Alexander R. Skinker

He carried ammunition through wire to attack the enemy guns.

Alexander Rives Skinker was born on 13 October 1883 in St. Louis, Missouri. He served in Light Artillery Battery A of the Missouri National Guard from 1903 to 1908 and earned his bachelor's degree at Washington University in St. Louis in 1905. He returned to military service as an Army officer in 1916.

During the First World War, Skinker served as captain of Company I, 138th Infantry Regiment, 35th Division. On 26 September 1918, the opening day of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, his company was stopped near Cheppy, France, by heavy fire from German machine-gun pillboxes.

Rather than send his company forward into the fire, Skinker led an automatic rifleman and an ammunition carrier against the positions. When the carrier was killed, Skinker picked up the ammunition himself. He continued through a gap in the barbed wire, supplying the automatic rifle until he was killed, aged 34.

His posthumous Medal of Honor was announced in War Department General Order No. 13 in 1919. The complete official U.S. Army citation reads:

“Unwilling to sacrifice his men when his company was held up by terrific machinegun fire from iron pill boxes in the Hindenburg Line, Capt. Skinker personally led an automatic rifleman and a carrier in an attack on the machineguns. The carrier was killed instantly, but Capt. Skinker seized the ammunition and continued through an opening in the barbed wire, feeding the automatic rifle until he, too, was killed.”

Skinker is buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. Washington University remembers him among its military alumni, and the Missouri National Guard Hall of Fame inducted him in its 2021 class. His citation records a company commander's decision to take the immediate risk himself while trying to protect his men.