Germans Couldn’t Stop This “Walking Grenade” — Until He Destroyed 3 Machine Gun Nests Alone

At 14:30 on January 8, 1945, Technical Sergeant Russell Dunham crouched in knee-deep snow at the base of Hill 616 near Kaisersburg, France, watching German machine gun fire cut down the winter sky above his pinned platoon. He was twenty-four years old, a veteran of three brutal campaigns across the Mediterranean and European theaters, and he possessed absolutely zero plans to die on this godforsaken slope today.

The Germans had positioned three formidable MG42 machine guns in heavily reinforced timber emplacements up the snow-covered hill, with each weapon capable of firing an astonishing twelve hundred rounds per minute. Dunham’s platoon had been steadily advancing through the rugged Alsace-Lorraine region when they walked directly into this carefully prepared killing box.

Machine gun fire rained down relentlessly from the hilltop while heavy artillery shells exploded behind them, cutting off any hope of safe retreat. The only direction left for the soldiers to move was straight up a treacherous forty-degree slope, right into the converging fields of enemy fire.

Eleven brave men from the second platoon had already been killed earlier that week, and the pristine snow around their current position was churned a sickening red. Every single soldier in Company I knew the terrifying statistics of their campaign; in the bitter Voge Mountains, the Third Infantry Division had lost more men per day than any other American division in Europe.

The well-entrenched Germans held the high ground, possessed completely clear sightlines across the valley, and had an seemingly endless supply of ammunition. Dunham looked up at the daunting hill, realizing his platoon was thirty-five yards behind him, pressed flat into the freezing snow and utterly unable to move forward or backward.

If they stayed pinned down in this position, German artillery would eventually bracket them and kill everyone where they lay. If they chose to retreat down the open valley, the merciless machine guns would simply cut them down in their tracks.

The temperature had plummeted to a bitter twelve degrees Fahrenheit, and the heavy snow blanketed the treacherous terrain at a depth of eighteen inches. Dunham wore the standard olive drab wool uniform, a dark silhouette that made him an exceptionally easy target against the blindingly white landscape.

Every other soldier who had tried to move or scout ahead had been spotted immediately by German lookouts and forced back down by heavy fire. The Germans completely owned that hill, and they knew the Americans were trapped with nowhere to go.

Dunham crawled back to the company position through the deep snow and managed to find a discarded white mattress cover. He tore it open with his bare hands and pulled it over his bulky winter uniform like a makeshift robe to serve as camouflage.

Then, he started loading an incredible amount of firepower onto his person, shoving twelve thirty-round carbine magazines into every single pocket and loop he could find. He snagged a dozen Mark 2 fragmentation grenades, hooking them securely onto his sturdy web belt.

He hooked even more grenades through his canvas suspenders and jammed additional explosives into the large buttonholes of his field jacket. When he finally stood up, he was carrying seventy-two pounds of ammunition and explosives on top of his standard rifle.

His platoon sergeant looked at him in absolute disbelief, but Dunham did not bother to explain his insane plan. He simply turned around and started crawling back up the steep hill alone.

The first seventy-five yards of his solo ascent took him eighteen agonizing minutes of slow, deliberate movement. He only moved during the brief moments when German fire shifted to other sectors, pressing himself flat whenever the MG42s swept back across his approach.

The freezing snow quickly soaked through his thin mattress cover, causing his hands to go completely numb within minutes. The heavy rifle sling cut deeply into his shoulder from the immense weight of the dangling grenades.

At seventy-five yards up the slope, he was finally within ten yards of the first German machine gun emplacement. The thick timber bunker had been reinforced with heavy logs and strategically positioned to provide interlocking fire with the other two positions.

Three German soldiers manned the gun: one fed the ammunition belt, one fired the weapon, and one constantly scanned the landscape for targets. Dunham suddenly rose to his feet from the white snow and charged directly at the bunker.

The Germans spotted the sudden movement, and the alert machine gunner swung the heavy barrel toward the approaching figure. At a mere six yards away, the gun opened fire, sending rounds tearing through Dunham’s white robe.

A high-velocity rifle bullet caught him squarely across the back, carving a horrific ten-inch gash from his left shoulder blade down to his spine. The immense impact spun him completely around and threw him fifteen yards back down the hill into the deep snow.

He landed face down, and dark blood poured from the massive wound, quickly soaking through the white mattress cover and staining the snow bright red. The pain was excruciating, and he could feel the deep wound pulling open with every ragged breath he took.

For five agonizing seconds, he lay completely still in the snow, and the Germans likely assumed he was dead. Then, a German egg grenade landed in the snow just two feet from his head, its fuse fizzing dangerously.

PART 2

Dunham reacted on pure instinct, kicking the explosive away with his heavy boot just before it detonated five yards down the slope. The concussion of the blast was close enough that it lifted his body off the ground, but instead of staying down, Russell Dunham got back on his feet.

He came back up the hill firing his M1 carbine, which was still loaded with twenty-eight rounds of ammunition. The stunned German machine gunner swung the MG42 back toward him, but Dunham was already inside the gun’s minimum traverse arc.

At a distance of four yards, he fired a lethal three-round burst directly into the enemy gunner’s chest. The assistant gunner reached frantically for his rifle, but Dunham shot him twice before he could chamber a round.

Both Germans dropped heavily inside the bunker, while the third crew member, the ammunition feeder, threw his hands up and started shouting in terror. Dunham’s carbine was completely empty, having fired thirty rounds in just eighteen seconds.

He quickly slung the rifle, grabbed the surviving German by the collar of his heavy field jacket, and hauled him out of the timber emplacement. He shoved the prisoner down the hill toward the American lines, where his platoon would take him for interrogation.

Blood was running down Dunham’s back in steady streams now, soaking through his uniform. The bullet wound had torn through muscle and tissue, missing his vital spinal cord by less than two inches.

Every movement he made pulled the gash wider, and the white mattress cover was now completely soaked red from his shoulders down to his waist. Against the white snow of the hillside, he looked like a bright flag.

The second machine gun position was located fifty yards uphill and slightly to his right. The Germans manning that gun had watched Dunham single-handedly take out the first nest, and they knew he was coming for them next.

They quickly adjusted their field of fire to cover his approach, and Dunham could see the timber logs of their emplacement. He could see the dark shape of the barrel tracking across the slope, searching for his position.

He reloaded his carbine with a fresh thirty-round magazine, leaving him with eleven magazines and ten grenades remaining. He started moving forward, and the Germans opened fire at forty yards.

Rounds snapped past his head and kicked up geysers of snow around his boots, forcing him down. Dunham went down and crawled, but the pain in his back was so intense that he had to stop every few yards to keep from blacking out.

He could feel the warm blood pooling inside his winter uniform, and his hands were shaking violently from blood loss and the extreme cold. Despite the agony, he kept crawling forward toward the enemy.

At twenty-five yards from the second emplacement, he rose to one knee and pulled two Mark 2 grenades from his belt. He yanked both pins, counted two seconds, and hurled them in a high arc toward the timber bunker.

The Germans saw the explosives coming, and one of them screamed in terror just before detonation. Both grenades exploded inside the emplacement within half a second of each other, destroying the position.

The combined blast threw heavy logs and equipment out of the bunker, and the machine gun went completely silent. Dunham moved forward with his carbine raised, smoke pouring from the shattered emplacement.

He could see the devastating results in the snow; the entire three-man crew had been killed instantly by the grenades. He did not stop to celebrate, turning his attention down the slope to the supporting riflemen dug into foxholes.

PART 3

Six German infantrymen were scrambling out of their holes, trying to get clear of the devastating assault. Dunham fired into them from fifteen yards, going through another full magazine as he shot at every moving shape.

He hit three of them, while the others broke completely and ran up the hill away from the American advance. Dunham let them go because he had one final, critical target left on the hill.

The third machine gun was sixty-five yards further up the slope, occupying the highest position on Hill 616. It possessed the absolute best field of fire over the entire American advance, making it the most dangerous.

The Germans there had been watching Dunham’s unbelievable assault for the last twelve minutes. They knew exactly where he was, they knew he was severely wounded, and they could see his blood-red coat from two hundred yards away.

They had him squarely in their sights as Dunham looked up the steep hill. The barrel of the third MG42 was aimed directly at him, and rifle grenades started exploding in the snow ten yards from his position.

The heavy concussions knocked him sideways, and he hit the ground as machine gun fire tore through the air where he had stood. He was out in the open with absolutely no cover left to shield him.

The distinct blood trail behind him in the snow looked like a road, and the Germans on top of the hill were not going to miss again. Dunham crawled forward, his eyes locked on the final objective.

The third machine gun position was dug into a cluster of timber forty yards ahead and thirty feet higher in elevation. The Germans had reinforced it with sandbags and positioned it to cover the entire southern approach.

Every few seconds, the MG42 would fire a burst, walking rounds across the snow as the gunner searched for him. He moved during the brief gaps between bursts, advancing five yards before waiting for the gun to traverse.

The snow was so cold it burned his bare hands, and the wound in his back had gone from sharp pain to a deep ache. He had lost enough blood that his vision was starting to tunnel dangerously at the edges.

He still had nine magazines and eight grenades left as a rifle grenade exploded six yards to his left. The blast threw snow and frozen dirt across his back, and the shrapnel impact felt like being kicked by a horse.

He did not know if he had been hit again because everything hurt too much to distinguish a new injury. He kept crawling forward, closing the distance to thirty yards, then twenty-five yards.

The machine gun fire was getting more accurate as the Germans could see him clearly against the white background. The blood had soaked through the entire mattress cover, leaving an arrow pointing directly to him.

At fifteen yards, Dunham stopped crawling and gathered his remaining strength under him to time his final move perfectly. The MG42 fired in bursts of eight to twelve rounds, then paused for two to three seconds while the gunner readjusted.

Dunham counted the bursts carefully: one, two, three, and then he lunged to his feet and staggered forward. The Germans saw him immediately, and the machine gunner swung the heavy barrel toward him.

Dunham was already moving, already pulling the final grenades from his belt with pins pulled. At ten yards, he threw both Mark 2 grenades with everything he had left.

The first grenade hit the heavy sandbags and bounced into the emplacement, while the second went through the narrow firing slit. Dunham dove flat into the snow just as both explosives detonated.

The blast was massive, sending sandbags flying apart and shattering the timber logs into splinters. The machine gun barrel was blown completely sideways off its mount, rendered totally useless.

Dunham pushed himself up through the smoke, moving forward with his carbine raised to scan for movement. All three crew members were down, and when one reached for a rifle, Dunham shot him once.

He suddenly heard boots crunching in the snow behind him and spun around on instinct. A German rifleman had come up from one of the support foxholes just twenty feet away.

The German raised his Karabiner 98k rifle and fired at point-blank range, the bullet missing Dunham’s head by inches. Dunham fired back instantly, his first round hitting the German in the throat and the second hitting center mass.

The enemy soldier fell backward into the snow and lay still, leaving Dunham standing alone on the hard-won hilltop. His carbine was empty again, having fired one hundred and seventy-five rounds.

He had thrown eleven grenades, destroyed three machine gun positions, killed nine enemies, wounded seven, and captured two. More importantly, his platoon was no longer pinned down in the freezing valley below.

He could see Company I advancing up the slope, his brother Ralph among them moving with the second squad. The remaining Germans were falling back to secondary positions further up the ridge, and the attack was succeeding.

Hill 616 would be in American hands by nightfall, but Dunham looked down at his uniform and saw only red. The white mattress cover was completely saturated with blood from his neck down to his knees.

The pain was so intense he could not think straight, and his hands shook uncontrollably from shock and severe blood loss. But he had done it; he had saved one hundred and twenty soldiers from certain slaughter.

Dunham sat down heavily in the snow and waited for the medical team to finally reach his position. He did not think he was going to die today, not after surviving everything the hill had thrown at him.

The medics reached Dunham eight minutes later, immediately cutting away the blood-soaked mattress cover to assess the wound. They found a gash ten inches long and two inches deep across his back, exposing muscle and bone.

They packed the horrific wound with sulfa powder, wrapped it tight with compression bandages, and administered morphine. Dunham refused to be carried, walking back down the hill with Company I while carrying his empty carbine.

By the time they reached the battalion aid station at 18:00, he had lost so much blood that he collapsed at the entrance. The battalion surgeon examined him and ordered him to the rear for immediate surgery.

The wound required extensive stitches and debridement, followed by at least two weeks of recovery before any return to combat. Dunham spent four days at the division clearing station, where surgeons closed the wound with forty-three stitches.

They told him the bullet had missed his spinal cord by less than two inches, a miracle that kept him from being paralyzed. If the gash had been just one inch deeper, it would have severed his spine completely.

Fortunately, the wound was clean with no major nerve damage or infection, meaning he would eventually heal. On January 13, five days after the assault, Dunham was released and sent to a rest area twenty miles behind the lines.

The Third Infantry Division had been fighting continuously since landing in southern France in August 1944. They had pushed through the mountains, fought through Strasbourg, and were now engaged in Operation Nordwind.

The casualties across the division had been catastrophic, with over eight hundred men killed and three thousand wounded in December alone. Every rifle company was operating at roughly sixty percent strength.

The replacement pipeline could not keep up with the losses, meaning men were being pushed back into combat before healing. Dunham’s wound was still seeping through the bandages, and his stitches pulled with every movement.

The doctors had explicitly told him he needed three more weeks of rest, but Dunham had other plans. On January 18, just ten days after Hill 616, he walked into the Company I command post and reported for duty.

His wound was not healed and the stitches were still in, but the second platoon was down to eighteen men. They desperately needed every rifle they could get, and the commander assigned him back to his squad with no questions asked.

They were moving north to Holtzwihr, a small town fifteen miles from the German border where heavy armor was reported. Panzer units from the Nineteenth Army were conducting fierce spoiling attacks to delay the American advance.

Dunham rejoined his platoon on January 20, finding his brother Ralph still with the second squad and carrying his automatic rifle. They did not talk about Hill 616; there was simply nothing to say about it.

General Patch himself had visited the battalion on January 16 to shake Dunham’s hand and thank him for saving the company. But that was history now, and Holtzwihr presented a completely different fight with higher stakes.

The division was exhausted, under strength, and facing heavy German armor with severely limited anti-tank support. Every position they held was temporary, and on the morning of January 22, the platoon would find itself surrounded.

At 06:00 on January 22, 1945, German tanks suddenly appeared on three sides of Company I’s position in Holtzwihr. Dunham counted seven Panther tanks and three Tiger Is moving through the dense morning fog.

Their powerful engines growled like rolling thunder across the frozen fields, signaling impending disaster for the defenders. The Americans had no armor support in this sector and no artillery within range to help them.

The German attack came from the Nineteenth Army’s armored reserve, units committed to cutting off the American salient. The Panthers advanced in a staggered line across the farmland, while the Tigers moved up from the south.

Company I’s position was completely indefensible, consisting of a cluster of farm buildings with no real cover. There was no way to stop seventy-ton tanks with frontal armor eight inches thick using small arms.

The bazooka teams fired their remaining rockets at maximum range, but the projectiles bounced harmlessly off the armor plates. The Germans did not even slow down, prompting the company commander to give the order to surrender at 06:30.

White flags went up from three buildings, and one hundred and forty-seven men from Company I walked out with their hands up. The Germans quickly disarmed them and formed them into columns for transport to the rear.

Dunham refused to surrender, slipping out the back of a farmhouse while the Germans were occupied with the prisoners. He ran west through a line of bare trees toward a cluster of outbuildings two hundred yards away.

His back wound had reopened during the night, and he could feel warm blood seeping through his bandages once again. But he was determined not to spend the rest of the war in a miserable prisoner camp.

He reached the outbuildings without being spotted, finding a small barn, a tool shed, and a stone storage building. He checked the storage building and found six large wooden barrels standing against the far wall.

The first barrel contained frozen potatoes, the second was completely empty, and the third was filled with sauerkraut. The fermented cabbage filled the barrel to within six inches of the top, and the pungent smell hit him instantly.

It was an overwhelming, acidic odor that made his eyes water, but he heard German voices approaching the building outside. He quickly climbed into the barrel, forcing his way down into the cold, slimy cabbage.

He sank up to his neck, pulled the wooden lid over his head, and settled into the fermented mass just in time. The smell was suffocating, and the acidic brine immediately soaked through his uniform and into his open wound.

The sting was excruciating, feeling as though acid was being poured directly onto raw tissue, but he bit his tongue. He heard German soldiers enter the building, kicking barrels and lifting lids as they searched for stragglers.

Dunham held his breath and pressed himself deeper into the cabbage, praying they would not lift his specific lid. The Germans checked the other barrels, missed his hiding spot, and finally left the building.

Dunham stayed in the barrel for thirteen hours as the temperature dropped to a freezing eight degrees Fahrenheit after sunset. The brine froze into slush around his body, and he lost all feeling in his hands and feet.

Every hour he shifted his weight slightly to keep blood flowing, an action that sent fresh waves of agony into his back. At 07:00 the next morning, he saw thin strips of light through the gaps in the lid.

He listened intently for any signs of life, but heard no voices, boots, or engine noises nearby. The Germans had moved on, allowing him to slowly push the lid off and climb out of the barrel.

His uniform was soaked through with brine and frozen stiff, and his fingers were white from severe frostbite. The bandages on his back had dissolved completely, leaving the painful wound exposed to the freezing air.

He moved cautiously to the door and looked out to find the farmyard completely abandoned by both sides. He needed to move west toward American lines, but first he stepped around the barn to relieve himself.

That was when two German soldiers suddenly appeared around the opposite corner of the barn at a walking pace. They saw Dunham immediately, raised their rifles, and started shouting orders at him in German.

Dunham raised his hands, completely unarmed since his carbine was still inside the sauerkraut barrel. The Germans approached carefully, and one began patrolling his pockets while the other kept his weapon trained.

The searching soldier found a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes in Dunham’s left pocket and held them up in triumph. The other German immediately lowered his rifle, and the two began arguing over how to split the prize.

They argued for thirty seconds, focused entirely on the cigarettes and neglecting to finish searching the prisoner. Neither one noticed the Colt M1911 pistol tucked securely in a shoulder holster under his right arm.

The Germans finally split the pack and gestured for Dunham to start walking toward a waiting vehicle on the road. They pushed him into the back seat of a Kübelwagen, and the driver headed east toward German lines.

They drove for forty minutes through the frozen landscape before stopping in front of a stone chateau command post. The driver climbed out to report inside, leaving the vehicle’s engine running and the two guards behind.

The guard on his left lit a cigarette and stared out the window, while the guard on his right closed his eyes. Seizing the moment, Dunham pulled his pistol, turned, and shot the guard on his right in the head.

The guard on his left started to turn in surprise, but Dunham shot him twice in the chest before he could react. He kicked open the door, jumped out of the vehicle, and sprinted for the tree line three hundred yards away.

He heard shouting and gunfire from the chateau, but he kept running through the frozen underbrush without looking back. The Germans did not pursue him, leaving him alone in enemy territory with only four rounds left.

The wound on his back had reopened during the sprint, and his frostbitten feet were in absolute agony with every step. He was thirty miles behind enemy lines in nine-degree weather, but he kept moving resolutely westward.

He walked through the afternoon, staying in tree lines and ditches while avoiding all roads and villages. At nightfall, he found a destroyed barn, pulled dried hay over himself for insulation, and tried to survive the freezing night.

On the second day, he kept walking west, hiding from German vehicles twice until they passed his position. His feet had gone from numb to a burning agony, and when he checked them, his toes had turned a dangerous black.

On the third day, January 25, he finally heard the welcome sound of American artillery firing in the distance. He followed the steady rumble, and by mid-afternoon, he saw smoke from American positions rising above the trees.

At 16:00, Dunham emerged from the trees and saw the Ill River, where American engineers were working on a bridge. The engineers spotted him wearing a captured German jacket and immediately raised their rifles in defense.

Dunham raised his hands and shouted his name, rank, and unit until one of them recognized him and waved him forward. He crossed the bridge and collapsed from exhaustion, his body battered by infection, frostbite, and starvation.

Medics rushed him to the clearing station, where surgeons worked for six hours to save his feet from amputation. While recovering days later, he was informed that his commander’s recommendation had been upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

On April 23, 1945, Technical Sergeant Russell Dunham stood at attention in Zeppelin Stadium in Nuremberg, Germany. The site of former Nazi rallies was now filled with American forces gathered to honor his incredible bravery.

Lieutenant General Alexander Patch placed the Medal of Honor around Dunham’s neck, praising his unmatched courage on Hill 616. Patch noted that in thirty years of service, he had never seen a single soldier turn the tide of battle so completely.

Dunham stood silent, his brother Ralph and forty survivors from Company I watching proudly from the audience. The war in Europe would end just two weeks later, closing a chapter that had cost the division over eleven thousand men.

Dunham returned home to Illinois at age twenty-five, having survived four amphibious landings, seven campaigns, and two escapes. He married, worked for the Veterans Administration for thirty-two years, and always maintained he was just doing his job.

Russell Dunham passed away in his sleep on April 6, 2009, at the age of eighty-nine in Godfrey, Illinois. Though the battlefields have quieted, the record of his incredible valor remains a timeless testament to true heroism.