Episode 11: The Last Great War?

Though new to combat, then-Private First Class Alton Knappenberger proved to be a literal one-man army, but always emphasized how scared he was. After the action for which he received the Medal of Honor, Knappie sat down and cleaned his now-infamous Browning Automatic Rifle.

Unlike many Medal of Honor recipients, Knappie returned home from war and lived a long peaceful life, passing away at the age of 84.

Though he shunned the limelight in life, his family wanted to recognize his service and decided to not bury him in his native Pennsylvania, but instead at Arlington National Cemetery. Ironically, his funeral happened on the 64th anniversary of his actions in Italy for which he was decorated. Today, Staff Sergeant Alton Knappenberger rests in Section 59, Grave 3193.

Alton Knappenberger's official Medal of Honor citation reads:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action involving actual conflict with the enemy, on February 1, 1944, near Cisterna di Littoria, Italy. When a heavy German counterattack was launched against his battalion, Pfc. Knappenberger crawled to an exposed knoll and went into position with his automatic rifle. An enemy machinegun 85 yards away opened fire, and bullets struck within 6 inches of him. Rising to a kneeling position, Pfc. Knappenberger opened fire on the hostile crew, knocked out the gun, killed 2 members of the crew, and wounded the third. While he fired at this hostile position, 2 Germans crawled to a point within 20 yards of the knoll and threw potato-masher grenades at him, but Pfc. Knappenberger killed them both with 1 burst from his automatic rifle. Later, a second machinegun opened fire upon his exposed position from a distance of 100 yards, and this weapon also was silenced by his well-aimed shots. Shortly thereafter, an enemy 20mm. antiaircraft gun directed fire at him, and again Pfc. Knappenberger returned fire to wound 1 member of the hostile crew. Under tank and artillery shellfire, with shells bursting within 15 yards of him, he held his precarious position and fired at all enemy infantrymen armed with machine pistols and machine-guns which he could locate. When his ammunition supply became exhausted, he crawled 15 yards forward through steady machinegun fire, removed rifle clips from the belt of a casualty, returned to his position and resumed firing to repel an assaulting German platoon armed with automatic weapons. Finally, his ammunition supply being completely exhausted, he rejoined his company. Pfc. Knappenberger's intrepid action disrupted the enemy attack for over 2 hours.

Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the Polish pianist, composer, and later statesman, was the first prime minister of modern Poland and later became the president of Poland's government in exile during World War II, established in the United States. 

When he died in 1941, he was temporarily interred at Arlington under the USS Maine memorial. The plan was to repatriate him once the war was over, but he had to wait more than 50 years as Poland fell under the Soviet sphere of influence in post-WWII Europe. 

In 1963, President Kennedy lamented that Paderewski was still unable to be repatriated and placed a marker at Arlington that still honors the man today, nearly 30 years after he did return to Poland.

In 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Paderewski's final wish of returning to Poland was realized when his ashes were placed in St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw. Today, his Steinway & Sons grand piano sits under his portrait at the Polish Embassy in Washington, DC

General John J. Pershing will get his own episode in the future so I won't put much about him here for now, but when I saw that while he may have been forgotten late in life because of the outbreak of World War II, thousands turned out for his funeral at Arlington in 1948.