Carlton William Barrett

D-Day Medal of Honor Hero of Omaha Beach

When Carlton William Barrett reached the surf off Omaha Beach on D-Day, he did something almost impossible to imagine. Instead of fighting only toward safety, he turned back into the water again and again to save other soldiers. Under mortar and small-arms fire, wounded himself and surrounded by chaos, Barrett spent hours rescuing men, carrying casualties, delivering messages and steadying soldiers who had been overwhelmed by the violence around them. His actions on 6 June 1944 would earn him the Medal of Honor and make him one of the most remarkable American soldiers of the Normandy invasion.

Carlton William Barrett was born on 24 November 1919 in Fulton, New York, to Lester and Olive Barrett. In 1940, shortly before his twenty-first birthday, he enlisted in the United States Army. He was assigned to the 18th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, the famous "Big Red One." Before the invasion of France, Barrett gained combat experience during the North African and Sicilian campaigns, two major steps in the Allied advance toward Europe.

By the morning of 6 June 1944, Barrett was a Private serving as a field guide during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. His mission involved helping coordinate troops and communications as elements of the 1st Infantry Division came ashore near Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer on Omaha Beach. His landing craft put him and other soldiers into neck-deep water while German mortar and small-arms fire swept the approaches to the beach. Men were struggling in the surf, equipment was dragging soldiers beneath the water, and the shoreline offered little protection.

Barrett could have concentrated on reaching cover. Instead, he repeatedly went back.

His official Medal of Honor citation records that he returned to the surf again and again to assist men who were floundering and in danger of drowning. Refusing to remain pinned down by enemy fire, Barrett carried wounded soldiers toward an evacuation boat offshore. He also moved along the exposed beach carrying dispatches, assisted casualties and helped calm soldiers suffering from shock. The citation described his conduct as showing "gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty." His ability to continue functioning under fire, while helping others survive, was central to the award.

The Medal of Honor was formally awarded for Barrett's actions while serving with the 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, near Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer on 6 June 1944. The award was published in War Department General Orders No. 78, dated 2 October 1944. His citation emphasized not only the lives he saved, but also the effect of his composure and courage on the soldiers around him during hours of intense combat.

Barrett paid a serious physical price for what he did on Omaha Beach. During the fighting he suffered wounds to both hips, his left leg and his foot. He was eventually evacuated from the beachhead and returned to the United States for treatment. His recovery was complicated by two bouts of malaria, and he spent approximately five months in hospitals before being released in October 1944 and sent back to the European Theater.

On 17 November 1944, after his promotion to Corporal, Barrett received the Medal of Honor in Paris from General John C. H. Lee, commander of the European communications zone. Barrett was one of four U.S. Army soldiers awarded the Medal of Honor for actions on D-Day. The other three were First Lieutenant Jimmie W. Monteith Jr., Technician Fifth Grade John J. Pinder Jr. and Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Barrett was the only one of the four who survived to receive the Medal of Honor in person.

That distinction never appears to have changed his view of what happened on Omaha Beach. Later accounts noted that Barrett was reluctant to make himself the center of the D-Day story. When he spoke about the invasion, he often redirected attention toward the men who did not return. That reluctance gives added meaning to his Medal of Honor citation. His heroism was not built around a dramatic assault on an enemy position. It was built around repeatedly risking his life so that other soldiers might live.

Barrett left the Army in July 1945 after the end of the war in Europe and briefly entered civilian employment in the federal internal revenue service in New York. Civilian life did not last. In May 1947 he reenlisted in the Army. That same year he married Josephine, herself a veteran who had served in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. They later had two daughters, Kathleen and Sharon. Barrett subsequently served in Germany before moving with his family to the Los Angeles area, where he worked at the Army and Air Force Recruiting Station in Culver City.

His second period of Army service lasted another sixteen years. Barrett remained on active duty until June 1963, completing a military career that had begun before the United States entered the Second World War. Official U.S. Army and Congressional Medal of Honor Society sources identify Technical Sergeant as his highest rank. His career therefore extended far beyond the single morning for which he became famous, encompassing wartime combat, postwar overseas service and recruiting duty in the United States.

The injuries Barrett suffered in Normandy remained with him long after his uniformed service ended. In 1984, his right leg was amputated as a result of complications associated with a wartime injury. He later lived at a senior facility in Hawthorne, California. On 3 March 1986, Carlton William Barrett died at the California Veterans Home in Yountville at the age of 66. Contemporary reporting cited by the Department of Defense gave pneumonia and heart failure following a long illness as the causes of death. He was buried at Napa Valley Memorial Gardens in Napa, California.

Barrett's story remains inseparable from Omaha Beach, but its importance reaches beyond D-Day. His Medal of Honor recognized a form of battlefield courage centered on rescue, responsibility and leadership under extreme pressure. He did not earn the nation's highest military decoration by seeking personal glory. He earned it by repeatedly exposing himself to deadly fire to pull other soldiers from the water, move the wounded toward safety and restore order in a place where order had almost disappeared.

Today, Carlton William Barrett's Medal of Honor is preserved and displayed at the First Division Museum at Cantigny in Wheaton, Illinois, linking his personal story to the history of the 1st Infantry Division with which he fought on D-Day. More than eighty years after the Normandy landings, his actions remain a powerful example of what the Medal of Honor is intended to recognize: courage beyond normal expectation, exercised when the lives of others depended upon it.