RICHARD ADAM KERSTING ‘42

+AUGUST 2, 1921-JULY 26, 1944+

Rick was the second of five children born to Alphonse (1893-1942) and Mary (1895-1985) Kersting of Oxford, Ohio, the home of Miami University. Rick’s father, born in Glandorf, Ohio of German parentage, had graduated from Miami University in 1914 and was a district

manager with the Valvoline Oil Company prior to his death at the age of 49 in July, 1942, two years prior to his son’s wartime heroism and subsequent death. During the time of Rick’s military service, his widowed mother, Mary, and her five children lived at 504 Maple Avenue immediately adjacent to the university campus. An outstanding student and athlete prior to enrolling at Dartmouth, Rick graduated from Oxford’s McGuffey High School in June, 1937 before he was 16 years of age. In high

school he was class president for three years, president of the Glee Club, worked on the school paper and the yearbook, and competed in football, basketball and track. Before coming to Dartmouth. he had briefly attended both Ohio State University and Miami University.

Prior to enlisting, he held what would appear to be summer and interim jobs at the American Rolling Mill in Middletown, Ohio and the Wright Aeronautical plant in Lockland, Ohio.

Rick’s High School Yearbook Photo

Varsity High School Football

At Dartmouth Rick played football and was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. Freshman year he lived in 205 Smith Hall. He left Dartmouth just months prior to graduation to enlist as a private in the U.S. Army on April 24, 1942 in Dayton, Ohio. After his military service, Rick had planned to return to Dartmouth and continue his pre-medical studies. Subsequent to basic training Rick was sent on May 7 to the Aviation Institute of Technology in Long Island City, New

York for a fifteen-week course in air mechanics. He was then sent in August to Patterson Field in Riverside, Ohio as a 2nd grade airman mechanic where he worked, initially as a line mechanic, and then as a crew chief, in the 55th Air Depot Group. When Lockbourne Air Base opened in Columbus, Ohio, he was transferred there as a crew chief with the 374th Base Headquarters. After spending his first year in the Army training in air mechanics, he was selected to attend the Engineer Officers Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers on April 14, 1943.

After receiving his lieutenant’s bars, he reported to Camp Clairborne, Louisiana and remained there until August 14, 1943 when he was sent to Geiger Field in Spokane, Washington with the 2nd Army Engineering and Technical Services Command. On November 1, 1943 his unit was sent to a pre-embarkation point in Greenville, Pennsylvania in preparation for a November 10 ocean voyage to England. Upon landing in England, he was assigned to the headquarters of the Western Base Section Engineers until his departure for France shortly after D-Day.

Rick Kersting ‘42

On June 9th (D-Day plus 3), Rick’s battalion convoyed to Southampton where they boarded the British transport ship John H. Richardson for the channel crossing. He was assigned to Company C, 246th Engineering Combat Battalion of the 1st Army under Major General Courtney Hodges.

They sailed that night, arriving off Omaha Beach the next morning. Shortly after arriving in France, Rick’s engineering unit was assigned to the 19th Armored Corps, code named Tomahawk. The battalion's code

name was Anvil. They went into action the following day near the city of Carentan, which was still ablaze when they arrived, and were immediately sent in support of the 29th Infantry Division on the road to St. Lô.

It was during these operations that Rick and a fellow soldier orchestrated a daring raid in which they single-handedly killed nine Germans and captured thirty more. As a result of his bravery, Rick was recommended by his colonel for the Congressional Medal of Honor and his daring exploits were subsequently featured in an “Army Hour” broadcast on July 23, 1944 in which he was referred to as “the modern day Sergeant York.” His 1

mother had listened with pride to the broadcast only days

Sergeant Alvin York, US Army (1887-1964) was was one of the most decorated soldiers in World War I. 1

He received the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nest, taking thirty-two machine guns, killing at least twenty German soldiers, and capturing one-hundred and thirty-two others.

Undated News Story

before she received a telegram informing her of her son’s subsequent death as a result of stepping on a personnel mine.

Rick’s Distinguished Service Cross was awarded posthumously on September 25, 1944. The Citation reads:

“for extraordinary heroism in action against the enemy on 11 July 1944, in France. Second Lieutenant Kersting and the men with him, while proceeding on foot in advance of a tank, encountered about 40 enemy soldiers. A running fight developed with the Germans resisting from house to house. Second Lieutenant Kersting led his men in an assault in which 10 of the enemy were killed and the remaining Germans took cover in one of the houses. Then, while covered by one of the other soldiers and the tank, Second Lieutenant Kersting, though expose to enemy fire, fearlessly made his way to the door of the house, kicked it in and called to the Germans to surrender. Led by their officer, the Germans laid down their arms, came out of the house and surrendered. As the last of these soldiers left the building, Second Lieutenant Kersting observed the muzzle of a rifle protruding from another door in the same building. He pinned himself to the wall as a shot was fired at him and then killed the enemy soldier who had fired the shot. The aggressive leadership and personal bravery displayed by Second Lieutenant Kersting reflects great credit on himself and is in keeping with the highest traditions of the Armed Forces.”

The following story about the incident appeared in The Philadelphia Enquirer on July 23, just three days before Rick was killed. It was later reprinted in a fall, 1944 issue of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine

Another Sgt. York By Ivan H. Peterman

AMERICAN ARMY HEADQUARTERS IN NORMANDY, July 23—At about 4 o’clock on the afternoon of July 11, near the broken Normandy village of Cavigny during an American southward drive to St. Lô, two combat engineers appeared at a medical aid station with 30 Nazi soldiers between them.

Nine more lay dead in the wrecked houses and the rubble-covered streets behind them. The German platoon headquarters, a virtual fortress, was totally wrecked. Outside it, where the Nazis obligingly threw them, lay 35 German Mausers, eight machine pistols, two heavy machine guns, a pile of grenades, some rocket equipment—enough to stop a battalion from entrenched positions.

Three of the prisoners required treatment for wounds but one Oberleutnant, commanding the party, turned belligerently upon one of his captors and in good English said, “You’re mighty lucky to get away with this, you [so-and-so],” and proceeded to curse him.

For a reply, Lieutenant Richard A. Kersting, a 22-year-old Dartmouth football player from Oxford, Ohio, fetched the arrogant Hitlerite a swift kick in the seat of his breeches, a fitting conclusion to one of the most dramatic incidents of the war thus far in France.

Starting on a routine mission for the combat engineers supporting the 30th Infantry Division, Lieutenant Kersting and his rifleman, Private First Class Max Nimphie [who was known affectionately as“Limpy”], of Bancroft, Michigan, left their cargo-carrier and, under fire from the Germans

across the Vire river, proceeded on foot to reconnoiter for mines and booby traps spread along the highway which parallels the stream below Cavigny. Lieutenant Kersting had a carbine and plenty of bullets; Private Nimphie, a crack shot, carried an M-1 rifle. Each had four grenades.

Before they would return to their vehicle, Rick Kersting and Private Nimphie would come the closest of any to duplicating another American’s exploits on French soil—the exploits of Sergeant Alvin York in World War I.

They would prove that, for individual courage and action, there is no soldier equal to the Yank, and for sheer brilliance and bluffing, nobody is even close. They would also demonstrate that the unfailing antidote for what ails the Herrenvolk—that superman complex—is a swift kick in the pants.

Reporting the events of the next three hours to his commanding officer later, Lieutenant Kersting told Lieutenant Colonel Hugh W. Colton, of Vernal, Utah, that he was not expecting much action but was prepared for it and was glad when the opportunity arose for him to apply both his Army and football training.

Before he was transferred to the engineers, Rick had received Ranger training and before entering the armed services he had played blocking halfback under Coach Earl (Red) Blaik for Dartmouth.

“Coach Blaik taught us to think while in motion, never leave an opening for the opponent, keep an eye on the ball and cash in on the other guy’s mistakes,” he said. With two and one-half years of Army training on top of that, plus an awful lot of luck, we got by.”

Leaving Cavigny, the two moved south for a quarter of a mile, drawing occasional rifle fire as they walked. The Germans had a platoon hidden in the hedgerows and were holding up tanks and an infantry regiment of Americans moving toward St. Lô when Lieutenant Kersting and Private Nimphie spotted a burned out German vehicle. At the same time the crew of an American tank hailed them with the warning that another German tank was just around the corner.

“Will you give us a hand? We’ve been hit,” one of the crewmen shouted. “I said we would help and asked what they were doing without infantry support, anyway,” Lieutenant Kersting reported. At the same moment somebody in the damaged German tank fired on him.

The lieutenant dashed across the road, a distance of about 12 feet, escaping to where the rest of the American brigade was located. “I didn’t know what he meant by brigade but assured him that plenty of Americans were around and just one false move and he’d soon find out,” Rick reported.

The position of the intrepid pair began to dawn on them as they neared the aid station. The German officer kept asking where the rest of the Americans were and, unfortunately, nobody else appeared. But the Nazis had no weapons and Lieutenant Kersting and his companion ruled, and eluding the tank’s bullets, then circled behind the hedgerow toward the enemy.

He and Private Nimphie began to fire into the tank’s ports, forcing them to button up and when an American bazooka squad appeared, the lieutenant ordered them to flank the tank while the rifleman and he diverted the Nazis’ attention. The bazooka boy put four rockets into the turret, blowing it apart and only one Hun got out.

“He went up the side of the hedge but didn’t make cover. Nymph and I both shot and he stopped running.”

Continuing along the road with the American tank now covering them from about 80 yards behind, Lieutenant Kersting saw something that enraged him. An American Medical Corpsman, fully identified with a Red Cross brassard, lay dead by the roadside, two bullet holes in his back.

“That made me mad. I don’t mind the enemy shooting at me in a fair fight but they don't play fair. They tried to interfere with our way of thinking, they've ruined the minds of a whole generation of Europe, they've dragged us into this dirty war—you, me, and all of us Americans who don’t give a damn about soldiering and would rather play ball any day—and now—God damn it, they're going to pay.”

A German came out of the hedgerow, hands high, as Lieutenant Kersting and Private Nimphie skulked along and, in the lieutenant’s words, “I worked him over a little and got him to tell the whereabout of others.”

POINTS OUT STRONGHOLD

The prisoner came to terms quickly, pointing to several houses farther along, and then a second Hun emerged to give himself up.

Two bazooka men escorted the prisoners back and the procession continued into the enemy’s stronghold with Lieutenant Kersting shouting profanely in German and 2

Private Nimphie, who doesn’t know that language, doing

As a second-generation German-American, Rick had studied German in high school and was a member 2

of his school’s German Club.

very well in English. From time to time both tossed a grenade into a house or had shot a fleeing German.

“I yelled, Ergebt euch, meaning give up, and Nimphie would bellow like a bull. To make sure that we had properly adjusted our gun sites, we would knock a flower pot off the window ledges every so often, adding more clatter to the general din. . . .

“They were running like hell now, crossing the road toward two big buildings joined by a stone wall. But I’ve killed deer in my time up in the Pennsylvania woods—.” Lieutenant Kersting picked off the last of four fleeing Huns while Private Nimphie was liquidating two behind the second building. Now the lieutenant called for 75-mm fire from the tank.

As the shells burst inside the first structure it crumbled like a cakebox and the last of the enemy inside sped madly for the second building. Lieutenant Kersting crouched at the wall, Private Nimphie covered him from the other side and the tank moved in.

A third German surrendered and went back with the other bazooka men, leaving Kersting and Nimphie and the tank to mop up. “We were still making plenty of noise and the tank’s clatter must have convinced those inside the building that we were a whole regiment.

“Lots of time had passed by now—you don't just walk down the road, popping your weapons right and left, like it is done in the moving pictures, you take your time and play it cozy—so I moved toward the house just under the tank’s covering fire.

“Just then somebody turned the corner with a machine pistol in his hands. It was a German and his mouth flew open when he saw me. The weapon was pointing directly at me but I beat him on the trigger.

“It was Wild West stuff all right, only I didn’t think of it then. My mind was going like a flywheel. It was like grabbing a fumbled ball in mid-air, seeing a hole and streaking for a touchdown.

“Then I strode to the door, gave it a hell of a kick, yelling loudly, carbine pointing in and stepped back. All I could see was faces and they were white as paper. Those Heinies were scared stiff.

“It was a situation demanding boldness and when the first guy stepped forward and his machine gun stuck into my belly, I just brushed it aside and didn’t shoot him. Something told me that if I killed him they’d all begin shooting from the inside and finish my run of luck, so I threw his gun aside and shouted, Händen über hoch, and they started out the door.”

The second man through the doorway was the Oberleutnant and Lieutenant Kersting recognized his officer’s insignia. Harshly, the American demanded why he had not surrendered when it was obvious that the Huns were surrounded, reviling the German for a useless waste of life.

“Dummkopf,” he shouted contemptuously, and booted the Hun’s backside. The German took it, hands in the air, his terrified eyes on the American’s carbine. There were no grenades left except those the Germans dropped as they emerged from the building.

AMAZED BY CATCH

One after another, until the amazed lieutenant counted 30 soldiers besides the officer, they filed out, hands held high. Each dropped a rifle, grenades, machine pistol, or gun at his captor’s feet.

As he saw his catch increasing to such numbers, Lieutenant Kersting, back against the wall, covered them as Private Nimphie kept his Garand ready from the other direction. 3

As the last obeyed the order to come out of the house, Lieutenant Kersting saw the muzzle of a rifle and a shot just missed him. He sprang forward, and returned two shots. When his mates revisited the place the next day they found the sniper lying in the burning house with the other dead Nazis.

“That was our last kill. I figure that I shot four, Private Nimphie three, and the others were divided between us. Anyway, there were nine bodies sill there the next day when we return to pick up the Nazi weapons. I had enough souvenirs for the whole engineers’ detachment.”

As he and his small command stood before the prisoners, the Oberleutnant became suspicious and demanded to know where the rest of the American brigade was located. “I didn’t know what he meant by brigade but assured him that plenty of American were around and just one false move and he’d soon find out,” Rick reported.

The position of the intrepid pair began to dawn on them as they neared the aide station. The German officer kept

The semiautomatic, .30-06 caliber Springfield rifle also known as the M-1; named after its designer, 3

John Garand (1888-1974).

asking where the rest of the Americans were and, unfortunately, nobody else appeared. But the Nazis had no weapons and Lieutenant Kersting and his companion ruled, and anyway, they were in no mood to debate the issue. “Sometimes I’m sorry now that I didn’t pop off a few more,” the lieutenant said.

The reason for this was revealed the next day. Proceeding along the same road, he found five American tanks that had been smashed by enemy fire from the opposite river bank with the bodies of the Yanks lying about.

“I had been in France only a few days, that was my first combat experience, and then I saw something that made me cold inside. It was a tank nicknamed ‘Foudroyer,’ the one 4

that had covered us the previous afternoon.

“I looked inside. The crew was still there. Damn the Germans. I hope we don’t let them up until we settle all these scores and you can put it in the paper—that that is how all our fellows up front feel.”

Both he and Private Nimphie have been recommended by their commanding officer for the Distinguished Service Cross. 5

Rick died on July 26, a little over two weeks after his encounter with the Nazis and just days after an interview with him about his heroic exploits south of Cavigny had been broadcast on the Army Hour all across the U.S. During a night mission of the

French for “lightning striker.”4

PFC Max Nimphie, Sr. (1922-1996) was awarded the Silver Star. He also later received a Purple Heart 5

and survived the war but, in a tragic twist of irony, his son and namesake, Army Corporal Max Nimphie, Jr. (1947-1968), was killed in action in Thua Thien Province near Hue in Vietnam at the age of twenty. Max, Jr. is honored at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., Panel 55E, Row 25:

battalion in support of the 105th engineers, Rick Kersting became his unit’s first fatality when he stepped on an anti-personnel device while trying to locate a road near the village of Hébécrevon, four miles west of St. Lô, to be used by the infantry to evacuate their casualties. Private Clyde Mathews, a Pima Indian chief, was also seriously wounded in the same incident. Rick was just twenty-two when he died.