I just received this from Tony Consiglio, son of Vincent J. Consiglio, who was featured in the show. Tony and I have been friends for years and have traded information back and forth, from the early days of this site/forum. Here's what Tony had to say regarding my letter to him last night about the show.
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Thanks to your contact info, back in 2005, I was also able to get signed books from Pergrin....which I also had my Dad (Sgt Vincent Consiglio) sign. Bernie Hurd (in the video you linked) was a friend of my Dad..291st CEB Co.B.....they were in Stavelot, Trois Point, and Malmedy. Malmedy is where my Dad was sent to blow the Warche River Bridge 1-1.5 miles in front of the front lines. Germans came through the fields and he was trapped in that house with 2 other Combat Engineers along with 30 other TD men for 13 hours under heavy fire from both sides. It's little known (or put together), there was another man there who received the CMH...Francis Curry. When you read about the TD men in that house saying "we can't hold them" ...and a another guy comes in to rally them and takes them back out in back to fight where most of them died, that was Francis Curry.
My dad was one of them who jumped in a fox hole behind the house and was slapping the TD machine gunner on the head pointing and saying "There There...they're coming along the hedge row and pig barn", only to find that the machine-gunner was dead...Dad pushed him out of the way and pulled the triggers on that 50 and held them down until the entire ammo box was gone and the barrel got so hot it seized but no one was left in that pig barn or hedge row.....When there was only 13 men left, Dad volunteered to make a run for help because the house was receiving friendly AND German fire both thinking it was the others CP. Long story Short dad made a run from that house across 90-100 yards of open field under heavy fire bullets pinging everywhere, down an embankment, across a shallow river/creek up a steep RR embankment and almost 1 mile back along the RR tracks. After some convincing of the brass, pergrin being one of them, they sent 3 APC to the house spraying 60's, and Dad watched from a distance as he saw men pile out of the house into the APC's. Dad received the bronze star that day....and the 291st received the Presidential Unit Citation with oak leaf, and A.June of France awarded the unit with the Croix De Guerre with Silver Star for saving the town of Malmedy. But back in 2001, Dad got to speak to Col. Pergrin for about 1/2 hour on the phone. Pergrin knew who he was and Dad said, "Hey, you still owe me a cup of coffee....Pergrin laughed and said if you make it to PA..I'll take you out for some ice cream"....Dad said, "DEAL ! "....Pergrin went on to say "Vince, you should have gotten more than that star for what you did there, but it was out of my hands".
Dad passed away last July at 90. A living hero in my life. Hard to believe he is gone. On April 12th 2014 at 2pm, Dad will be receiving the Chevalier (Legion of Honor) posthumously from the French Gov, via the Buffalo Consulate . One last award for my Pa!
Here is Francis Curry's story about the house him and Dad were trapped in, and where Curry received his CMH.."The enemy held house" was actually the house my dad and 30 other Americans were in, NOT 5....Those Germans were trying to get into the house and Dad Mitchell and Spires were the ones in the second floor shooting the Germans that came out of the top of the tank Curry froze the turret on....Dad shot the lead runner who was coming across the bridge heading for the farm house, the rest piled into a ditch on the house side of bridge....("one of the guys said look, sitting ducks".....Mitchell took a round through the wrist that came out the elbow. Dad drug him down into the basement, When he came back to that location, the wall between the window and the corner of the house had a big hole in it....(Curry's hole?), either way, God was watching over Dad that day and I believe like Pergrin did, that Dad should have gotten more recognition. But as my Dad always said, " the guys who did anything over there, are still over there God bless them":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_S._Currey
