The Most Terrifying Man of WW2 *Warning HARD TO STOMACH JJ

By the final months of World War Two,  many soldiers were simply trying to stay alive long enough to see peace. But one  American sergeant seemed to do the opposite. In just a few weeks, he carried out acts of  bravery that stunned even his own commanders. His name was Llewellyn Morris Chilson. He was born on April 1, 1920, in Dayton, Ohio.

Everyone who knew him called him Al.  His father had served in World War One, and after returning home, the family settled in  Akron, Ohio, where he worked as a city bus driver. Life was never easy, and it became even  harder when Al was just ten years old. His mother was struck and killed by a truck right  in front of their house.

After that, he grew up in one of the roughest parts of South Akron, where  fighting was often a part of everyday life. School did not last long for him. At sixteen, he  dropped out of South High School and went to work as a truck driver for Renner Trucking. From 1936  to 1942, he hauled freight across the country, usually driving around 250 miles a day and earning  about 40 dollars a week, which was good pay during that time.

That ordinary life came to an end on  March 28, 1942, when he received his draft notice and entered the U.S. Army. He reported to Fort  Benjamin Harrison in Indiana, standing five feet eight inches tall and weighing about 150 pounds.  At first glance, nothing about him suggested he would become one of the Army’s greatest  combat soldiers. But that was about to change. During training at Camp Livingston in  Louisiana, Al almost missed the war completely.

A heavy wheel fell on his leg, knocked him to the  ground, and left him with a serious concussion. Many soldiers would have accepted a medical  discharge after an accident like that. Al refused to quit. He stayed in the  Army, joined the 179th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division, better known  as the Thunderbirds, and prepared for combat.

The Thunderbirds landed in Sicily on July 10,  1943, as part of the Allied invasion of the island. Al, now a private first class, fought  as a machine gunner in an anti-tank platoon. Between July 11 and July 31, his  actions earned him the Bronze Star. The surviving records do not fully explain  exactly what he did during those weeks, but it was already clear that  he was an exceptional soldier.

After Sicily, the division invaded  mainland Italy in September 1943. A few months later, in February 1944, they  landed at the Anzio beachhead, one of the toughest battles of the Italian campaign. This  was where the fighting became even more dangerous. On February 15, 1944, near the town  of Carroceto, shell fragments struck Al in the face and nearly killed him. He  received the Purple Heart for his wounds.

The very next day, near the town of Aprilia,  things became even worse. Al and three other American soldiers were surrounded after running  out of ammunition and were captured by German troops. The Germans forced them to carry wounded  soldiers off the battlefield as litter bearers. This was where one of Al Chilson’s  defining traits became clear.

He never waited for someone else to save him. On  February 17, just one day after being captured, he and the three other Americans escaped. During  their escape, they captured four German soldiers. The information Al gathered while behind enemy  lines also helped plan an attack that led to the capture of another 40 German troops. For  these actions, he received the Silver Star.

But his story was never simple. Later that  year, on July 9, the Army court-martialed him for two cases of being absent without leave,  or AWOL, and stripped him of his Silver Star. Al was becoming known as two very different men.  In combat, he was fearless and almost unstoppable. Away from the battlefield, however,  he struggled with military discipline.

Those struggles would only become  more serious as the war continued. On August 15, 1944, the Allies launched Operation  Dragoon, the invasion of southern France. By then, Al had been promoted to technical  sergeant and landed with Company G, 2nd Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment. Less than a month  later, on September 13, he went AWOL again.

Today, many historians believe that  long periods of nonstop combat left many soldiers suffering from what we now call  combat stress or PTSD. At the time, however, the Army had little understanding of these  conditions and almost no treatment for them. Whatever he was dealing with, Al always  seemed to return to the battlefield.

On October 28, near a hill in Lorraine, France,  his company came under heavy German fire. Earlier attempts to capture the position had  failed, and 25 American soldiers had already been taken prisoner. Acting alone,  Al slipped around the German flank, attacked the enemy position, and helped free the  captured Americans.

Despite the incredible risk, the Army did not give him an award, most  likely because of his disciplinary record. Less than a month later, on November 24,  near Denshein in France’s Vosges Mountains, his platoon was stopped by heavy machine gun  and rifle fire from a fortified roadblock during a nighttime attack. Al first set  up a machine gun to provide covering fire.

Then he crawled alone to within about  20 yards of the German position. He threw two grenades into the roadblock before  charging forward with his Thompson submachine gun. He killed three German soldiers and forced  nine others to surrender. His actions were so impressive that the Army decided to restore the  Silver Star it had taken away earlier that year.

Only a few days later, on November 29 and 30,  near Gumbrechtshoffen, Al’s unit was forced to pull back after coming under heavy attack  before launching another assault toward Germany. When reinforcements finally reached the  area, they found Al fighting by himself, firing his Thompson at nearly 100 German soldiers  only a short distance away.

His platoon leader was so amazed by what he saw that he immediately  recommended Al for the Medal of Honor. It would not be the last recommendation he received,  but once again, he did not get the award. By the middle of December 1944, the 45th Infantry  Division had spent 365 straight days in combat. Two weeks later, Al was promoted to  platoon sergeant.

He was no longer just another soldier in the ranks. He was now  responsible for leading other men into battle. Soon, however, tragedy at  home would change him forever. On February 16, 1945, his younger brother, Alvin,  a staff sergeant serving in the Philippines, had been killed while fighting Japanese forces.

After losing his mother as a child and spending well over a year fighting across Europe, the  death of his brother hit him incredibly hard. He went AWOL once again, leaving his  unit while trying to deal with the loss. But this became the turning point of his  entire story. Al returned to his unit, and when he came back on March 26, 1945,  something seemed to change inside him.

From that day until the end of the war, he fought  with an intensity that few soldiers could match. It was as if the loss of his brother pushed  him to fight harder than ever before. In the early hours of March 26, 1945, the  Thunderbirds crossed the Rhine River near the German town of Gernsheim. The attack began at  about 2:30 in the morning.

During the crossing, both platoon commanders leading the assault  were wounded and knocked out of action. Without waiting for orders, Al  stepped forward and took command. Although he was not supposed to be leading  the attack, he quickly organized the men and pushed them forward along the  riverbank under heavy enemy fire.

Soon, German anti-aircraft guns opened  fire on the advancing Americans. These powerful flak guns were  designed to shoot down aircraft, but they were just as deadly against soldiers on  the ground. Al did not wait for reinforcements. He personally destroyed an enemy ammunition  vehicle and two heavy machine gun positions.

His actions also allowed his platoon to capture  two more machine guns and destroy three German flak vehicles. By the end of the battle,  his platoon had killed 11 German soldiers and captured an incredible 225 prisoners. That was  almost the strength of an entire enemy company, captured by one platoon under the leadership  of a sergeant who had taken command on his own.

For these actions, Al received his first  Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest award for bravery, just below the  Medal of Honor. But his day was far from over. Just before sunrise that same morning, the  Thunderbirds came under attack again outside Gernsheim.

German machine gunners had pinned them  down, but no one could see exactly where the fire was coming from in the darkness. Al came up with  an unusual plan. He set fire to a horse-drawn ammunition wagon and pushed it toward the area  where he believed the Germans were hiding. His guess was correct. As German soldiers rushed  out to escape the flames, they exposed their positions. Al immediately opened fire and cut them  down.

Later that same day, he attacked several more German positions with grenades, killing five  soldiers and forcing another 41 to surrender. In just one day, one platoon sergeant personally  led actions that killed enemy soldiers, destroyed weapons and vehicles, and helped capture hundreds  of German troops. And Al was still not finished. Five days after crossing the Rhine, on March 31,  1945, Al and his platoon ran into another fierce fight near the German town of Horsental.

German  flak vehicles opened fire from behind the town while German riflemen and machine gunners attacked  from the front. Most soldiers would have stayed under cover and waited for tanks to move up. Al  did the opposite. He ran about 300 yards through heavy enemy fire, climbed onto the top of a tank,  and rode it back to the front line. He stayed completely exposed on top of the tank the entire  time so he could direct its fire more accurately.

For this action, he received a bronze oak leaf  cluster, which counted as a second Silver Star. Later that same day, Al led a five-man  patrol into the town of Obernau, Germany. Even though the area was  under heavy small arms fire, he ignored the danger and pushed forward to gather  important information about the German defenses.

The intelligence he brought back  helped his unit continue its advance. For this mission, he received a Bronze Star with  a “V” device, which recognized bravery in combat. About two weeks after the Rhine  crossing, near Aschaffenburg, Germany, Companies E and F of the 179th Infantry Regiment  were stopped by heavy German resistance.

Company G, which was Al’s company, was ordered  to move around the German right flank and attack from behind. During the advance, they  were blocked by another enemy roadblock. Al ordered his men to provide covering fire  while he climbed onto the turret of a tank, fully exposed to enemy bullets and  shells.

For the next 40 minutes, he stood there directing the fire of three tanks.  Together, the tanks fired 30 high-explosive shells and about 3,000 rounds of machine gun ammunition  into the German position. Standing on top of a tank for that long while under enemy fire took  extraordinary courage, but Al never backed down. For everything he did between March 26 and  March 31, 1945, Al received the Legion of Merit.

The medal had been created by President  Roosevelt in 1942 and was rarely awarded to enlisted soldiers. It recognized how Al had taken  command after his superior officer was wounded and had repeatedly led successful attacks during  the fighting around the Rhine and Horsental. After clearing the Aschaffenburg area, the 45th  Infantry Division continued advancing through Germany toward Nuremberg and then into Bavaria.

On April 25, 1945, while fighting in the town of Meilenhofen, German troops opened fire on Al’s  company with 20mm anti-aircraft guns. These weapons were built to destroy aircraft but were  just as deadly against soldiers on the ground. Most men would have looked for cover. Instead,  Al climbed into a jeep with a mounted machine gun and drove straight down the town’s main street  by himself while enemy fire crashed around him.

When the fighting ended, Al had personally destroyed two flak  guns and one powerful 88mm cannon. He also disabled the crew of another 88mm gun and  killed about 40 German riflemen during the attack. The fighting continued. Later that day,  American reconnaissance troops tried to enter the nearby town of Zell but were  stopped by more German 20mm flak guns.

Al spotted an abandoned German motorcycle, jumped  on it, and rode ahead of the reconnaissance troops to find the enemy positions. He located six  more 20mm guns. Then one of those cannons opened fire from only about 50 yards away and  blasted the motorcycle out from under him. What happened next almost sounds impossible.

Al  hit the ground, rolled, got back on his feet, and charged straight toward the German gun  position on foot. He threw a grenade that killed three members of the gun crew and destroyed  the weapon. Instead of stopping there, he ran back to the lead American tank and directed its fire  onto the other five flak guns. One by one, they were destroyed. For everything he did that day, Al  received his second Distinguished Service Cross.

Two days later, on April 27, 1945, Al and his  platoon crossed the Danube River in assault boats. The crossing itself was surprisingly  quiet, with no German resistance. But once they entered the town of Neuberg, heavy automatic weapons fire suddenly erupted  from the second floor of an apartment building.

Al immediately realized that the machine gun  had to be stopped before it could kill more of his men. Once again, he acted without waiting  for orders. He sprinted alone across a street swept by enemy fire, raced up the stairs of  the building, and stormed into the apartment where the German machine gunners were waiting. He  threw a grenade that killed two German soldiers.

The remaining eight, shocked by the  attack, immediately surrendered. For this action, Al received his third  Distinguished Service Cross. Only a small number of American soldiers during World War Two  earned the award three separate times. But this battle also left its mark. During the fighting  around Neuberg, Al was shot in the arm.

Even after being wounded, he kept fighting as his platoon  cleared German-held buildings throughout the town. Eventually, the blood loss became  too much. Al finally collapsed. It was officially his 511th day in combat, an  incredible amount of time on the front lines that very few American soldiers ever experienced  during the war. His fighting was finally over.

He was evacuated to the 34th General  Hospital in Stockbridge, England, to recover. While recovering there, something good  finally happened after years of war. He met an Army nurse named Mary Armstrong. They  fell in love and were married later that year. Al returned to Fort Benjamin  Harrison, Indiana, in June 1945, the same Army base where he had first reported  for duty.

He remained in the Army for another year before receiving an honorable discharge on June  30, 1946. But there was something unusual about his story. Although the war in Europe had  ended in May 1945, Al did not receive most of his medals until about a year and a half  later. The reason was that, behind the scenes, Army leaders were debating whether he should  receive the nation’s highest military award.

On August 3, 1945, only a few  months after the fighting ended, Lieutenant Colonel Louis K. Hennighausen Jr.,  commander of the 179th Infantry Regiment, officially recommended Al for the Medal of Honor.  The recommendation then sat in the Army’s system for about ten months with no public explanation.

In May 1946, it finally reached General Joseph T. McNarney, the commander of all U.S. forces  in Europe. After reviewing the case, McNarney agreed that Al deserved the Medal of Honor for  his actions between March 26 and March 31, 1945. With the top American commander in  Europe supporting the recommendation, it seemed likely that Al would receive the  Medal of Honor. But that did not happen.

The recommendation was sent to the War Department  in Washington, where officials reviewed it and decided that, although his actions were “highly  commendable,” they did not meet the standard for the Medal of Honor. The Army never publicly  explained why the recommendation was rejected. Many historians believe his disciplinary  record, including his AWOL charges and court-martial during periods of grief and combat  exhaustion, likely counted against him in a system that placed great importance on a soldier’s  service record as well as bravery in battle.

After leaving active duty, Al took a civilian  job as a chemical laboratory assistant for J. Bishop and Company in Malvern, Pennsylvania. But  like many veterans who had spent years at war, he struggled to adjust to civilian life.  On November 17, 1947, he reenlisted, even giving up his 40 percent disability  rating so he could return to military service.

Over the next 17 years, Al served in a variety of assignments  in both the United States and overseas. Even after the war, danger continued  to follow him. On May 24, 1961, Al was aboard a U.S. Air Force Douglas C-124A  Globemaster II transport aircraft when it crashed. Twenty-four people were killed. Al was one of  only four people who survived the accident.

He remained in the Army until 1964, retiring  as a master sergeant at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. After retirement, he and his wife  Mary moved to Tacoma, Washington. He managed a gas station and later drove a taxi,  living a quiet life. They eventually settled in a mobile home near the Washington Soldiers’  Home in Puyallup, where Mary worked as a nurse.

Al Chilson died on October 2, 1981, at the  age of 61 while on vacation in Tampa, Florida. He was buried in the veterans section of Mountain  View Memorial Park in Lakewood, Washington, where a memorial now honors his military service.  In 2006, more than two decades after his death, he was inducted into the  Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame, giving him one more well-deserved recognition  from the state where his remarkable story began.