THE TERRIBLE DEATH OF OF THE U.S. ARMY SERGEANT HAROLD O. MESSERSCHMID OF GEIER CITY. HE MUST BE REMEMBERED.

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U.S. Army Sergeant Harold O. Messerschmidt of Grier City, Pennsylvania, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions on September 17, 1944, near Raddon-et-Chapendu, France.


Messerschmidt joined the Army in May 1943, and by September 17, 1944 was serving as a sergeant in Company L, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. During a German attack on September 17, he led and encouraged his men until everyone in his unit had been killed or wounded. Despite his own wounds, he continued to fight the enemy force alone in hand–to–hand combat until he was killed.


He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on September 17, 1944. Messerschmidt is buried in Christ Lutheran Church Cemetery, Barnesville, Pennsylvania. He was just 20 years old when he died.

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French soldiers posing for a photograph with rows of hunted rats, ca. 1916.


Colourised by 'Clinique de l'image' on Facebook.


Many First World War soldiers have shared that their worst enemy in the war wasn't the soldiers they were fighting against, but rather the weather, the mud, the cold and, perhaps more than anything, the rats.


Rats in their millions infested the trenches where the soldiers slept and lived. These rodents, at times huge, would try to eat the soldiers' foodstuffs, crawl on them, and bite while they were sleeping, carry diseases and nibble away at the corpses of fallen comrades, sometimes thoroughly disfiguring them by eating their faces and eyes.


For these reasons, the soldiers developed a passionate hatred for rats, whom they attempted to hunt down by various methods, such as ambushing them by rifle fire or stabbing them with their bayonets, on which a piece of cheese or bread would be attached to lure in the rats.


Danish-German soldier Søren P. Petersen reported of his challenges with rats on January 23, 1916. Translated by myself:


"In the basements below the shattered houses we lay in reserve. The quarters would've been more than comfortable had we not been forced to share them with an uncountable amount of rats.


The selfish bastards devoured everything that was somewhat edible, and all foodstuffs we couldn't store away we had to hang up with string from the ceiling.


They crept in under our blankets when we were sleeping and ran across our faces, but I never once heard of anyone being bitten by them."

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