1LT Garlin Murl Conner to get belated Medal of Honor
Devtun sends us link to Stars & Stripes which reports that the widow of First Lieutenant Garlin Murl Conner will receive the Medal of Honor later this year for his actions on January 24, 1945 when he absconded from his hospital bed to return to his unit and maul the German Army. 1LT Connor was a member of Kilo Company, 7th Infantry Regiment (Cottonbalers) of the 3rd Infantry Division (Rock of the Marne), the same division where Audie Murphy earned his honors.
[Connor] single-handedly held off the advance of six German tanks and 600 German infantrymen. Unrolling a spool of wire so he could use a a field telephone, he directed artillery to fall onto his own position, killing 50 enemy soldiers and wounding another 100.
“He called for artillery fire upon himself, determined to destroy and smash the Germans even if it cost him his life,” wrote 1st Sgt. Harold J. Miller in an eyewitness statement.
The Medal of Honor will be an upgrade to his Distinguished Service Cross, the citation says;
First Lieutenant Conner ran 400 yards through the impact area of an intense concentration of enemy artillery fire to direct friendly artillery on a force of six Mark VI tanks and tank destroyers, followed by 600 fanatical German infantrymen, which was assaulting in full fury the spearhead position held by his battalion. Along the way, he unreeled a spool of telephone wire, disregarding shells which exploded 25 yards from him and set up an observation post which he manned for more than three hours during the intense fighting. He was individually credited with stopping more than 150 Germans, destroying all the tanks and completely disintegrating the powerful enemy assault force and preventing heavy loss of life in his own outfit.
Connor was no stranger to valor awards, says the Stars & Stripes;
Conner also earned four Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars, seven Purple Hearts and the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions during 28 straight months of combat during World War II.
Connor died at the age of 79 in 1998.
Category: Real Soldiers
Seven purple hearts.
Real one’s.
Four Silver Stars. Also real.
Posers take notice.
You forgot to add the following to your last sentence.
Posers take notice, this hero may literally crawl from the grave to kick your _____
What burns my ass is the snowflakes that think people like sharpton, jackson, fairy khan, obama, shumer, pelosi etc etc ad nauseum are “heros”, the scum listed and a whole lot more, are not fit to polish this true heros shoes!! They couldn’t award the man the M.O.H. while he was alive and honor him, they had to wait until he died, DISGUSTING!
No shit!!
Alas, the poser platoon would wet their collective diapers if they were ever in the presence of someone of his character and courage.
Wow. It took 73 years since the action, and 30 years since his death to have is actions memorialised
BZ. RIP
Badass!
BAMF!
Damn….
Medal of Honor, four Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars, and not the most decorated man in his division. Damn again.
Nazi’s burning in hell were fervently hoping that Connor was a religious man because they didn’t want him to come down there and start kicking their asses all over again.
An amazing soldier, by all accounts.
Hell couldn’t contain a man like this.
I have zero doubt that 1LT Conner could, at this very minute, run wire into hell and repeat the mission.
The devil himself would get out of the way and order some popcorn. Satan may be evil but he’s not stupid.
Total f-ing badass.
Yep. Yep. Yep. It makes one wonder what the result would have been if, somehow, one could have gathered these mega-warriors in the same platoon. I suspect that the war in Europe might have been over by July 1944.
I read in Band of Brothers (I think- it’s been a while) that wounded would commonly depart the hospital, umm, informally, to return to their units. If they stayed for orders they would be reassigned to a new outfit.
Dad was in the hospital with pneumonia during the Battle of the Bulge, and trying to return to his unit he was continually delayed by having to escort captured Germans to the POW area.
He finally made it back to his unit, though, what was left of it. There were only 30-ish men left of two companies.
Yes, the infamous fear of the “Repple-Depples” ( replacement depots).
As new soldiers came from the States and Veterans returned from the hospital they would simply be assigned to the unit who needed the numbers.
Could really screw up unit cohesion.
Tough, tough man. I’m glad he was finally, properly recognized.
Willing and Able!
This guy is in the dictionary to give real examples of the term “badass”.
Cool, Now how about we get one for Cashe??? Sledgehammer!
Bingo!!
Damn! He was hard as nails and a deadly mo-fo!
I want to know who the dumbass was who thought his actions weren’t MOH worthy in the first place.
If I recall correctly, the MoH requires a minimum of two witnesses to the act in question. Pretty sure that’s been the case for a long time.
Could be that only one witness to Conner’s heroism was immediately available afterwards, and another was found years later.
Yeah, there were no Germans to corroborate the account: Conner killed them all.
Well, I suppose technically a statement from a POW attesting to a US soldier’s heroic act might be acceptable. But I believe the statements supporting award recommendations are usually obtained from US or allied troops involved in the action. (smile)
No hospital bed ever built could support the weight of this dude’s balls. No wonder he absconded.
He earned his final rest 20 years ago but will always be more a Man than most.
Rest well, Dear Sir.
Man I thought I heard the sound of brass balls knocking, what a guy.
Damn. What a bad ass.
C/O Wiki: “After the war, the Conners lived in Albany, Kentucky. They had one son, Paul, one grandson, and three granddaughters. Conner was the farming business, working his farm in Albany where he was president of the Clinton County Farm Bureau for seventeen years. He was active in various veterans organizations including the Paralyzed Veterans of America. He was handicapped from his war wounds and from heart surgery in 1979.
Conner died in 1998, and was buried in Memorial Hill Cemetery in Albany.[8] In 2012, the U.S. Army honored Conner by designating a portion of a new maintenance facility at Fort Benning, Georgia as Conner Hall.”
As I read the article, I was assuming 1LT Conner didn’t survive his gallant act. I’m very happy to know that he lived to tell the tale. Although men like him generally don’t tell the stories of their lives.
ROCK OF THE MARNE!!!
God Bless this very brave man! All of you pussy phonies take notice to what a real hero is, not just in your imaginations! This man was the real deal! Rest in Peace dear warrior, you have earned it!
Well deserved recognition, for exceptional action, by an exceptional soldier, 70 years late.
Good God that guy did some impressive stuff. I love reading stories of heroics like this. So unbelievable that men like this exist.
And I thought that reading about Jacklyn Lucas would be my MoH badass of the day. If you aren’t familiar, he was a 15 year old WWII USMC enlistee. When they found out his real age, he was allowed to stay in, but was pulled from a line unit. He stowed away on a ship headed to Guadalcanal to see some action. He saw some, including jumping on not one but two grenades at once. One blew up, and he survived with the second one clutched in his hand, which was a dud. Cohorts left him assuming he was dead, and he was recovered and eventually healed up enough to reenlist into the 82nd Airborne in the 60’s wherein he survived a training jump in which neither of his chutes opened.
For those who don’t know it the Mark VI was the infamous Tiger Tank…. the boogie man of all the Armor the Allies faced. There was literally nothing that a US Infantry Company had that could penetrate it .
The road to the CMOH was fraught with potholes, barriers, and detours. I have included a couple of links below for those interested in this remarkable case. It wasn’t the Army that got it right. It was a USAF Veteran who works (or worked) for the VA, an Army Ranger who is Conner’s nephew, a Marine by the name of Mattis, and Donald Trump, who personally phoned Mrs. Conner with the news.
http://www.kentucky.com/news/hot-topics/article44497569.html
http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article207188244.html
For those who may not know, 3rd ID and its parent headquarters VI Corps and U.S. 7th Army were under tremendous pressure and fighting outmanned during that entire month of Jan 1945. Most all of Patton’s 3rd Army had been drawn north from Lorraine into the Ardennes to take part in the Battle of the Bulge, and 7th Army was forced to extend its boundary northward into Lorraine to cover the gap, as well as to defend its gains in the Alsatian plains, and with only two corps.
Hitler chose this moment to launch Opn NORDWIND, a large German counteroffensive into the Alsatian plains against 7th Army and the French to the south. At various points during January 45, 7th Army with only six or so divisions were squaring off against a dozen or more well-equipped Kraut divisions as NORDWIND tried to take advantage of the Allied manpower weakness in the Alsace-Lorraine and retake the Alsatian plains. Guys like 1LT Connor and his comrades in 3rd ID, VI Corps, and 7th Army were outmanned and fighting desperately against far-superior German manpower strength during most all of Jan 1945. And in the end, 1LT Connor and his comrades and their outfits prevailed.
The Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes is well remembered today, but Garlin Connor’s and the 7th Army’s desperate fight in the Alsatian Plains to the south against the Nazi NORDWIND in Jan 1945 has been virtually forgotten. Due recognition and honors is hereby accorded to them here…
I misspelled his name in the above post; it is 1LT Conner; my mistake…
And Randy Greg Voepel claims Combat Action Ribbon.
Well done 1st Lt. Conner!
American Courage.
Check out the place in Bosnia. IN FOB Conner. I believed named for 1st Lieutenant Conner