Another Sgt. York
LT. R. A. KERSTING '42, LATER KILLED IN ACTION, HERO OF NORMANDY SAGA
Permission to reprint the following copyrighted despatch, which the editors believe to be one of the great Dartmouth stories of the war, has kindly been granted by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Lt. Richard A. Kersting '42, whom it concerns, was killed in action a few days after this story was written.
AMERICAN ARMY HEADQUARTERS IN NORMANDY, July 23-At about 4 o'clock on the afternoon of July ii, near the broken Normandy village of Cavigny during an American southward drive to St. Lo, two combat engineers appeared at a medical aid station with 34 Nazi soldiers between them.
Nine more lay dead in the wrecked houses and the rubble-covered streets behind them. The German platoon headquarters, a virtual fortress, was . totally wrecked. Outside it, where the Nazis obligingly threw them, lay 35 German Mausers, eight machine pistols, two heavy machine guns, a pile of grenades, some rocket equipment—enough to stop a battalion from entrenched positions.
Three of the prisoners required treatment for wounds but one oberlieutenant, commanding the party, turned belligerently upon one of his captors and in good English said, "You're mighty lucky to gel away with this, you so-and-so," and proceeded to curse him.
For a reply, Lieutenant Richard A. Kersting, 28-year-old Dartmouth football player from Oxford, 0., fetched the arrogant Hitlerite a swift kick in the seat of his breeches, a fitting conclusion to one of the most dramatic incidents of the war thus far in France.
Starting on a routine mission for the combat engineers supporting the 30th Infantry Division, Lieutenant Kersting and his rifleman, Private First Class Max Nimphie, of Bancroft, Mich., left their cargocarrier in charge of the driver and, under fire from the Germans across the Vire River, proceeded on foot to reconnoiter for mines and booby traps spread along the highway which parallels the stream below Cavigny. Lieutenant Kersting had a carbine and plenty of bullets; Private Nimphie, a crack shot, carried an M-1 rifle. Each had four grenades.
Before they would return to their vehicle Rick Kersting and Private Nimphie would come the closest of any to duplicating another American's exploits on French soil—the exploits of Sergeant Alvin York in World War I.
They would prove that, for individual courage and action, there is no soldier equal to the Yank, and for sheer brilliance and bluffing, nobody is even close. They would also demonstrate that the unfailing antidote for what ails the Herrenvolkthat superman complex—is a swift kick in the pants.
Reporting the events of the next three hours to his commanding officer later, Lieutenant Kersting told Lieutenant Colonel Hugh W. Colton, of Vernal, Utah, that he was not expecting much action but was prepared for it and was glad when the opportunity arose for him to apply both his Army and football training.
Before he was transferred to the engineers, Rick had received Ranger training and before entering the armed services he had played blocking halfback under Coach Earl (Red) Blaik for Dartmouth.
"Coach Blaik taught us to think while in motion, never leave an opening for the opponent, keep an eye on the ball and cash in on the other guy's mistakes," he said. "With two and one-half years of Army training on top of that, plus an awful lot of good luck, we got by."
Leaving Cavigny, the two moved south for a quarter of a mile, drawing occasional rifle fire as they walked. The Germans had a platoon hidden in the hedgerows and were holding up tanks and an infantry regiment of Americans moving toward St. Lo when Lieutenant Kerning and Private Nimphie spotted a burned out German vehicle. At the same time the crew of an American tank hailed them with the warning that another German tank was just around the corner.
"Will you give us a hand? We've been hit," one of the crewmen shouted. "I said we would help and asked what they were doing without infantry support, anyway," Lieutenant Kersting reported. At the same moment somebody in the damaged German tank fired on him.
The lieutenant dashed across the road, a distance of about 12 feet, escaping the tank's bullets, then circled behind the hedgerow toward the enemy.
He and Private Nimphie began to fire into the tank's ports, forcing them to button up and when an American bazooka squad appeared the lieutenant ordered them to flank the tank while the rifleman and he diverted the Nazis' attention. The bazooka boys put four rockets into the turret, blowing it apart and only one Hun got out.
"He ran up the side of the hedge but didn't make cover. Nimphie and I both shot and he stopped running." Continuing along the road with the American tank now covering them from about 80 yards behind, Lieutenant Kerning saw something that enraged him. An American Medical Corpsman, fully identified with a Red Cross brassard, lay dead by the roadside, two bullet holes in his back.
"That made me mad. I don't mind the enemy shooting at me in a fair fight but they don't play fair. They tried to interfere with our way of thinking, they've ruined the minds of a whole generation of. Europe, they've dragged us into this dirty war—you, me, all of us Americans who don't give a damn about soldiering and would rather play ball any day—and now, God damn it, they're going to pay."
A German came out of the hedgerow, hands high, as Lieutenant Kersting and Private Nimphie skulked along and, in the lieutenant's words, "I worked him over a little and got him to tell the whereabouts of others."
POINTS OUT STRONGHOLD
The prisoner came to terms quickly, pointing to several houses farther along, and then a second Hun emerged to give himself up.
Two bazooka men escorted the prisoners back and the procession continued into the enemy's stronghold with Lieutenant Kersting shouting profanely in German and Private Nimphie, who doesn't know that language, doing very well in English. From time to time both tossed a grenade into a house or had shot a fleeing German.
"I yelled, 'Ergebet euch,' meaning give up, and Nimphie would bellow like a bull. To make sure that we had properly adjusted our gun sights, we would knock a flower pot off the window ledges every so often, adding more clatter to the general din
"They were running like hell now, crossing the road toward two big buildings joined by a stone wall. But I've killed deer in my time up in the Pennsylvania woods—." Lieutenant Kersting picked off the last of four fleeing Huns while Private Nimphie was liquidating two behind the second building. Now the lieutenant called for 75-mm fire from the tank.
As the shells burst inside the first structure it crumbled like a cakebox and the last of the enemy inside sped madly for the second building. Lieutenant Kersting crouched at the wall, Private Nimphie covered him from the other side and the tank moved in.
A third German surrendered and went back with the other bazooka men, leaving Kersting and Nimphie and the tank to mop up. "We were still making plenty of noise and the tank's clatter must have convinced those inside the building that we were a whole regiment.
"Lots of time had passed by now—you don't just walk down the road, popping your weapons right and left, like it is done in the moving pictures, you take your time and play it cozy—so I moved toward the house under the tank's covering fire.
"Just theft somebody turned the corner with a machine pistol in his hands. It was a German and his mouth flew open when he saw me. The weapon was pointing directly at me but I beat him on the trigger.
"It was Wild West stuff all right, only I didn't think of it then. My mind was going like a flywheel. It was like grabbing a fumbled ball in mid-air, seeing a hole and streaking for a touchdown.
"Then I strode to the door, gave it a hell of a kick, yelling loudly, carbine pointing in and stepped back. All I could see was faces and they were as white as paper. Those Heinies were scared stiff.
"It was a situation demanding boldness and when the first guy stepped forward and his machine gun stuck into my belly, I just brushed it aside and didn't shoot him. Something told me that if I killed him they'd all begin shooting from the inside and finish my run of luck, so I threw his gun aside and shouted, 'Handen über haupt,' and they started out the door."
The second man through the doorway was the oberlieutenant and Lieutenant Kerning recognized his officer's insignia. Harshly, the American demanded why he had not surrendered when it was obvious that the Huns were surrounded, reviling the German for a useless waste of life.
"Dumkopf," he shouted contemptuously, and booted the hapless Hun's backside. The German took it, hands in the air, his terrified eyes on the American's carbine. There were no grenades left except those the Germans dropped as they emerged from the building.
AMAZED BY CATCH
One after another, until the amazed lieutenant counted 30 soldiers besides the officer, they filed out, hands held high. Each dropped a rifle, grenades, machine pistol or gun at his captor's feet.
As he saw his catch increasing to such numbers Lieutenant Kersting backed against the wall, covering them as Private Nimphie kept his Garand ready from the other direction.
As the last obeyed the order to come out of the house, Lieutenant Kersting saw the muzzle of a rifle and a shot just missed him. He sprang forward, and returned two shots. When his mates revisited the place the next day they found the sniper lying in the burning house, with the other dead Nazis.
"That was our last kill. I figure that I shot four, Private Nimphie three and the others were divided between us. Anyway there were nine bodies still there the next day when we returned to pick up the Nazi weapons. I had enough souvenirs for the whole engineer's detachment."
As he and his small command stood before the prisoners, the oberlieutenant became suspicious and demanded to know where the rest of the American brigade was located. "I didn't know what he meant by brigade but assured him that plenty of Americans were around and just one false move and he'd soon find out," Rick reported.
The position of the intrepid pair began to dawn on them as they neared the aid station. The German officer kept asking where the rest of the Americans were and, unfortunately, nobody else appeared. But the Nazis had no weapons and Lieutenant Kerning and his companion ruled, and anyway, they were in no mood to debate the issue. "Sometimes I'm sorry now that I didn't pop off a few more," the lieutenant said.
The reason for this was revealed the next day. Proceeding along the same road, he found five American tanks that had been smashed by enemy fire from the opposite river bank with the bodies of the Yanks lying about.
"I had been in France only a few days, that was my first combat experience, and then I saw something that made me cold inside. It was a tank nicknamed 'Foudroyer,' the one that had covered us the previous afternoon.
"I looked inside. The crew was still there. Damn the Germans. I hope we don't let them up until we settle all these scores and you can put it in the paper that that is how all our fellows up front feel."
Both he and Private Nimphie have been recommended by their commanding officei for the Distinguished Service Cross.
