Against All Odds by Alex Kershaw

Author:Alex Kershaw [Kershaw, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

Germany

CHAPTER 13

“Murphy Crowds Britt”

Back in the US that winter, Captain Maurice “Footsie” Britt was studying for a law degree at the University of Arkansas. He’d been medically discharged, returning to the “permanent rank of Mister,” and had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, thanks to testimony provided by men in L Company who had wanted to see him recognized for his actions at Anzio when he had lost his arm.[1] He himself “couldn’t plumb remember” a single thing that had happened. His mind had been numb. He’d been too focused on staying alive, killing the enemy before he and his men were slaughtered.[2]

“It was who could spit the most lead first and fastest,” Britt said.[3]

In a special ceremony on the steps of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, on the third anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, in front of a crowd of ten thousand, Major General Fred Walker had pinned the Distinguished Service Cross to Britt’s uniform beside the Silver Star and the Medal of Honor.[4] He had thereby become the first American in history to gain every medal for valor in a single war, making him, according to The Arkansas Traveler, “the most bemedaled hero in WWII.”

Britt could only pick up the newspaper with one hand to read about himself, and he was still in a great deal of pain. His home state’s newspaper had concluded: “Men of the Third Division, who have seen twelve of their comrades win the Congressional Medal of Honor—more than any other fighting unit in the US Army—think records back up their contention that Captain Britt is the Number One hero of this war or any other war.”[5]

Britt’s twenty-one-year-old wife, Nancy, the dimpled “Queen of Freshmen” who had met Footsie at a sorority dance, was described in another story as being “dazed by it all—for along with marrying a football star, she got herself a hero—the number one military hero of World War II, to be exact.” She was surprised, she said, by her husband’s war record. He had never told her what had really happened in Italy.

“I didn’t have any idea,” she added. “All I got was a geography lesson—about how beautiful the Italian countryside was. He did tell me he got the Purple Heart, and casually mentioned he was sending ‘something else’ along with it, which he hoped I’d like. The something else was the Silver Star.”[6]

Then came the standard reflex of the blessed, the stock response of so many decorated survivors, of most recipients of the Medal of Honor down the ages. Others had done far more. Their heroism had not been witnessed. He had been incredibly lucky.

“We lost some good men who deserved the Medal of Honor more than I did,” stressed Britt. “The army does its best to award medals justly, but obviously, in the confusion of battle, it is impossible to weigh the merits of individual soldiers. How can you measure bravery?”

Britt acknowledged that his years on the gridiron had served him in

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