- Final Roll Call - Walt Ehlers MOH
BY GARY WARNER, TOM BERG AND JEBB HARRIS / STAFF WRITERS
Published: Feb. 20, 2014 Updated: 1:46 p.m.
Walt Ehlers, who received the Medal of Honor for bravery during the D-Day invasion of Nazi-held France during World War II, died Thursday morning. He was 92.
Ehlers, who worked with veterans after World War II, moved to Buena Park in 1955. He lived in the same home for more than 50 years.
Ehlers and his older brother, Roland, were Kansas farm boys who joined the Army together during the Depression to help their family. After three years in the peacetime Army, the brothers found themselves headed to Europe after the United States entered the war following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
The pair fought side-by-side across North Africa and Sicily. Once, in Italy, Walt had to dig Roland out from under a pile of dirt and rocks after an artillery shell exploded near them.
But on the eve of the June 6, 1944, invasion of France, the Army ordered Walt and Roland Ehlers apart.
“They said, ‘There's a big invasion coming up and we expect a lot of casualties, so you boys shouldn't be together,’” Ehlers recalled in 1994.
At Omaha Beach, Walt, a 23-year-old staff sergeant, led his squad out of the Higgins boat and into the withering fire of German machine gun nests on the bluffs above.
Laying a barrage of covering fire with their M1 rifles, the squad members enabled Army explosives engineers to clear the route to the German positions.
“I got all 12 of my men off the beach without a casualty, which was the best thing I ever did in my life,” Ehlers said.
He fought his way inland with his unit. When there was a lull in the action, he went looking for Roland.
“I caught up with some guys from his unit,” Ehlers said. “I said, ‘Where's my brother?’ They said, ‘He's missing.’ It was a narrow beach. The only people missing were underwater or blown to bits.”
Ehlers later learned his brother’s landing craft had taken a direct hit from a German mortar.
“I still have dreams about my brother,” Ehlers once said. “We’re together, and suddenly he’s gone. I am looking for him and can’t find him. Fifty years. I'll probably dream about him tonight.”
In early June, 1944, Walt Ehlers’ unit advanced into a field surrounded by thick hedgerows and was caught in a fierce firefight. Crawling on his belly, he was able to get to a spot where he could pick off German soldiers.
“It was kill or be killed, that’s what combat is all about. You delay, you flinch, and you’re the one who is dead,” Ehlers said.
Coming upon a mortar pit, he fixed his bayonet to his M1 rifle, then charged over the hill, the glint of the blade sending the Germans scattering.
“When the Germans saw me, my God, their eyes got big, and they started to take off,” Ehlers recalled. “Of course, I was as scared as they were. I didn’t know there were eight or 10 of them back there at the time.
“The bayonet really made the Germans, well, they didn’t want any part of it. A man is more afraid of being stabbed to death than shot.
“They ran and I shot as many as I could,” Ehlers said.
Staff Sergeant Ehlers' official Medal of Honor citation reads:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 9–10 June 1944, near Goville, France. S/Sgt. Ehlers, always acting as the spearhead of the attack, repeatedly led his men against heavily defended enemy strong points exposing himself to deadly hostile fire whenever the situation required heroic and courageous leadership. Without waiting for an order, S/Sgt. Ehlers, far ahead of his men, led his squad against a strongly defended enemy strong point, personally killing 4 of an enemy patrol who attacked him en route. Then crawling forward under withering machinegun fire, he pounced upon the guncrew and put it out of action. Turning his attention to 2 mortars protected by the crossfire of 2 machineguns, S/Sgt. Ehlers led his men through this hail of bullets to kill or put to flight the enemy of the mortar section, killing 3 men himself. After mopping up the mortar positions, he again advanced on a machinegun, his progress effectively covered by his squad. When he was almost on top of the gun he leaped to his feet and, although greatly outnumbered, he knocked out the position single-handed. The next day, having advanced deep into enemy territory, the platoon of which S/Sgt. Ehlers was a member, finding itself in an untenable position as the enemy brought increased mortar, machinegun, and small arms fire to bear on it, was ordered to withdraw. S/Sgt. Ehlers, after his squad had covered the withdrawal of the remainder of the platoon, stood up and by continuous fire at the semicircle of enemy placements, diverted the bulk of the heavy hostile fire on himself, thus permitting the members of his own squad to withdraw. At this point, though wounded himself, he carried his wounded automatic rifleman to safety and then returned fearlessly over the shell-swept field to retrieve the automatic rifle which he was unable to carry previously. After having his wound treated, he refused to be evacuated, and returned to lead his squad. The intrepid leadership, indomitable courage, and fearless aggressiveness displayed by S/Sgt. Ehlers in the face of overwhelming enemy forces serve as an inspiration to others
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Each has won a glorious grave - not that sepulchre of earth wherein they lie, but the living tomb of everlasting remembrance wherein their glory is enshrined. For the whole earth is the sepulchre of heroes. Monuments may rise and tablets be set up to them in their own land, but on far-off shores there is an abiding memorial that no pen or chisel has traced; it is graven not on stone or brass, but on the living hearts of humanity.
Take these men for your example. Like them, remember that prosperity can be only for the free, that freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.
Pericles
