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Duane Kimbrow-Historian
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Childers, Ernest L., LTC USA(Ret).
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Contact Info
Last Address Broken Arrow
Date of Passing Mar 17, 2005
Location of Interment Floral Haven Memorial Gardens - Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Second Lieutenant Ernest "Chief" Childers, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty in action on 22 September 1943, at Oliveto, Italy, while serving with Company C, 180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division.
Although Second Lieutenant Childers previously had just suffered a fractured instep he, with eight enlisted men, advanced up a hill toward enemy machinegun nests. The group advanced to a rock wall overlooking a cornfield and Second Lieutenant Childers ordered a base of fire laid across the field so that he could advance. When he was fired upon by two enemy snipers from a nearby house he killed both of them. He moved behind the machinegun nests and killed all occupants of the nearer one. He continued toward the second one and threw rocks into it. When the two occupants of the nest raised up, he shot one. The other was killed by one of the eight enlisted men. Second Lieutenant Childers continued his advance toward a house farther up the hill, and single-handed, captured an enemy mortar observer.
The exceptional leadership, initiative, calmness under fire, and conspicuous gallantry displayed by Second Lieutenant Childers were an inspiration to his men.
General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. 30 (April 8, 1944) Action Date: 22-Sep-43
Service: Army
Rank: Second Lieutenant
Company: Company C
Regiment: 180th Infantry Regiment
Division: 45th Infantry Division
Other Comments:
See Notes
Lt. Colonel Childers was of the Muskogee (Creek) Nation from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
WWII - European Theater of Operations/Sicily Campaign (1943)
From Month/Year
July / 1943
To Month/Year
August / 1943
Description (Sicily Campaign 9 July to 17 August 1943) In preparation for the invasion of Sicily the Allies captured the islands in the Sicilian strait, with aerial bombardment forcing the capitulation of Pantelleria on 11 June 1943. By that time Allied air power had begun the attack on Sicily by bombing defenses and airfields. The invasion itself got under way on the night of 9/10 July with airborne landings that were followed the next day by an amphibious assault. The enemy offered strong resistance, but the Allies had superiority in the air and soon had planes operating from Sicilian bases to support Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Patton’s Seventh.
Interdictory operations against communications in Italy and between Italy and Sicily convinced the enemy that it would be impossible to move strong reinforcements. By 17 August 1943 the Allies were in possession of the island, but they had not been able to prevent a German evacuation across the Strait of Messina.
