Walter C. Wetzel

Private First Class Walter C. Wetzel

Biography

Walter C. Wetzel was born on 7 June 1919 in Huntington, West Virginia. During the Great Depression, his family moved to Michigan, and Wetzel enlisted in the United States Army at Detroit on 9 July 1941. He trained at several bases before joining the Antitank Company, 13th Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division.

Wetzel deployed overseas in December 1943, initially arriving in Northern Ireland. On 4 July 1944, the 8th Infantry Division landed at Utah Beach and entered combat in Normandy. Wetzel subsequently served through the division’s operations at La Haye-du-Puits, Rennes, the siege of Brest, the Hürtgen Forest, and the advance across the Roer River into Germany. West Virginia Encyclopedia⁠

By April 1945, Wetzel was a private first class serving as an acting squad leader. During the early hours of 3 April, he was guarding his platoon command post in a house at Birken, near Morsbach, Germany. Detecting German troops approaching in the darkness, he ran inside, warned the other soldiers, and joined the defence of the building under heavy automatic-weapons fire.

German soldiers reached grenade range and threw two grenades into the room occupied by Wetzel and his comrades. Wetzel shouted a warning and deliberately threw himself over both grenades. He absorbed their explosions and was killed, but saved the other soldiers and enabled them to continue defending the command post until the German counterattack was defeated.

Wetzel was 25 years old. President Harry S. Truman posthumously awarded him the Medal of Honor under War Department General Orders No. 21 of 26 February 1946. The medal was presented to his widow, Dorothy. Wetzel is buried in Plot N, Row 18, Grave 10 of the Netherlands American Cemetery at Margraten. His Medal of Honor is preserved by the Michigan Heroes Museum in Frankenmuth. Congressional Medal of Honor Society⁠ | Fields of Honor⁠

Medal of Honor citation

Pfc. Wetzel, an acting squad leader with the Antitank Company of the 13th Infantry, was guarding his platoon’s command post in a house at Birken, Germany, during the early morning hours of 3 April 1945, when he detected strong enemy forces moving in to attack. He ran into the house, alerted the occupants, and immediately began defending the post against heavy automatic-weapon fire coming from the hostile troops. Under cover of darkness the Germans forced their way close to the building where they hurled grenades, two of which landed in the room where Pfc. Wetzel and the others had taken up firing positions. Shouting a warning to his fellow soldiers, Pfc. Wetzel threw himself on the grenades and, as they exploded, absorbed their entire blast, suffering wounds from which he died. The supreme gallantry of Pfc. Wetzel saved his comrades from death or serious injury and made it possible for them to continue the defense of the command post and break the power of a dangerous local counterthrust by the enemy. His unhesitating sacrifice of his life was in keeping with the U.S. Army’s highest traditions of bravery and heroism.