CHRISTENSEN: Yes, I was doing radio operator work. Wherever the company commander was, I was always there and he’d gotten out of the jeep. He had seen some officers from regimental headquarters, infantry officers and he wanted to go talk to them about something we were going to do in this town and there was a large woman in size came out of one of those lines going to the rear and came over to us. We were kinda on the outside of that group of 5 or 6 infantry officers and she came over and I always carried my rifle with the lock on it and all you did is just push your fingers forward on that ______ and it was unlocked and ready to fire. I hollered out at her in my best German to “nein, nein, nein” like that to stop her. She kept on coming. I had to put a bullet through her or take the chance on having her to come over there with hidden explosives and wipe us out. But we went on in to that little town and it was almost dark and I heard some gunfire from a big apartment complex on my right so I went forward and I determined that there were down in a basement so I just took my rifle, the butt of my rifle, broke the glass, tossed in two hand grenades and about one minute later, 13 Germans walked out of there with their hands up and surrendered.

INTERVIEWER: Did you capture them? You personally or some other men?

CHRISTENSEN: To me personally.

INTERVIEWER: You personally captured 13 German soldiers?

CHRISTENSEN: Yes, so I had them stack rifles in two stacks and I saw this one that looked like a brand new rifle and I motioned for him to come to me and he handed it to me. He was a 19 year old kid who had been in the Air Force, but Hitler or whoever had brought him out of the Air Force and for this Battle of the Bulge operation, he was assigned to this infantry outfit and he told me, he could speak pretty good English, he told me that he didn’t want any part of fighting. Later on I stripped his rifle down and shipped it home to my dad and it was a rifle that had never been fired, still packed in Cosmoline.

INTERVIEWER: What did you do with these 13 Germans you captured?

CHRISTENSEN: Oh, after I had them stack rifles, I told them, I says I’m up here, I got no way to go back with you myself, I pointed down the road and I said beat it. Go see those MPs and they’ll take care of you. So I watched them disappear down the highway back toward our lines which was probably at that point about a half a mile back and we were up in the town because there was a bridge just beyond town. It had been dropped and we had to go up there and finish dropping it and take our bulldozers and push it out of the way so the infantry could move on up. That was pretty unique, capturing 13 Germans without firing a shot.

INTERVIEWER: Anybody witness it so you could get a commendation or anything?

CHRISTENSEN: No, I was, when the Battle of Bulge was over, my company commander did tell me that he had recommended that I be awarded the medal of the Silver Star and it cleared battalion headquarters, it cleared regimental headquarters, it cleared division headquarters. Our general, division general, he couldn’t stop the Purple Heart because they were given by the medical people, but he wanted to oversee and personally look at all medal recommendations and when he, my understanding from what the captain told me that he had friends in division headquarters, he said that the general told some officers under him none of my damned engineers are going to get any medals. Now if you can believe that. So this officer passed the word on to my captain and about 10 days after he told me he had recommended me for the Silver Star, he came back and said, “Sergeant, they turned it down” and then he told me the story about what the general had said.

INTERVIEWER: What general was this?

CHRISTENSEN: It was General Bert Laur.

INTERVIEWER: L-a-h-r? Like the comedian?

CHRISTENSEN: No Laur. Now I found out later, 20 years later, found out that General Laur’s son was living in California and he was a member of our 99th infantry division association which publishes this article here. Now I didn’t find out about this paper until, I don’t know, it must have been in the 80s, but anyway, I called his son 5 or 6 times to see if he was aware of the comments that his father had made on medals that had been recommended for the engineers and he never returned my calls.

 

Correction of Military Records

The secretary of a military department, acting through a board for correction of military records, has authority to change any military record when necessary to correct an error or remove an injustice. A correction board may consider applications for correction of a military record, including a review of a discharge issued by courts martial.

The veteran, survivor or legal representative generally must file a request for correction within three years after discovery of an alleged error or injustice. The board may excuse failure to file within the prescribed time, however, if it finds it would be in the interest of justice to do so. It is an applicant’s responsibility to show why the filing of the application was delayed and why it would be in the interest of justice for the board to consider it despite the delay.

To justify any correction, it is necessary to show to the satisfaction of the board that the alleged entry or omission in the records was in error or unjust. Applications should include all available evidence, such as signed statements of witnesses or a brief of arguments supporting the requested correction. Application is made with DD Form 149, available at VA offices, from veterans organizations or from the Internet (http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/infomgt/forms/formsprogram.htm).