shemin saw a soldier cut down 150 yards from the nearest cover. As his citation notes, Shemin “left cover and crossed an open space … exposed to heavy machine-gun fire” to rescue the wounded man. The following day, Shemin saw another soldier go down and again exposed himself to intense enemy gunfire to rescue him.

Shemin saved yet another wounded man, but by that time G Company had taken such heavy attrition on its commissioned and senior noncommissioned officers that Shemin found himself the highest-ranking troop left. As his citation continues, Shemin promptly took charge and “displayed great initiative under fire” until wounded on Aug. 9.

With the enemy still holding and his company badly mauled, Shemin organized and led a fighting withdrawal until he was struck by shrapnel and a machine gun round entered his helmet and lodged beside his left ear. While U.S. troops were left holding onto the north bank of the Vesle, the 4th Division had suffered heavy casualties and on Aug. 11 to 12, its place was taken by the 77th Division.

Shemin spent three months recovering in the hospital and spent his time thereafter on light duty until the armistice of Nov. 11 and his honorable discharge in August 1919.

During that time, members of his division considered recommending him for the Medal of Honor. One officer, Capt. Rupert Purdon, testified, “With the most utter disregard for his own safety, he sprang from his position in his platoon trench, dashed out across the open in full sight of the Germans, who opened and maintained a furious burst of machine gun and rifle fire.”

Their efforts, however, were rejected by higher-ups who argued that there was no place in the U.S. Army for a Jewish Medal of Honor recipient (in spite of at least five such recipients during the Civil War). Six of Shemin’s comrades then wrote him up for second best, the Distinguished Service Cross, which he received on Dec. 19, 1919.

Shemin’s comment on the matter was: “War is not about medals. I love my country. I love my men. That’s all that counts.”

Returning to civilian life, Shemin earned a degree in forestry from the New York College at Syracuse University. From there he established a greenhouse and a landscaping business in Brooklyn, New York. He died in Syracuse on Aug. 15, 1973, and was buried in Baron Hirsch Cemetery in Staten Island.

Besides three children, Shemin left behind numerous supporters who kept up the appeal for an upgrade. On June 2, 2015, his daughter, Elsie Shemin-Roth stood before President Barack Obama in the White House to receive his Medal of Honor — almost 100 years after Shemin’s actions.

Syracuse.com has even more, in this article about his daughter Elsie’s quest to get her dad that long overdue MoH;

Elsie Shemin-Roth, then just 12 years old, sat on the porch of her parents’ home in the Bronx as a visitor told stories of her father’s heroics in World War I.

Elsie had heard the stories before. About how her father risked his life to save three members of his platoon. About the bullet that struck his helmet before lodging near his ear, leaving him deaf in that ear. About the shrapnel in his back, lodging so close to his spine that doctors could not remove it.

But Elsie had not heard this visitor’s story.

Jim Pritchard served alongside William Shemin in the 47th Infantry Regiment during World War I. Pritchard was one of three soldiers that Shemin rescued during a three-day battle with the Germans near Bazoches, France.

Pritchard, who had returned from the war to become a police officer in Bayonne, N.J., had come to visit with Shemin. Pritchard told young Elsie that her father, who had been awarded a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Cross, had deserved the Medal of Honor.

“He told me that the reason my father never got the medal was because he was a Jew,” Elsie Shemin-Roth said last week. “It devastated me. I never let it go. Dad wasn’t about medals. He just said, ‘Let’s move on.’ I knew I couldn’t approach it again.”

After the war, William Shemin attended the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University. He played both football and lacrosse at Syracuse before graduating in 1924. He returned to the Bronx and started a successful nursery and landscaping business. He died in 1973 at the age of 77.

Decades later, Elsie Shemin-Roth took up her father’s cause, looking to right a wrong and get the Medal of Honor that anti-Semitism had denied him.

She dealt with congressmen and review boards. She encountered red tape and mind-numbing legalese. There was a congressional review. The passage of the William Shemin World War I Act, which would give Jewish veterans a chance to receive honors that they had deserved but not received.

Thirteen years after the start of her journey, Elsie Shemin-Roth received a phone call from President Obama.

“The president called me and we had a lovely, lovely conversation,” the 86-year-old Shemin-Roth said. “He’s a mensch.”

On Tuesday, Elsie Shemin-Roth will meet President Obama in person as her father is awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously during a ceremony at the White House. Shemin will be the first Syracuse University graduate to receive the nation’s highest military honor.

There’s much more at the source there. I recommended clicking through for their whole article. They also include a spectacular trove of three dozen photos highlighting the life of William Shemin.

Category: Army, Historical, Medal of Honor, Valor, We Remember, WWI