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No Place for a HeroThere was nothing about the young soldier that could have been considered extraordinary. On the contrary, he was quiet, almost bashful and his slow, Southern drawl belied the shyness of a country boy who felt ill at ease wearing the stripes of a staff sergeant. Even as a young boy, Paul Bolden never doubted that one day he would be called on to serve his country. The child of sharecropper parents, he had been raised as a son of the South, where duty and honor was a birthright, and heritage, no matter how rich or how poor, was something you fought for. When Bolden was called up in the draft at the beginning of World War II he never questioned his obligation. With his occupation as a farmer he could have easily received a deferment. Many other young men in Madison County, fearful of receiving draft notices, had already decided that following the wrong end of a mule was preferable to carrying a rifle and slogging through mud in some far away country. Instead, on the designated day, Bolden rose before daylight and after kissing his mother good-bye and carrying the lunch she had packed for him in a tin pail, began the long walk to town. Paul Bolden was later described by his superiors as a "natural soldier." Coming from a large family, he easily fit into the Army’s regimentation and his quiet and unquestioning manner made him popular with his fellow soldiers. Years of hunting squirrels and rabbits around Hobbs Island had made him as comfortable with weapons as were the clothes on his back. When the Allies launched the invasion of Europe in 1944, there was instant jubilation in the free world. People everywhere predicted the war would be over by Christmas. The Huntsville newspaper confidently predicted, "The struggle is won; all that is left is the mopping up!" For the soldiers landing on the beaches of France however, the war had just begun. The next six months would be an unending horror of close-up combat, the kind that only riflemen can ever experience. Mud, fatigue and death became daily companions while the shadow of fear hung over every battlefield like a dark shadowy fog. "I was afraid the first day in combat," Bolden later recalled, "and I was afraid up to the last minute of the last day." The 30th Infantry Division, of which Bolden was a member, fought its way across France, from hedgerow to hedgerow and from village to village, meeting a strong and determined German resistance at every point. Often times progress would be measured in feet, rather than miles, and marked by bodies rather than milestones. Though Bolden had taken much teasing about his rural background (his nickname was Alabama), the other soldiers soon learned to depend on the cool judgement of the "country boy." While many other sergeants led by ordering, Bolden led by example; frequently exposing himself to danger rather than asking his men to take the risk. By anyone’s standards, Staff Sergeant Paul Bolden was the embodiment of a fighting man. In a small village in France he won the Bronze Star for Valor. A short time later, in another nameless village, he was awarded another Bronze Star. Another village and another battle won him the Silver Star, followed soon afterwards by two more Bronze Stars for Valor. As the German Armies retreated from France there was a sense everywhere that the war was winding down. Thoughts of the next day’s combat were replaced with visions of going home. Even the Huntsville newspaper, while still carrying the war news, was devoting more space to the events that would follow the surrender. In December of 1944, Bolden and his squad were encamped in Pitit Coo, Belgium, a seemingly safe place where they could realistically expect to gain a much needed rest before embarking on the final push into Germany. Unbeknownst to them however, the German High Command had other plans for the small hamlet. With much of Europe already in the hands of the Allies, and Germany’s future hanging by a thread, Hitler decided on a bold gamble to regain the lost territory and stop the Allies’ advance. The offensive would become known as the Battle of the Bulge and Petit Coo was destined to become ground zero. The German army cut a swath of destruction through the allied forces that was unparalleled in modern military history. Within hours, soldiers who thought they were far behind enemy lines, found themselves captives of the fast moving SS and Panzer troops. Whole companies and divisions were completely surrounded and cut off. Adding to the disarray was the freezing weather and blizzard conditions described by many as one of the worst winters in history. Napoleon once said that heroic conditions make heroic men. If that statement is true, then there were many such heroes during those first days when the outcome of the war lay in the hands of a few unshaven, frostbitten infantrymen. Thoughts of Christmas, and of going home, were pushed aside as war weary men once again rose to their duty. One of those men was Staff Sergeant Paul Bolden, who on December 23 was pinned down in a muddy ditch by withering fire from a nearby farm house. His company had already taken many casualties from the house, and was being pounded by heavy mortar and tank fire. To remain in the ditch meant certain death, but to move was just as deadly. Perhaps the best way to describe what happened next is to quote directly from Bolden’s service record the action for which he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. "He voluntarily attacked a formidable enemy strong point in Petit Coo, Belgium, on 23 December, 1944, when his company was pinned down by extremely heavy automatic and small arms fire coming from a house two-hundred yards to the front. Mortar and tank artillery shells pounded the unit, when S/Sgt. Bolden and a comrade, on their own initiative, moved forward into a hail of bullets to eliminate the ever increasing fire from the German position. Crawling ahead to close with what they knew was a powerfully armed, vastly superior force, the pair reached the house and took up assault positions; S/Sgt. Bolden under a window, his comrade across the street where he could deliver covering fire. In rapid succession, S/Sgt. Bolden hurled a fragmentation grenade and a white phosphorous grenade into the building. Then, fully realizing that he faced tremendous odds, rushed to the door, threw it open and fired into 35 SS troopers who were trying to reorganize themselves after the havoc wrought by the grenades. Twenty Germans died under fire of his sub-machine gun before he was struck in the shoulder, chest, and stomach by part of a burst which killed his comrade across the street. He withdrew from the house, waiting for the surviving Germans to come out and surrender. When none appeared in the doorway, he summoned his ebbing strength, overcame the extreme pain he suffered and boldly walked back into the house, firing as he went. He had killed the remaining fifteen enemy soldiers when his ammunition ran out. S/Sgt. Bolden’s heroic advance against great odds, his fearless assault, and his magnificent display of courage in reentering the building where he had been severely wounded cleared the path for his company and insured the success of its mission." |
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