At 2:30 p.m. on January 8, 1945, Technical Sergeant Russell Dunham was crouched in snow that reached his knees at the base of Hill 616 near Kaysersberg, France. He watched German machine-gun fire cut through the winter sky above his pinned-down platoon.
He was 24 years old, had three campaigns behind him, and had zero plans to die that day.
The Germans had positioned three MG42 machine guns in wooden emplacements up the hill on the snow-covered slope. Each weapon could fire 1,200 rounds per minute. Dunham’s platoon had been moving through the Alsace-Lorraine region when they walked into a killing zone. Machine-gun fire poured from the hilltop. Artillery shells burst behind them. The only direction left was straight up a 40-degree slope into converging fields of fire.
Eleven men from Second Platoon had already died that week. The snow around their position was stained red. Every soldier in I Company knew the numbers. In the Vosges mountain campaign, the 3rd Infantry Division had lost more men per day than any other U.S. division in Europe.
The Germans had the high ground. They had clear lines of sight. They had ammunition.
Dunham looked up the hill. His platoon was 35 yards behind him, flattened against the snow, unable to move forward or back. If they stayed pinned, German artillery would bracket their position and kill them all. If they pulled back, they’d be cut down in the open. The machine guns had them locked in place.
The temperature was 12°F. The snow was 18 inches deep. Dunham wore standard olive-drab wool, making him a dark target against the white landscape. Any other soldier who tried to move had been spotted immediately and forced back. The Germans owned that hill.
Dunham crawled back to the company position and found a white mattress cover. He tore it open and pulled it over his uniform like a smock. Then he started loading up.
He stuffed twelve 30-round carbine magazines into every pocket and loop on his uniform. He hooked a dozen Mark 2 fragmentation grenades onto his belt. He hung more grenades on his suspenders. He shoved grenades into the buttonholes of his field jacket. When he stood up, he carried 72 pounds of ammunition and explosives, plus his rifle.
His platoon sergeant stared at him. Dunham offered no explanation. He just started crawling uphill.
The first 75 yards took him 18 minutes. He moved during the moments when German fire shifted to other sectors. He pressed flat when the MG42s swept back across his approach. Snow soaked the mattress cover. His hands went numb. The rifle sling cut into his shoulder under the weight of grenades.
At 75 yards, he was 10 yards from the first machine-gun position. The wooden bunker was reinforced with logs and sited to provide crossfire with the other two positions. Three Germans worked the gun—one feeding the belt, one firing, one scanning for targets.
Dunham stood up and charged.
The Germans saw the movement. The gunner swung the barrel toward him. At six yards, the weapon opened up. Bullets tore through Dunham’s white smock. Then a rifle round hit him in the back, ripping a 10-inch gash from his left shoulder blade toward his spine. The impact spun him completely around and threw him 15 yards downhill into the snow.
He landed face down. Blood poured from the wound, soaking the mattress cover and turning the white fabric bright red against the snow. The pain was unbearable. He could feel the wound pulling open with every breath.
For five seconds, he didn’t move.
Then a German “egg” grenade landed in the snow two feet from his head. Dunham kicked it with his boot. It exploded five yards downhill—close enough that the blast lifted him off the ground.
And Russell Dunham got back up.
He went up the hill firing. His M1 carbine still held 28 rounds. The German gunner swung the MG42 again, but Dunham was already inside the weapon’s minimal traverse arc. At four yards, he fired a three-round burst into the gunner’s chest. The assistant tried to grab his rifle. Dunham shot him twice. Both Germans dropped. The third man, the ammo feeder, raised his hands and started shouting in German.
Dunham’s carbine went empty—30 rounds in 18 seconds. He slung the rifle, grabbed the German by the collar of his felt coat, yanked him out of the wooden emplacement, and shoved him downhill toward the American lines. The German ran and half-fell through the snow. Dunham’s platoon would handle the interrogation.
Blood now ran down Dunham’s back in steady streams. The bullet had torn through muscle and tissue but missed his spine by less than two inches. Every movement widened the gash. The white mattress cover was soaked red from shoulders to waist. Against the snow, it looked like a flag.
The second machine-gun position was 50 yards uphill and to the right. The Germans there had watched Dunham wipe out the first nest. They knew he was coming. They had adjusted their fire to cover the approach. Dunham could see the dark barrel tracking across the slope behind the logwork.
He reloaded with a fresh 30-round magazine. He had 11 magazines left. Ten grenades. He started moving.
The Germans opened fire at 40 yards. Rounds snapped past his head and kicked up geysers of snow around his boots. Dunham dropped and crawled. The pain in his back was so intense he had to stop every few yards to keep from passing out. He could feel blood pooling inside his uniform. His hands shook from blood loss and cold, but he kept crawling.
At 25 yards from the second position, he rose to one knee and pulled two Mark 2 grenades from his belt. He yanked both pins, counted two seconds, and lobbed them in a high arc into the wooden bunker. The Germans saw them coming. One yelled.
Both grenades detonated inside the emplacement half a second apart. The combined blast threw logs and gear out of the position. The machine gun fell silent.
Dunham advanced, carbine up. Smoke drifted from the shattered emplacement. He could see body parts in the snow. The entire three-man crew was dead from the grenades.
He didn’t stop. He shifted his focus downslope to the supporting riflemen dug into foxholes around the machine-gun position. Six German infantrymen scrambled out of their holes trying to run. Dunham fired on them from 15 yards, burning another full magazine into every moving shape. He hit three. The others broke and fled uphill, away from the American advance. Dunham let them go.
He had one target left.
The third machine gun was 65 yards farther up the slope. It was the highest position—the one with the best field of fire over the entire American advance. The Germans up there had watched Dunham’s assault for the last 12 minutes. They knew exactly where he was. They knew he was wounded. They knew his white smock was now blood-red and visible against the snow from 200 yards. And they had him zeroed.
Dunham looked up the hill. The MG42’s barrel pointed straight at him. Rifle grenades began exploding in the snow ten yards from his position. The concussions slammed him sideways. He hit the ground as machine-gun fire ripped the air where he’d been standing. He was exposed. No cover. The trail of blood behind him looked like a road. And the Germans on the crest weren’t going to miss again.
Dunham crawled.
The third position was dug into a cluster of timbers 40 yards ahead and 30 feet higher in elevation. The Germans had reinforced it with sandbags and sited it to cover the entire southern approach to Hill 616. Every few seconds, the MG42 spat a burst, walking bullets across the snow toward him.
He moved in the gaps between bursts. Five yards. Down. Wait for the gun to swing. Three more yards. The snow was so cold it burned his hands. The wound in his back had shifted from sharp agony to a deep, grinding ache that radiated through his torso. He’d lost so much blood his vision began to tunnel at the edges—but he still had nine magazines and eight grenades.
At 40 yards from the third position, a rifle grenade exploded six yards to his left. The blast threw snow and frozen dirt onto his back, and the shrapnel impact felt like being kicked by a horse. He didn’t know if he’d been hit again. He couldn’t tell. Everything hurt. He kept crawling.
Thirty yards. Twenty-five. The machine-gun fire grew more precise. The Germans could see him now, even against the snow. Blood had soaked the entire mattress cover. He left a red trail pointing straight at him like an arrow. Twenty yards. Fifteen.
At fifteen yards, Dunham stopped crawling and gathered his legs under him. He had to time this perfectly. The MG42 fired in bursts of eight to twelve rounds, then paused two to three seconds as the gunner reset his aim.
Dunham counted. Burst. One, two, three.
He sprang to his feet and lurched forward. The Germans saw him instantly. The gunner swung the barrel—but Dunham was already moving, already pulling grenades from his belt. Two Mark 2s in his hands, pins out. At ten yards, he threw both.
The first grenade struck the sandbags and bounced inward. The second went straight through the narrow firing slit. Dunham hit the ground as both grenades detonated. The explosion was massive. Sandbags blew apart. The timbers cracked and splintered. The machine-gun barrel flew off its mount to the side.
Dunham surged up. Smoke poured from the wrecked position. He advanced with his carbine raised, scanning for movement. The three-man crew was down. One still twitched, reaching for a rifle. Dunham fired once. The German stopped moving.
Then he heard boots crunching in the snow behind him.
Dunham spun. A German rifleman had climbed up from a supporting foxhole about 20 feet away. The German raised his Karabiner 98 and fired point-blank. The bullet missed Dunham’s head by three inches. Dunham fired back—first round in the throat, second center mass. The German fell backward into the snow and didn’t move.
Dunham stood on the hilltop breathing hard. His carbine was empty again. He had fired 175 rounds. He had thrown 11 grenades. Three machine-gun positions destroyed. Nine Germans dead. Seven wounded. Two taken prisoner. And his platoon was no longer pinned down.
Below him, he could see I Company pushing uphill. His brother Ralph was among them, moving with Second Squad. The Germans were falling back to secondary positions along the ridge. The attack was succeeding. Hill 616 would be in American hands by nightfall.
Dunham looked down at his uniform. The white mattress cover was completely red now, saturated with blood from neck to knees. He could feel the wound in his back pulling apart with each breath. The pain was so intense he couldn’t think clearly. His hands shook uncontrollably from shock and blood loss—but he’d done it. One hundred twenty soldiers of I Company had been trapped in that valley. Without his assault, they would have been slaughtered by artillery in less than an hour. Now they were moving. Now they were fighting. Now they had a chance.
Dunham sat in the snow and waited for the medics to reach him. He didn’t think he was going to die. Not today.
The medics reached him eight minutes after he sat down. They cut away the blood-soaked mattress cover and opened his field jacket to assess the wound. The bullet had ripped a 10-inch-long, 2-inch-deep gash across his back, running from his left shoulder blade toward his spine. They could see muscle tissue and exposed bone. They packed the wound with sulfa powder and wrapped it with compression bandages. Then they gave him a morphine injection and tagged him for evacuation.
Dunham refused to leave. He walked back down the hill with I Company, carrying his empty carbine. By the time they reached the battalion aid station at 6:00 p.m., he had lost so much blood he collapsed at the entrance. The battalion surgeon examined him and immediately ordered him sent to the rear for surgery. The wound needed stitches, debridement, and at least two weeks of recovery before he could return to combat operations.
Dunham spent four days at the division clearing station. Surgeons cleaned the wound and closed it with 43 stitches. They told him the bullet had missed his spinal cord by less than two inches. If the angle had been slightly different, he would have been paralyzed from the waist down. If the cut had been one inch deeper, it would have severed his spine completely. But the wound was clean—no major nerve damage, no infection. It would heal.
On January 13, five days after the assault on Hill 616, Dunham was discharged from the clearing station and sent to a rest area 20 miles behind the front lines.
The 3rd Infantry Division had been fighting continuously since landing in southern France in August 1944. The division had pushed through the Vosges Mountains, fought through Strasbourg, and was now engaged in Operation Nordwind—the last major German offensive on the Western Front. Casualties had been catastrophic. In December alone, the division lost 863 killed and 3,200 wounded. Each rifle company was operating at 60% strength. The replacement pipeline couldn’t keep up. Men were being pushed back into combat before their wounds fully healed because there was no one else to hold the line.
Dunham’s wound still seeped through the bandages. The stitches pulled whenever he moved. Doctors told him he needed three more weeks of recovery before returning to duty. But on January 18—ten days after Hill 616—he walked into I Company’s command post and reported for duty.
His wound wasn’t healed. The stitches were still in, but Second Platoon had been cut down to 18 men, and they needed every rifle they could get. The company commander looked at Dunham’s medical file, looked at Dunham, and assigned him back to his squad without questions.
They moved north toward Holtzwihr, a small town 15 miles from the German border. Intelligence reported a strong German armored presence in the area. Panzer units of the 19th Army were conducting harassing attacks to slow the American advance. I Company would hold a defensive position on the southern edge of town.
Dunham rejoined his platoon on January 20. His brother Ralph was still with Second Squad, still carrying the same Browning Automatic Rifle he’d used since North Africa. They didn’t talk about Hill 616. There was nothing to say. Everyone in the company knew what had happened. General Patch himself had visited the battalion on January 16 and asked to meet Dunham. The general shook his hand and said his actions had saved the lives of 120 men who would have died under artillery if the machine guns hadn’t been eliminated.
But that was Hill 616. This was Holtzwihr. Different fight, different risks.
The 3rd Infantry Division was exhausted, undermanned, and facing German armor with limited anti-tank support. Every position they held was temporary. Every defensive line was one rupture away from collapse. And on the morning of January 22, 1945, Second Platoon would find itself surrounded by German tanks with nowhere to run. Dunham’s war was about to get significantly worse.
At 6:00 a.m. on January 22, 1945, German tanks appeared on three sides of I Company’s position at Holtzwihr. Dunham counted seven Panther tanks and three Tiger I tanks moving through the morning fog, their engines growling like thunder across frozen fields.
The 3rd Infantry Division had no armored support in that sector—no tank destroyers, no artillery in range. Second Platoon had two bazooka teams and exactly 14 rockets between them.
The German attack came from armored reserve units of the 19th Army that had been held back during Operation Nordwind and were now committed to cut off the American salient pushing toward the Rhine. The Panthers came from the west in a staggered line across open farmland. The Tigers moved from the south, their 88mm guns already traversing to engage anything that moved.
I Company’s position was indefensible. They held a cluster of farm buildings on the southern edge of Holtzwihr with no cover, no concealment, and no way to stop 60-ton tanks with eight inches of frontal armor. The bazooka teams fired at maximum range. Two rockets hit. Both bounced off the Panthers’ front plates without penetrating. The Germans didn’t even slow down.
At 6:30, the company commander gave the order to surrender. White flags went up from three buildings. The German tanks halted, and infantry moved forward to take prisoners. One hundred forty-seven men of I Company came out with hands raised. The Germans disarmed them, searched them, and formed them into columns for transport to POW camps behind the lines.
Dunham did not surrender.
He slipped out the back of the farm as the Germans processed prisoners and ran west through a line of bare trees toward a group of outbuildings 200 yards away. His back wound had reopened during the night. He could feel blood seeping through bandages under his uniform, but he wasn’t going to spend the rest of the war in a prison camp.
He reached the outbuildings unseen. There were three structures: a small barn, a tool shed, and a stone storage building with a wooden door hanging on its hinges.
He checked the barn first—empty except for rotten hay. The shed held nothing but broken farm equipment. The stone storage building held barrels.
Six wooden barrels stood against the back wall, each about four feet tall and three feet across. Dunham lifted the lid of the first—frozen potatoes. Second barrel—empty. Third barrel—
Sauerkraut.
Fermented cabbage filled the barrel to within six inches of the rim, and the smell hit him like a physical blow—overwhelming, sharp, strong enough to make his eyes water.
Dunham looked toward the farm. German soldiers were moving through the area now, checking buildings, hunting stragglers. He could hear voices shouting in German, boots crunching on frozen ground. They’d be here in minutes.
He climbed into the sauerkraut barrel.
The cabbage was cold and slick and packed so tight he had to force his way down. He sank to his chest, then his neck, then pulled the wooden lid over his head and settled into the fermented mass. The odor was suffocating. Brine soaked his uniform and seeped into the open wound on his back. The burning was unbearable—like acid poured directly into living tissue. He bit his tongue to keep from screaming.
He heard the Germans enter the storage building—boots on stone floor, voices arguing in fast German, barrels being kicked, lids being lifted. They were checking every container.
Dunham held his breath and pressed deeper into the sauerkraut. The lid above him stayed closed. The Germans moved through the building, checked the other barrels, and left.
Dunham stayed in the barrel. He didn’t move. He barely breathed. The temperature kept dropping. Night came. And he had no idea whether the Germans would return.
Dunham spent 13 hours in that sauerkraut barrel.
After sunset, the temperature fell to 8°F. The brine froze into slush around his body. He couldn’t feel his hands or feet. The wound on his back went numb from the cold and the acidic burn of the fermented cabbage. Every hour he shifted his weight slightly to keep blood moving, but each movement sent new waves of brine into the gash along his spine.
At 7:00 a.m. on January 23, the sun rose. Dunham saw thin strips of light through gaps in the wooden lid. He listened—no voices, no engines, no boots. The Germans were gone. He waited 30 more minutes to be sure, then slowly pushed the lid open and climbed out.
His uniform was soaked in sauerkraut brine and frozen stiff. His fingers were white with frostbite. The bandages on his back had dissolved completely, leaving the wound exposed. He could smell the sauerkraut on himself from ten feet away—but he was alive and free.
He moved to the storage building door and looked out. The farmyard was empty. The tanks had pulled back during the night. I Company’s position was abandoned except for gear the Germans hadn’t bothered to collect. Dunham could see helmets and rifles scattered across the ground. He needed to move—get back to American lines before the Germans returned. But first he needed to urinate. Thirteen hours in a barrel without moving had left him in agony.
He stepped outside, rounded the corner beside the barn, and relieved himself against the stone wall.
That’s when two German soldiers appeared.
They came around the opposite corner of the barn at a slow walk, talking quietly. They saw Dunham immediately. Both raised their rifles and shouted in German. Dunham raised his hands. He had no visible weapon. His carbine was still in the sauerkraut barrel. He was soaked, covered in fermented cabbage, and clearly unarmed.
The Germans approached carefully. The first kept his rifle trained while the second stepped forward to search him. He patted down Dunham’s field jacket and found a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes in the left breast pocket. He held them up. The other German immediately lowered his rifle and reached for the cigarettes.
They began arguing—one claiming them, the other insisting they split them. They argued for 30 seconds, fully focused on the cigarettes. Neither finished searching Dunham. Neither checked his right side. Neither noticed the Colt M1911 pistol in a leather shoulder holster hidden under his right arm beneath the jacket.
They finally agreed to share, split the pack, and motioned for Dunham to start walking.
They took him back to the main road where a German Kübelwagen idled with its driver waiting. The two soldiers shoved Dunham into the back seat and climbed in on either side. The driver put the vehicle in motion and headed east toward German lines.
Dunham sat between his captors, hands on his knees, and said nothing. They drove 40 minutes through frozen farmland and small villages.
At 11:00 a.m., the driver turned off the main road and stopped in front of a stone castle converted into a German command post. He said something in German and got out. He walked into the castle and disappeared—leaving the engine running.
The guard on Dunham’s left lit one of the Lucky Strikes and stared out the window. The guard on his right leaned back and closed his eyes. Neither was watching Dunham now.
Dunham slipped his hand under his jacket, drew the Colt from its holster, turned right, and shot the guard in the head at point-blank range. The guard on his left began to turn. Dunham shot him twice in the chest. Then he kicked the door open, jumped out of the Kübelwagen, and ran for a tree line 300 yards to the north.
Dunham ran.
Behind him he heard shouts from the castle, then gunfire. Bullets snapped past his head and kicked up frozen dirt at his feet. He didn’t look back. He reached the tree line and kept going through bare branches and frozen brush. The Germans fired for another 30 seconds, then stopped. They didn’t pursue. They had prisoners to guard and a command post to secure. One escaped American wasn’t worth a squad-level chase.
But Dunham was alone in German-controlled territory with no map, no compass, no food—and a pistol with four rounds left.
His back wound reopened during the sprint. He felt blood soaking his uniform again. His feet were already numb from frostbite after 13 hours in the sauerkraut barrel. The temperature was 9°F and falling. He was 30 miles behind enemy lines with no clear route back.
He moved west—the only direction that made sense. West toward the front. West toward the sound of artillery. West toward anything that wasn’t German.
He walked through the afternoon, staying in tree lines and ditches, avoiding roads and villages. Every 20 minutes he had to stop and force his frozen feet to keep moving. The pain in his back was constant now, a grinding ache radiating through his torso with every step.
At dusk he found a ruined barn and crawled into what was left of the loft. He couldn’t risk a fire. German patrols were everywhere. He covered himself with dry hay for insulation and tried to sleep. The temperature dropped to 3°F. His uniform was still damp with sauerkraut brine. The moisture froze solid against his skin. He shivered so violently his teeth chattered and he bit his tongue bloody.
On the second day he kept moving west, crossing frozen fields and empty roads. Twice he saw German vehicles and hid until they passed. His feet went from numbness to a burning agony. When he pulled off his boots that night to check, his toes had turned black—second-degree frostbite, possibly third. He put the boots back on and kept walking. If he stopped, he would freeze.
On the third day, January 25, he heard American artillery. The sound came from the west—a steady rumble of 155mm guns firing in battery. He followed it. By mid-afternoon he could see smoke rising over the tree line from American positions. He was close—maybe five miles, maybe less.
At 4:00 p.m., Dunham emerged from a stand of trees and saw the Ill River. A steel bridge crossed the water, and on the far side U.S. engineers worked to brace the structure with wooden supports.
Dunham started toward them.
The engineers saw him and raised their rifles. He wore a German-issue field jacket taken from a destroyed supply truck the day before. He looked like the enemy. Dunham raised his hands and shouted that he was American. The engineers kept their rifles on him. He yelled his name, rank, unit. One lowered his weapon and waved him forward.
Dunham crossed the bridge, barely able to walk. His feet were wrecked. His back was infected. He had lost 20 pounds in three days. He collapsed at the far end of the bridge.
A medic appeared—Dunham recognized him: Corporal Henderson from the battalion aid station. Henderson looked at Dunham’s feet, then at the back wound, and immediately called for a stretcher. They loaded Dunham onto a truck and took him to the division clearing station.
Surgeons worked for six hours to save his feet from amputation. They cleaned the infected back wound and started him on sulfa drugs to fight the infection.
Three days later, as Dunham recovered in a hospital bed, a lieutenant from division headquarters entered the ward and told him his company commander had submitted a recommendation for the Distinguished Service Cross—but the regimental commander had upgraded it, and the division commander had approved it.
Technical Sergeant Russell Dunham would receive the Medal of Honor for his actions on Hill 616.
On April 23, 1945, Technical Sergeant Russell Dunham stood at attention in Zeppelin Stadium in Nuremberg, Germany. Before the war the stadium hosted Nazi party rallies. Now it was rubble and broken concrete occupied by U.S. forces.
Lieutenant General Alexander Patch, commander of the Seventh Army, stood before him holding the Medal of Honor. Patch read the citation aloud.
The crawl up Hill 616. Three machine-gun nests. A 10-inch wound. A German grenade kicked aside. Nine enemies killed. Seven wounded. Two captured. One hundred seventy-five carbine rounds fired. Eleven grenades used. And 120 American soldiers saved from certain death.
Then Patch placed the medal around Dunham’s neck and said something not included in the official citation. He said that in 30 years of military service he had never seen a single soldier change the course of an entire engagement through sheer courage and refusal to stop. He said Russell Dunham had fought like ten men that day—and that every man who walked out alive from Hill 616 owed his life to a sergeant with a mattress cover and a dozen grenades.
Dunham stayed silent. His brother Ralph sat in the audience alongside 40 men of I Company who had survived the Alsace campaign. The war in Europe would end two weeks later. The 3rd Infantry Division had fought from North Africa to Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. They had lost 11,300 men killed and wounded. They had earned 36 Medals of Honor—more than any other division in the war.
But that day in Nuremberg, only Russell Dunham stood on the platform.
Doctors saved his feet. The infection in his back wound cleared after three weeks of sulfa treatment. The stitches came out. The wound healed into a thick scar running ten inches across his spine. He would carry shrapnel in his back for the rest of his life—small fragments too deep to remove without risking paralysis.
After the ceremony, Dunham returned to the United States. He was 25. He had enlisted in August 1940 with his brother Ralph because work was scarce during the Depression and the Army paid $30 a month. He had survived four amphibious landings, seven major campaigns, and two escape attempts after capture. He had killed at least 19 enemy soldiers that could be confirmed. He had been wounded three times.
He went home to Illinois. He married a woman named Mary and worked as a benefits counselor for the Veterans Administration in St. Louis for 32 years, helping returning veterans navigate the system, file claims, and access medical care. He attended Medal of Honor conventions and 3rd Infantry Division reunions. He rarely spoke about the war unless someone asked directly. And when they did, he always said the same thing: he was just doing his job. Any man in I Company would have done the same.
Russell Dunham died in his sleep on April 6, 2009, at his home in Godfrey, Illinois. He was 89. His brother Ralph had died ten years earlier. Most of the men of I Company were gone. The war that consumed his youth was now ancient history to most Americans. But the Medal of Honor citation remained. The official record remained. And 120 men who should have died on Hill 616 in January 1945 lived instead.
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