John R. Crews

Staff Sergeant John R. Crews
Born: March 8, 1923, Golden, Oklahoma
Education: Bowlegs, Oklahoma
Service Record: Drafted December 1942 and sent to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. Transferred to Ft. Custer, MI in February 1943. Sent as an MP to Casablanca in April 1943 to pick up German prisoners of war and return them to the US Transferred to the 63rd Infantry Division at Camp Van Doran, MI in May 1944 and entered combat in Europe in December 1944. By April 1945 he had already been awarded two Bronze Stars and promoted to Staff Sergeant.

Awards: Medal of Honor, Purple Heart, Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, Combat Infantryman's Badge. For action on April 8, 1945, John Crews received the Medal of Honor. The citation reads:

As his company was advancing toward the village under heavy fire, an enemy machine gun and automatic rifle with rifle support opened upon it from a hill on the right flank. Seeing that his platoon leader had been wounded by their fire, Staff Sergeant Crews, acting on his own initiative, rushed the strongpoint with two men of his platoon. Despite the fact that one of these men was killed and the other was badly wounded, he continued his advance up the hill in the face of terrific enemy fire. Storming the well-dug-in position single handedly, he killed two of the crew of the machine gun at point blank range with his M1 rifle and wrested the gun from the hand of another German whom he had already wounded. He then with his rifle charged the strongly emplaced automatic rifle. Although badly wounded in the thigh from crossfire from the remaining enemy, he kept on and silenced the entire position with accurate and deadly rifle fire. His actions so unnerved the remaining enemy soldiers that seven of them surrendered (this later turned out to be 27) and the others fled. His heroism caused the enemy to concentrate on him and permitted the company to move forward.

The Medal of Honor was presented to John in June 1948 by President Harry Truman.