Treadwell had seen what German machine guns could do to men crossing open ground.
At 09:15 on March 18th, 1945, First Lieutenant Jack Treadwell pressed his face into frozen German soil near Nether Warsbach, watching eight of his men get cut down on a barren hillside 200 yd ahead. 25 years old, four years in the army, battlefield commission at Anzio. The Sig Freed line stretched 630 km across western Germany, 18,000 concrete bunkers, two-ft thick walls, interlocking fields of fire designed to turn any infantry assault into mass suicide.
Treadwell had seen what German machine guns could do to men crossing open ground. He had watched it happen in Sicily in Serno at Anzio where the 45th Division spent 4 months bleeding in the mud while German artillery turned their positions into graveyards. The Thunderbirds had been fighting for 511 days straight. They knew how to take casualties, but this was different.
Fox Company had been pinned at the base of this hill since before dawn. German artillery fell in irregular barges, keeping the men pressed into whatever cover they could find. Machine gun fire swept the slope in overlapping patterns. Snipers picked off anyone who raised his head more than six inches. The pill boxes had been positioned to create a kill zone with no dead spots.
Every approach was covered. The hill itself was the problem. No trees, no rocks, no shell craters deep enough to hide a man. just 300 yards of frozen grass, climbing toward concrete fortifications that had been built to stop exactly this kind of attack. The Germans had cleared the vegetation years ago.
They had measured the distances. They had pre-registered their weapons on every fold in the terrain. Eight men from Fox Company had tried to break the deadlock an hour earlier. They had crawled forward in two fire teams, attempting to get close enough to use grenades. The German gunners let them get halfway up the slope.
Then every pillbox opened fire simultaneously. Treadwell watched all eight go down in less than 15 seconds. Some were killed instantly. Others lay wounded on the frozen ground, unable to move, slowly bleeding out while their company watched from below. The tactical situation was simple mathematics. Six pill boxes controlled the hilltop.
Each pillbox held a machine gun crew plus riflemen. The bunkers were connected by trenches, allowing the Germans to reinforce any position under attack. The interlocking fire meant that assaulting one pillbox exposed attackers to flanking fire from at least two others. Standard infantry doctrine called for artillery preparation before any assault on fortified positions.
But the concrete walls were 2 ft thick. Division artillery had already tried. Mying The shells cratered the hillside but left the pill boxes untouched. Air support was unavailable. The Sigf freed line defenses had been built to survive exactly this kind of bombardment. Fox Company had been ordered to take this hill.
The battalion needed it to continue the advance, but every tactical option led to the same conclusion. More men would die on that slope. The Germans knew it. They were waiting. Treadwell had enlisted from Snyder, Oklahoma in January 1941. He had been a private then. Four years of combat had taught him that some problems had no good solutions, only bad solutions and worse solutions.
Waiting meant more artillery, more casualties. The wounded men on the hillside would die from exposure if they were not rescued, but any rescue attempt would add to the body count. The lieutenant studied the pillbox positions through his binoculars. Six fortified bunkers arranged in a rough semicircle near the crest, trenches connecting them.
At least one of those bunkers held the commander coordinating the defense. If that commander went down, the coordinated fire might break apart. Individual bunkers might hesitate. Gaps might open. It was a theory. Treadwell had no way to test it without climbing that hill himself. If you want to see what Treadwell decided to do next, please hit that like button.
It really helps us share these forgotten stories. Subscribe if you haven’t already. Back to Treadwell. The lieutenant set down his binoculars. He picked up his Thompson submachine gun and checked the magazine. 30 rounds. He stuffed four grenades into his jacket pockets. Then he told his company to cover him and started walking toward the first pill box alone.
The Germans saw him immediately. Every gun on the hillside turned toward the single American officer climbing through the kill zone. And Jack Treadwell did not stop. The first 30 yards were the worst. Treadwell moved at a steady walk, not running, not crawling. Running would make him a harder target, but would exhaust him before he reached the first pill box. Crawling would take too long.
The wounded men on the slope did not have that kind of time. German machine gun fire tore into the ground around him. The MG42 fired 1,200 rounds per minute. The sound was not individual shots, but a continuous ripping noise that American soldiers called Hitler’sbuzzsaw. Treadwell could hear multiple guns engaging him simultaneously.
Bullets snapped past his head. Dirt erupted in geysers where rounds struck the frozen soil inches from his boots. He kept walking. The Thompson submachine gun in his hands weighed 10 12 lb loaded. Effective range was 50 yards. Against the concrete pillbox, it was nearly useless until he got close enough to fire through the aperture.
The grenades in his pockets were his real weapons. But grenades required him to get within throwing distance. 20 yards, maybe 25 if he had a clear angle. The slope steepened as he climbed. His boots slipped on frozen grass. Artillery craters from the morning bombardment offered momentary cover, but stopping meant giving the German gunners time to adjust their aim.
Treadwell used the craters as way points, moving from one to the next in short bursts, never staying in one place long enough for the enemy to zero in. Sniper rounds cracked past him. The German marksmen on the hilltop had bolt-action carabiner 98K rifles accurate to 800 yardds in trained hands.
Treadwell was well within their effective range, but hitting a moving target on a slope. Shooting downhill with wind and adrenaline affecting their aim was harder than hitting a stationary one. The snipers kept missing. Not by much, but missing. 100 yd to the first pillbox. Treadwell angled his approach to use the terrain.
A slight fold in the hillside gave him partial defilade from two of the bunkers on his left. It exposed him to heavier fire from the right, but it meant fewer guns could engage him simultaneously. He was trading one danger for a slightly smaller danger. That was the only math available on this hillside. The Germans had not expected a single man to charge their positions.
Their defensive doctrine assumed mass infantry assaults, concentrated fire on groups of attackers. The machine gunners were trained to sweep across formations, not track individual targets. Treadwell was exploiting a gap in their training. One man moved differently than a squad. One man was harder to hit than 10 men bunched together. 70 yards.
His lungs burned from the climb. The cold air cut into his throat with each breath. Sweat soaked through his uniform despite the freezing temperature. The Thompson grew heavier with each step, but stopping meant dying. The Germans would not miss forever. 50 yards. Treadwell could see the first pillbox clearly now.
A low concrete structure with a horizontal firing slit facing downhill. Muzzle flashes strobed from the aperture as the machine gun crew inside fired burst after burst in his direction. The concrete was gray and weathered, scarred by artillery impacts that had done nothing to penetrate the two-foot walls. A trench ran from the back of the pillbox toward the next fortification 30 yard to the right. 30 yard.
He pulled a grenade from his pocket. The M2 fragmentation grenade had a 4-second fuse. Throw it too early and the Germans might throw it back. Throw it too late and it would explode in his hand. The aperture was narrow, maybe 18 in wide, 6 in tall. Threading a grenade through that slot while under fire would require precision he was not certain he possessed. 20 yards.
The machine gun inside the pillbox fell silent. The crew was reloading. Treadwell had seconds before the gun came back online. He sprinted the final distance, reached the concrete wall, and pressed himself flat against it. Bullets from the other pill boxes cracked overhead, but the bunker’s own walls now shielded him from its neighbors.
He was at the first pill box, alone with 30 rounds and four grenades and four Germans inside who knew exactly where he was standing. The aperture was 18 in to his left. Treadwell could hear the Germans inside shouting to each other. The machine gun crew was rushing to reload. He had perhaps 3 seconds before the MG-42 came back online and the gunner realized his target was now standing directly beside the firing slit.
Treadwell did not use a grenade. Grenades were unpredictable. They could bounce off the aperture frame. They could roll back out. They could detonate before reaching the crew inside. He had a better option. He shoved the barrel of his Thompson submachine gun through the narrow opening and pulled the trigger. The Thompson fired 800 rounds per minute on full automatic in the confined concrete space of the pillbox.
The effect was devastating. Treadwell emptied half his magazine in a single burst, sweeping the barrel back and forth to cover the interior. The noise inside that concrete box must have been unbearable. The ricochets alone would have been lethal. Four German soldiers stumbled out of the rear entrance with their hands raised.
They were disoriented, deafened, terrified. One was bleeding from a wound to his shoulder. The others appeared uninjured, but showed no interest in continuing the fight. Treadwell gestured toward the American lines below. The prisoners started walking downhill,hands still up. He did not have time to escort them.
Five pill boxes remained operational. The machine guns in those bunkers were already adjusting fire toward his position. Bullets cracked against the concrete walls of the captured fortification. The Germans in the neighboring bunkers understood what had happened. They were trying to kill him before he could repeat the process. Treadwell moved immediately.
He did not enter the captured pillbox to take cover. Staying still meant giving the enemy time to coordinate. Instead, he sprinted along the trench connecting the first bunker to the second. The trench was 4 ft deep and 3 ft wide. It provided cover from direct fire, but not from the pill boxes on his flanks. German riflemen in those positions could see into the trench from their elevated firing slits.
Rounds snapped past Treadwell’s head as he ran. Dirt exploded from the trench walls where bullets struck. 30 yards to the second pillbox. This bunker was larger than the first. The firing aperture was wider, suggesting heavier armorament, possibly a crew served weapon bigger than a standard machine gun. Treadwell approached from the blind side, using the trench to stay below the bunker’s field of fire. 20 yards.
He pulled a grenade from his pocket. The second pillbox had a different layout than the first. The rear entrance was not visible from his approach angle. He would need to clear the aperture first, then deal with anyone who tried to escape through the back. 10 yards. Treadwell armed the grenade and threw it in a single motion.
The M2 sailed through the firing slit and disappeared into the darkness inside. He pressed himself flat against the trench wall and counted 1 2 3. The explosion shook dirt loose from the trench walls. Smoke poured from the pillbox aperture. Treadwell was up and moving before the dust settled. Thompson raised, covering the rear entrance.
A German officer emerged from the smoke with his hands up. His uniform was different from the enlisted soldiers in the first bunker. Higher quality, more decorations. This was not a machine gun crewman. This was the commander responsible for coordinating the hilltop defense. Treadwell had just captured the man running the entire defensive position. The effect was immediate.
Without their commander issuing orders, the Germans in the remaining pillboxes began acting independently. The coordinated fire that had pinned Fox Company for hours started breaking apart. Gaps appeared in the overlapping fields of fire. Some bunkers continued engaging Treadwell. Others shifted aim toward the American lines below, anticipating a larger assault.
The defensive cohesion was fracturing. Treadwell sent the captured commander downhill with the other prisoners. Then he turned toward pillbox number three. The Germans inside had watched him take two fortified positions in less than 5 minutes. They knew he was coming, but knowing did not mean they could stop him.
Four bunkers remained, and Jack Treadwell had just proven that concrete walls meant nothing if one man was willing to walk through the kill zone to reach them. The third pillbox sat 30 yard across the crest of the hill, open ground, no trench connecting it to the positions Treadwell had already taken. Reaching it meant crossing the exposed ridge line in full view of every remaining German gun imp placement. Treadwell ran.
The Germans in pillboxes four, five, and six opened fire simultaneously. Machine gun rounds tore through the air around him. Sniper bullets cracked past his ears. The frozen ground erupted in fountains of dirt and ice where rounds struck inches from his boots. He was silhouetted against the gray March sky. the perfect target, moving across terrain that offered no cover whatsoever. He did not slow down.
The third pillbox grew larger with each stride. 20 yards, 15. The machine gun inside was firing directly at him now, the muzzle flash visible through the aperture. Rounds snapped past so close he could feel the air displacement against his face. One bullet tugged at his jacket sleeve without breaking skin. Another grazed the stock of his Thompson, gouging a furrow in the wood.
10 yards. Treadwell dove the final distance, sliding across frozen grass until his shoulder slammed against the concrete wall. Safe, at least from this bunker’s weapons. The other pill boxes continued firing, their rounds sparking off the fortification that now sheltered him. He had two grenades left. The procedure was becoming routine.
Arm the grenade. Count the fuse. Thread it through the aperture. Press flat against the wall. Wait for the explosion. Move before the dust settled. The grenade detonated inside the third pillbox. Treadwell was already rounding the corner toward the rear entrance. Thompson raised. Three German soldiers emerged through the smoke, coughing, hands up.
None appeared seriously wounded. The grenade had done its work through concussion and terror rather than fragmentation.These men had no fight left in them. Three bunkers down, three remaining. 11 prisoners sent stumbling toward the American lines. Below the hill, something was changing. Fox Company had been watching their lieutenants assault from the base of the slope.
They had seen him walk into a kill zone that had slaughtered eight men an hour earlier. They had watched him take three fortified positions alone while every German gun on the hilltop tried to cut him down. Now the company was stirring. Sergeants were shouting orders. Riflemen were checking their weapons. The men who had been pressed into the frozen dirt for hours were rising to their knees, then to their feet.
Treadwell’s assault had broken something more important than the German defensive coordination. It had broken the paralysis that comes from watching friends die on impossible ground. Fox Company was preparing to attack. Treadwell could not see this from his position near the third pillbox. He did not know that his solo assault had inspired his men to follow.
He only knew that three bunkers remained operational, and every second he delayed gave the Germans time to reorganize. The fourth pillbox was 25 yd to his right. A communications trench connected it to the fifth position further along the ridge line. Taking number four would give him access to that trench. He could use it to approach number five without crossing open ground again. He moved.
The Germans in the fourth bunker had watched three of their neighboring positions fall in less than 10 minutes. They had seen their commander marched down the hill with his hands raised. They had heard the grenades detonating, the Thompson firing, the screams of wounded men in concrete boxes. Fear was spreading through the defensive line faster than Treadwell could physically move.
When he reached the fourth pill box and shoved his Thompson through the aperture, the soldiers inside did not wait for him to fire. They were already scrambling for the rear exit, throwing down their weapons, shouting surrender in broken English. Four more prisoners taken without firing a shot. 15 Germans captured, four pill boxes neutralized, two bunkers remaining, and below the hill, Fox Company was charging up the slope that had been a death trap 30 minutes earlier.
The same ground where eight Americans had died was now filled with soldiers following the path their lieutenant had carved through the German defenses. Treadwell turned toward pillbox number five. The Germans inside had stopped firing. They were watching the American company pouring up the hillside. They were counting their ammunition.
They were making calculations about survival. The Germans in the fifth pillbox faced an impossible tactical situation. Their commander was gone. Four of their six bunkers had fallen. A single American officer was moving toward their position while an entire infantry company charged up the slope behind him. The defensive line that had held for hours was collapsing in minutes.
They had two choices. Fight until the ammunition ran out and die in a concrete box or surrender and survive. Treadwell approached the fifth pillbox through the communications trench. He moved quickly but carefully. Thompson raised, watching for any sign of resistance. The trench walls were scarred with bullet impacts from the morning’s fighting.
Shell fragments littered the frozen mud at the bottom. Someone had bled here recently. Dark stains marked the wooden duck boards beneath his boots. The fifth bunker’s rear entrance came into view. The steel door hung partially open. No movement inside. No muzzle flash from the aperture. The machine gun that had been firing continuously for the past hour had fallen silent.
Treadwell slowed his approach. Silent bunkers were dangerous. The Germans inside might be preparing an ambush. They might be waiting for him to step through that door before opening fire at point blank range. Or they might have already fled through a secondary exit he could not see. He had one grenade left. The lieutenant pulled the M2 from his pocket and held it without arming it.
He edged along the trench wall until he could see through the partially open door. Darkness inside the smell of cordite and concrete dust. something else beneath it. Blood movement. A German helmet appeared in the doorway, then hands raised, empty. A soldier stepped out of the bunker, followed by two more. Their faces were gray with concrete dust in fear.
They moved slowly, deliberately, making no sudden motions that might provoke the American pointing a submachine gun at their chests. Five pill boxes down, 18 prisoners, one bunker remaining. The sixth and final pillbox sat at the far end of the ridgegeline, isolated from the others by 40 yards of open ground. The Germans inside were still firing, but not at Treadwell.
Their machine gun was aimed downhill toward Fox Company, surging up the slope. The crew had apparently decided that stopping the larger assaultmattered more than killing one man. It was the wrong decision. Treadwell crossed the open ground at a dead sprint. The machine gunners in the sixth bunker never saw him coming. They were focused on the waves of American infantry climbing toward them, trying to break the assault before it reached their position.
They did not notice the lone figure approaching from their flank until he was already at the wall. The last grenade went through the aperture. The explosion silenced the final gun on the hilltop. Three more Germans stumbled out through the smoke, joining the procession of prisoners heading down toward the American lines. 21 captured.
Some sources would later record the number as 18, counting only those Treadwell personally escorted to the rear. The actual total was higher. Fox Company reached the crest of the hill moments later. They found their lieutenant standing among the captured pill boxes. Thompson empty, grenades gone, uniform torn and filthy, completely uninjured.
The man who had walked through a kill zone that claimed eight lives had not received a single wound. The soldiers of Fox Company did not stop to celebrate. The German trenches still needed clearing. Pockets of resistance remained in secondary positions behind the main bunker line. The battle for the hilltop was won, but the fighting was not over.
Treadwell led them forward. The breakthrough at Nether Vortsbach tore a hole in the Sigfried line defenses. The battalion objective that had seemed impossible at dawn was secured before noon. The advance that had stalled for hours resumed within minutes of the hilltop falling. One man’s assault had unblocked an entire sector of the front.
But the full scope of what Treadwell had accomplished would not become clear until reports reached division headquarters. Until officers who had not witnessed the assault tried to understand how a single lieutenant with a submachine gun had done what artillery and air support could not. The answer would change how the army recognized extraordinary valor.
The reports that reached 180th Infantry Regiment headquarters that afternoon described something the officers had difficulty believing. A single lieutenant had neutralized six fortified positions on the Sig Freed line. He had captured the German commander responsible for an entire defensive sector.
He had taken at least 18 prisoners without support from artillery, armor, or air power. and he had done it by walking directly into interlocking machine gun fire that had already killed eight men. The regimental commander ordered verification. In four years of war across North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France, the 45th Division had seen extraordinary acts of courage.
Nine men from the Thunderbirds would eventually receive the Medal of Honor for actions in this war. But solo assaults on fortified bunker complexes were not common. They were not supposed to be survivable. The verification came back confirmed. Multiple witnesses from Fox Company had watched the entire assault.
The captured German commander, now in American custody, confirmed the sequence of events. The prisoners from each pillbox corroborated the details. First Lieutenant Jack Treadwell had done exactly what the initial reports claimed. The breakthrough at Nether Vertzbach was not an isolated tactical victory. It was part of operation undertone, the massive allied offensive designed to clear the zar palatinate region and break through to the rine.
The sigf freed line had been the last major defensive barrier protecting western Germany. Every breach in that line accelerated the collapse of German resistance. The 45th division had been fighting toward this moment for nearly 2 years. They had landed in Sicily in July 1943.
They had crawled up the Italian peninsula through some of the bloodiest fighting of the war. Salerno, Anzio, the four-month nightmare in the mud where German artillery turned their beach head into a killing ground. Then southern France, the Voge Mountains, the frozen winter battles along the German border. 511 days of continuous combat had ground the division down to its core.
The men who remained were survivors. They had learned that attacking fortified positions meant accepting casualties. They had learned that some objectives cost more lives than others. The Sigf freed line was supposed to cost many lives. Treadwell’s assault changed that calculation. His solo attack had broken the defensive coordination on that hilltop.
His capture of the German commander had caused confusion throughout the sector. His example had inspired Fox Company to charge ground they had considered suicidal an hour earlier. The battalion objective fell with minimal additional casualties after his breakthrough. Word spread through the regiment that evening, then through the division.
The story of the lieutenant who walked through a kill zone grew with each retelling. Some details became exaggerated. Others were lost, but the core truth remained. Oneman had proven that the Sigf freed line could be broken by individual courage when mass firepower failed. Three days after the assault at Nether Versbach, the 45th division captured Hamburgg.
5 days after that, they crossed the rine between Verms and Ham. The defensive line that had been built to stop the Allied advance was crumbling faster than anyone had predicted. Treadwell continued leading Fox Company through the pursuit. The fighting did not stop after the Sig Freed line fell. German resistance remained fierce in some sectors, collapsing in others.
The advance became a series of running engagements, clearing towns and villages, accepting surrenders, occasionally meeting stubborn defenders who had not received word that the war was ending. 12 days after his assault on the pill boxes, Treadwell was wounded near Rossbach. The injury was serious enough to require evacuation.
He was still recovering in a military hospital when the recommendations for his decorations began moving through official channels. Bronze Star, Silver Star, Distinguished Service Cross. Each award recognized a different action from his four years of combat. But the assault at Nidita Versbach required something more.
The officers who reviewed the witness statements and afteraction reports recognized that Treadwell’s solo attack met the criteria for the highest decoration the United States military could bestow. The paperwork for the Medal of Honor began its journey toward Washington. The Medal of Honor recommendation reached Washington in the spring of 1945.
The war in Europe ended on May 8th. Germany surrendered unconditionally. The Sigfried line that it cost so many lives became a historical footnote. Its concrete bunkers abandoned, its defenders dead or imprisoned. Treadwell was still recovering from his wounds when the notification arrived. The medal will be presented at the White House.
President Harry Truman will conduct the ceremony personally. The date was set for August 23rd, 1945. The citation that accompanied the medal described the assault in official language. It noted that murderous enemy automatic and rifle fire with intermittent artillery bombardments had pinned down his company for hours.
It recorded that eight men sent to attack a single point had all become casualties. It documented that Captain Treadwell, armed with a submachine gun and hand grenades, went forward alone to clear the way for his stalled company. The citation used words like fearlessly and whirlwind assault. It described how he had captured the commander of the hill defenses.
How the Germans had quickly fallen prey to his further rushes on the remaining pillboxes. How, inspired by the electrifying performance of their leader, the men of Fox Company had stormed after him and overwhelmed resistance on the entire hill. The final sentence summarized what Treadwell had accomplished.
By his courageous willingness to face nearly impossible odds and by his overwhelming one-man offensive, Captain Treadwell reduced a heavily fortified, seemingly impregnable enemy sector. The Medal of Honor was not his only decoration from the war. The assault at Neita Versbach was the culmination of four years of combat that had already earned him recognition multiple times.
He had received the Distinguished Service Cross for actions at Anzio in May 1944 when he had led his weapons platoon against the superior enemy force that threatened to overrun his company’s position. He had received the Silver Star for leadership under fire near women in France in January 1945. The Bronze Star with Vice for Valor recognized his actions near Rossbach, Germany, where he was wounded 12 days after the Pillbox assault.
The Legion of Merit acknowledged his sustained performance throughout the Italian and European campaigns. The Purple Heart with three oakleaf clusters documented four separate combat wounds. The army had tried to kill Jack Treadwell many times. It had never succeeded. While recovering in the military hospital, Treadwell met an army nurse named Maxine Johnson from Morsville, Indiana.
She had been caring for wounded soldiers throughout the final months of the European War. The decorated combat officer and the nurse began a relationship that would last the rest of his life. The White House ceremony on August 23rd was brief and formal. President Truman placed the Medal of Honor around Treadwell’s neck and shook his hand.
Photographs captured the moment. a young captain from Snyder, Oklahoma, standing in the most famous building in America, wearing the nation’s highest award for valor. The war with Japan ended days earlier. The atomic bombs had fallen on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The invasion that would have sent Treadwell and the 45th Division to the Pacific never happened.
The killing was finally over. But Treadwell’s military career was not. Unlike many soldiers who returned to civilian life after the war, Treadwell chose to remain in uniform. The army that had nearlykilled him had also given him purpose. He had spent four years learning how to lead men in combat. Those skills did not disappear because the fighting stopped.
He returned to active duty in 1946. Promotions followed. major in 1950, colonel in 1954, command and general staff college, Army War College. Assignments in the Marshall Islands, Germany, and stateside posts. The young lieutenant who had charged six pill boxes alone became a senior officer responsible for training the next generation of combat leaders.
Then came Vietnam. The army needed experienced commanders for a new kind of war in Southeast Asia. And Colonel Jack Treadwell, Medal of Honor recipient, holder of nearly every decoration the military could award, was exactly the kind of officer they wanted leading troops into combat. 23 years after the Sigfried line, Treadwell was going back to war.
Colonel Jack Treadwell arrived in Vietnam in October 1968. He was 49 years old. Most men his age were thinking about retirement. Treadwell was preparing to lead soldiers into combat for the second time in his life. His first assignment was chief of staff of the Americal Division. The position required coordinating operations across multiple brigades fighting a counterinsurgency war completely different from the conventional battles of World War II.
There were no concrete bunkers to assault, no clear front lines. The enemy wore civilian clothes and disappeared into villages after attacking. Treadwell adapted. The skills that had carried him up that hillside at Neita Verzbach translated into this new war. Leadership under pressure, decision-making when the tactical picture was unclear, willingness to share the risks with the men under his command.
In March 1969, he took command of the 11th Infantry Brigade. The assignment put him directly responsible for combat operations in one of the most contested areas of South Vietnam. He did not command from a headquarters bunker. He flew over 100 combat parachute jumps during his Vietnam service, inserting with his troops into hostile territory.
The Medal of Honor recipient from World War II was still leading from the front at 50 years old. His Vietnam service added three more campaign ribbons to a uniform already heavy with decorations. The Vietnamese cross of gallantry with gold star recognized his leadership. The French Quad Degare with Silver Guild Star from World War II was joined by new honors from a new war.
By the time Treadwell rotated back to the United States, his collection of awards had grown beyond what most display cases could hold. After Vietnam, he served at Fort Sam Houston in Texas and later as senior adviser to the Army Reserves in Colombia, South Carolina. The young private who had enlisted from Snyder, Oklahoma in 1941, had risen to full colonel.
33 years of service, two wars, four Purple Hearts documenting four separate wounds that should have killed him. At the time of his retirement in 1974, military historians believed Jack Treadwell was the most decorated serviceman in the United States Armed Forces. The Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, three awards of the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Soldiers Medal, the Bronze Star with V device, and two oakleaf clusters, the Air Medal with 12 oakleaf clusters, the Purple Heart with three oakleaf
clusters, two awards of the Combat Infantrymen badge, the Senior Parachutist badge. No other American soldier had accumulated so many different decorations for valor and service. Treadwell and his wife Maxine settled in Oklahoma after his retirement. They had three daughters, two of whom married army officers, continuing the military tradition.
The colonel, who had charged six pill boxes alone, planned to spend his remaining years raising horses in the state where he had grown up. He had three years. On December 12th, 1977, Colonel Jack Lamaster Treadwell died following complications from open heart bypass surgery. He was 58 years old. The heart that had driven him up that frozen hillside in Germany that had kept beating through four combat wounds and two wars finally gave out on an operating table in peace time.
He was buried with full military honors at Fort Sil Post Cemetery near Lton, Oklahoma. The headstone marks the resting place of a man who proved that one person’s courage can change the course of a battle. If this story moved you the way it moved us, do me a favor, hit that like button. Every single like tells YouTube to show this story to more people.
Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. We are rescuing forgotten stories from dusty archives every single day. Stories about lieutenants who charged fortified bunkers with submachine guns and grenades. Real people, real heroism. Drop a comment right now and tell us where you are watching from. Are you watching from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia? Our community stretches across the entire world. You are notjust a viewer.
You are part of keeping these memories alive. Tell us your location. Tell us if someone in your family served. Just let us know you are here. Thank you for watching and thank you for making sure Jack Treadwell does not disappear into silence. These men deserve to be remembered and you are helping make that
