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Sent to me by Paul Hinkle. He stated this:
Marion: My old friend Bill Laski and Steven Gregg were both from Bayonne NJ area. They may have met.
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February 10, 2005
Stephen R. Gregg, 90, Dies; Received the Medal of Honor
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Stephen R. Gregg, who was awarded the Medal of Honor in World War II for charging a German outpost in France while he was an Army sergeant, enabling the rescue of seven American soldiers lying wounded on the battlefield, died on Friday at his home in Bayonne, N.J. He was 90. His death was announced by his son, Stephen Jr.
On Aug. 27, 1944, serving in the 143rd Infantry, 36th Infantry Division, during the invasion of southern France, Sergeant Gregg was in combat at the town of Montelimar in the Rhone Valley. As his platoon advanced toward a German position on a hill, an onslaught of hand grenades felled seven G.I.'s, and heavy enemy fire prevented medics from reaching them. "We were close by, and you could hear the men that were hit calling for medics," he told The New York Times in 2000. "I said, 'God! I've got to do something here.' I don't know what got into me, but I picked up this gun.
"I kept firing and firing. I was just thinking, 'I've got to get as many as I can before they get me.' I never thought I'd come out of this thing alive, to be frank with you. The Lord was with me."
Sergeant Gregg had picked up a machine gun, and with a medic following him, he headed up the hill toward the Germans, firing from the hip in the face of a hand-grenade barrage. His covering fire enabled the medic to remove the wounded, according to the Medal of Honor citation.
After he used up his ammunition, he was confronted by four German soldiers, who ordered him to surrender. Platoon members opened fire on the Germans, and as they hit the ground, Sergeant Gregg escaped to an American machine-gun position. He fired away once more, routing the Germans and enabling the Americans to take the hill. The next day, when the Germans counterattacked with tanks, Sergeant Gregg directed a mortar barrage, and then he charged a mortar position the Germans had overrun, capturing it by hurling a hand grenade.
He continued in combat, received a commission as a second lieutenant and was presented with the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor, by Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, commander of the Seventh Army, on March 14, 1945.
Mr. Gregg, a native of the Bronx, grew up in Bayonne and was drafted in 1942 after working as a shipyard welder. Before participating in Operation Anvil, the invasion of southern France, he took part in the Italian campaign and fought at Altavilla and the Rapido River alongside one of America's most celebrated combat heroes, Sgt. Charles E. Kelly, the Medal of Honor winner known as Commando Kelly.
Mr. Gregg also received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. When he returned to Bayonne in May 1945, 50,000 people watched him ride in a procession to a hero's welcome at a city stadium.
He worked for 51 years for the Hudson County Sheriff's Department, retiring as chief of court officers. A county park in Bayonne is named for him.
In addition to his son, Stephen Jr., of Warren, N.J., he is survived by a daughter, Susan Gregg, of Little Falls, N.J.; a sister, Sophie King, of Orange City, Fla.; and two grandsons. His wife, Irene, died in 2001.
Mr. Gregg once said that Medal of Honor winners did not consider themselves heroic figures. As he told The Record of Hackensack, N.J., in 2000: "We are just ordinary men who didn't go out to earn this. It was just the spirit of the moment that came upon you to do things."
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