Nearly a century after Sgt. William Shemin pulled wounded comrades to safety on a World War I battlefield, his heroism has finally earned him the nation’s highest service medal.
The White House announced Thursday that President Barack Obama will award the Medal of Honor to two World War I soldiers – Shemin and Army Pvt. Henry Johnson. Shemin died in 1973, so his daughter, Elsie Shemin-Roth, in her mid-80s and from suburban St. Louis, will accept the medal in a ceremony at the White House on June 2.
Shemin was 19 in August 1918. His battalion was fighting in France. Americans were scattered over the battlefield.
“With the most utter disregard for his own safety, (Shemin) sprang from his position in his platoon trench, dashed out across the open in full sight of the Germans, who opened and maintained a furious burst of machine gun and rifle fire,” according to one of Shemin’s superiors, Capt. Rupert Purdon, who later wrote in support of a Medal of Honor. Read more.
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