WATCH: Charles Coolidge, Who Charged at German Tanks with a Bazooka and Grenades, Gets Medal of Honor in Vintage Footage
TSgt. Charles H. Coolidge receives the Medal of Honor from Army Lt. Gen. Wade H. Haislip on Jun 18, 1945 during a battlefield ceremony near Dormstadt, Germany. (U.S. Army photo courtesy of the Charles H. Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center)
12 Apr 2021
Tech. Sgt. Charles Coolidge, who fought the Nazis throughout Europe and North Africa with the Army s 36th Infantry Division, earned the Medal of Honor for his courage during a fierce forest battle in France in 1944.
As the nation mourns the loss of Coolidge, who died last week at the age of 99, you can now see the moment he received the nation s highest honor for valor.
American railroad workers in specially formed units labored to keep men and matériel rolling forward after D-Day.
Here s What You Need to Know: Combat engineers and railway workers recorded a monumental achievement in the summer of 1944.
Historian Christian Wolmar concludes that the two world wars could not have been fought to such devastation without military railways, in his book Engines of War. In wars, from the Crimean to the arrival of the jet engine, railways were a dominant technology. Consequently, the military that best employed its railways to transfer fresh troops and supplies to the point of greatest need usually prevailed.