World War II Medal of Honor Winner Stephen Gregg
Born in New York in 1915, Gregg’s parents, Adam and Ann, moved to Bayonne when he was but three months old. He attended Donohoe Elementary School and Henry Harris Junior High School before going to work at a New York City art gallery. Gregg was working in the shipyards of Kearny, New Jersey when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Although his job actually made him exempt from the draft, he joined up anyway, saying “I just wanted to go over.” He initially took part in the Italian campaign, fighting at such places as Altavilla and the Rapido River. He once wrote of his experiences at the Rapido. “Crossing the Rapido River on our way to Rome, we had to cross this river not once but twice. We had to swim back after the second time, and this was in January. If you didn’t get killed before you came to the river, after you crossed it you landed in Hell. …the smoke almost chokes you, mud, invisible enemy firing from all angles, artillery, etc. After a few hundred yards we were told to dig in. Did you ever try to dig a hole in mud? Later that night we were told to get back to the starting point, not many made it back. The next day we tried again with the same result. Waste of young manhood.”
Gregg was wounded in Italy, receiving a Purple Heart. He also distinguished himself in battle, alongside another Medal of Honor recipient, Sergeant Charles Kelly. On Aug. 27th, 1944, having attained the rank of Army Sergeant in the 143rd Infantry, 36th Infantry Division, Stephen Gregg found himself knee deep in the invasion of southern France. Somewhere near the town of Montelimar in the Rhone Valley, his platoon was moving in on a German position on a hill. Suddenly, a volley of hand grenades severely wounded a total of seven GIs, and the heavy enemy fire kept the medics at bay.
“We were close by, and you could hear the men that were hit calling for medics,” Gregg told a reporter from 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.”
Gregg was being more than modest. He had assessed the dire situation and knew that the men were going to die without help. Gregg had taken up one of the light .30-caliber machineguns, and he began firing from his hip as he started up the hill. A medic followed close behind. The Germans were lobbing hand grenades at him, but Stephen Gregg stood fast and kept shooting into the enemy positions while the medic removed the seven wounded men. Gregg eventually found himself out of ammunition, at which point four Germans ordered him to surrender. But the Germans were caught unaware by some of Gregg’s fellow soldiers, who had crept up into position to cover him.
One of the soldiers opened fire on the Germans when he saw Gregg about to fall into enemy hands. The four Germans ducked for cover, and Gregg seized the opportunity to take hold of a machine pistol from one of the Germans. He retreated to a machine gun position and began to shoot at his would be captors. Gregg killed one German and wounded another, causing the enemy to become so discouraged that Gregg’s platoon was able to advance and take the hill. The next morning, right before dawn, the Germans counterattacked, in an attempt to take back the hill from Gregg’s Company L. Supported by tanks, the enemy’s foot troops advanced up the hill. Gregg at once ordered mortar fire onto the threatening soldiers. As the day wore on, he was able to direct deadly mortar fire on the Germans, causing many casualties. As a matter of fact, Gregg had directed a total of 600 rounds by late afternoon when he lost his ability to get through to his mortar men. The lines of communication to the mortars had been knocked out.
Even though the area was under constant heavy enemy small arms and artillery fire, Gregg set out to reestablish his lines of communication so that mortar fire could continue. He began to check the lines, hoping to reconnect to his mortar position. When he learned that the Germans had captured the mortar position and were using it to shell his own men, he once again sprang into action. With a pair of riflemen for support, he made his way to where the Germans were. He could see that five of the enemies were firing the mortars. With his two companions covering him, he crawled to a point where he was able to throw a hand grenade. As it exploded, Stephen Gregg charged the Germans. The hand grenade had killed one and injured two; Gregg took the remaining pair prisoner and got his mortar position back into action against the enemy. The attack was repulsed; the hill remained in Allied hands.
Stephen Gregg continued to fight in France, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. After the war he was presented with the Medal of Honor by Lieutenant General Alexander M. Patch, commander of the 7th Army, on March 14, 1945. He added the prestigious MOH to his Purple Heart and a Silver and Bronze Star. When he came back to Bayonne in 1945, he was the center of a parade that saw over 50,000 people cheer him on as he was driven to the city’s stadium. He went to work for the Hudson’s County Sheriff’s Department and retired as chief of court officers in 1996, after fifty one years of service!
Gregg’s wife, Irene, passed away in 2001, but she lived long enough to see Hudson County name a park after her hero husband. They had a son named Stephen Jr. and a daughter, Susan. Stephen Gregg died at his home in Bayonne on February 4th, 2005, at the age of ninety. He is buried in Mount Carmel. He remained active in veteran’s affairs throughout his post-war life. In a 1990 interview, his modesty surfaced once more when he said this to the newspaper asking about his Medal of Honor winning heroics. “I just got the medal and that was that. It was no big thing. They were my men.”
