PATTON PINS FIRST HONOR MEDAL IN THIRD ARMY ON HEROIC TEXAN

Army Times, March 17, 1945

WITH THE 4TH ARMORED DIVISION, in Germany—The first Medal of Honor to be awarded to a man in the 3d Army has been pinned on the breast of 1st Lt. James H. Fields of Fort Worth, Tex., by General George S. Patton, Jr.

The “dauntless and gallant heroism” of Lieutenant Fields at Rechicourt, France, after being seriously wounded were largely responsible for the repulse of Nazi forces on September 27 and contributed in a large measure to capture of his battalion’s objective.

The 1st platoon of A Company, 10th Armored Infantry Battalion, which Lieutenant Fields commanded, was sent up Hill 265 to fill a gap left by two platoons, including one heavy weapons platoon, that had been knocked out by savage enemy resistance. Fifty-five men went up the hill and 13 returned almost 24 hours later after using two light machine guns to wipe out a platoon of Jerries supported by artillery and three Panther tanks.

Lieutenant Fields moved his men up under cover of darkness and assumed a defensive position. They held out all that night and about 6 o’clock the following morning they received their first concentrated attack. They repelled that, and a few minutes later, Fields heard one of his men call for medical aid from a nearby foxhole.

Knowing that no medical aid man was present, and that none was available, Fields went to the aid of the man himself. He arrived just in time to see one of his squad leaders shot through the head. He turned to take a shot at the Nazi marksman, but before he could fire, he was hit.

The Jerry bullet ripped through Lieutenant Field’s cheek from left to right, knocked most of his teeth out, cut his tongue and filled his mouth with blood and jaw fragments. Rendered speechless, he refused to leave his platoon and continued to direct fire with hand and arm signals and pencilled notes which he dispatched from one foxhole to the next.

“Only when his objective had been taken and the enemy scattered did he consent to be evacuated to the battalion CP,” the War Department citation reads: “At this point he refused to move farther back until he had explained to his battalion commander by drawing on paper the position of his men and the disposition of enemy forces.”

This was not the first time that Lieutenant Fields had been conspicuously gallant. During an attack on the city of Troyes, France, in August he deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire again and again in order that the positions of the enemy might be found. He received the Silver Star for that action. Lieutenant (now Captain) Fields also wears the Purple Heart and the Combat Infantryman Badge.