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Garlin M. Conner: The Man Who Called Artillery on His Own Position, and the 73 Years It Took to Say So

Garlin Conner did the thing the Medal of Honor exists to describe. On a January morning in 1945, alone in a shallow ditch in front of his battalion's line, he directed American artillery onto a German assault for three hours — and when the assault massed to overrun him, he ordered the guns onto his own position and stayed on the telephone. His commander knew what it was worth, and said so in writing. He also sent Conner home with the second-highest award instead, on purpose, so the medal would not be held up in paperwork while Conner was shipping out. Correcting that took seventy-three years, a widow who refused to stop, a stranger who started the case, a lawsuit, a court-ordered mediation, a unanimous Army board, and an act of Congress. This page is the documented record.

The service, and the promise

Garlin Murl Conner was born on June 2, 1919, and raised in rural Clinton County, Kentucky; his formal education ended in eighth grade — the nearest high school was almost fifteen miles away — and he worked the family farm and served in the Civilian Conservation Corps before enlisting in the Army on March 1, 1941. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, the unit he would stay with for the whole war.

The record the Army itself keeps is stark. Conner deployed on October 23, 1942, fought 28 months on the front lines in 10 campaigns, took part in four amphibious assault landings, was wounded seven times, and earned a battlefield commission at Anzio. His decorations, per the Army’s official profile, were the Distinguished Service Cross, four Silver Stars, the Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts, along with the French Croix de Guerre. Press accounts would later describe him as the second-most decorated American soldier of the war, after Audie Murphy — who served in the same division.

The promise made to a man like Conner is the simple one: do the extraordinary thing, and the institution will record it truly and honor it in full. In his case it was honored in combat, shorted in the paperwork, and repaired at last by people outside the chain of command who would not let the file close.

What happened — January 24, 1945

Conner was not supposed to be in the fight that morning. He had recently returned after recovering from a sniper’s wound to his left hip — he had slipped away from a field hospital to rejoin the battalion — and his commander, Lt. Col. Lloyd Ramsey, had arranged for him to go home and pulled him back to battalion headquarters as intelligence officer, in part for his own safety.

On the morning of January 24, 1945, near Houssen, France, German forces counterattacked the 7th Infantry’s front left flank in force: 600 infantry troops, six Mark VI tanks, and tank destroyers, per the official Medal of Honor citation. What Conner did next is established by that citation and the Army’s histories:

Eyewitness 1st Lt. Harold Wigetman wrote the sentence that followed the case for seventy years: “With icy self-control, he kept telephoning his directions, although he must have seen that the [Germans] would have killed him before he could get on his feet.”

Conner received the Distinguished Service Cross for that morning, presented by Lt. Gen. Alexander Patch, commander of the Seventh Army, on February 10, 1945. Discharged on June 22, 1945, he came home to a parade in Albany, Kentucky, met Pauline Lyda Wells at his homecoming, and married her after a courtship the Army’s profile measures in a week. He farmed 36 acres in Clinton County, raised his son Paul, and — after a heart attack in 1979 — spent his later years driving county to county with Pauline, helping disabled veterans file for the pensions they were owed; Pauline estimated they reached possibly thousands. He rarely spoke of the war in fifty-three years of marriage. “He said he didn’t need another medal,” Pauline recalled. He died in November 1998, at 79.

What the institution did afterward

The shorting of Conner’s record was not a clerical accident, and the institution’s own witness says so. Retired Maj. Gen. Lloyd Ramsey — the commander who had sent him home — stated in a letter to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records that, instead of nominating Conner for a Medal of Honor, a citation was prepared for a Distinguished Service Cross so that “he could go home wearing a DSC.” The Medal of Honor process would have taken time Conner’s departure did not allow. Ramsey regretted it for decades, urged Conner to apply, and wrote in 2006: “One of the most disappointing regrets of my career is not having the Medal of Honor awarded to the most outstanding Soldier I’ve had the privilege of commanding.” Conner declined, every time, while he lived.

The case that finally moved it was started by a stranger. In the fall of 1996, former Green Beret Richard Chilton contacted the Conners while researching his uncle, Pfc. Gordon Roberts, who had served under Conner and been killed at Anzio — Conner had carried the wounded Roberts to an aid station. Pauline opened the duffel bag in the living-room closet and showed Chilton the medals and records. Chilton asked permission to pursue the medal; Conner, by then unable to speak or walk, answered with tears and a nod. What followed is the record, step by step:

Notice the division of labor in that timeline. The valor was the Army’s own, documented by its own officers in February 1945. Every push that moved the file afterward came from outside the institution, or against its staff’s advice: a Green Beret researching his uncle, a widow who outlasted three rejections, a congressman’s office digging in the Archives, a lawsuit the government won on a deadline and then could not hold, and a board that overruled its own staff, unanimously.

Where it stands now

On June 26, 2018 — seventy-three years after Houssen, twenty years after Conner’s death — President Donald Trump presented the Medal of Honor to Pauline Conner in the East Room of the White House. “Lt. Garlin Murl Conner was indeed a giant,” the president said. “In his daring, his devotion, and his duty, he was larger than life… We will never forget his story.” His son Paul attended, as did his four grandchildren. The next day, June 27, 2018, Conner was inducted into the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes, where Pauline said: “We did it, Murl. No more regrets.” That November, Kentucky added his name to its Medal of Honor recipients at the State Capitol. Trump also used the ceremony to thank Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — who could not attend — “for his years of work to make this day very special.”

The account, as far as the medal goes, is closed. But notice what it took, because that is the pattern this site exists to document. The fight at Houssen lasted three hours. The paperwork lasted seventy-three years — and it was not lost paperwork. The commander who made the original decision explained it in writing and spent the rest of his life trying to undo it; the eyewitnesses had written it down in 1945. What the institution could not do, in the end, was fix it itself: that took a widow’s lawsuit, a mediator, a board overruling its own staff, and Congress waiving its own deadline. The medal arrived in the lifetime of exactly one person who had earned the right to see it — Pauline Conner, who had carried the case for twenty-two years and said she had reached the place where she was about to give up. Her husband, who had carried the telephone wire, never saw it at all.

The ledger

Conner is this section’s “finally accounted” exhibit — the one they finally got right, 73 years late. His fight is finished; his place here is the proof that an accounting can arrive even three-quarters of a century late.

What has been done

What has not been done

What is being sought

The record, on video

Conner’s fight survives in citations and eyewitness statements, not film. What the record has instead is the week in June 2018 when his country finally said it. Six films, all from official or national-news publishers.

The ceremony. The Army's film of the June 26, 2018 East Room ceremony, 73 years after Houssen. (U.S. Army video.)

The Army's portrait. The Army's telling of January 24, 1945, with Conner's cousin Luther Conner recalling the action. (U.S. Army video.)

Pauline's speech. Pauline Conner at the Hall of Heroes induction, June 27, 2018 — "We did it, Murl. No more regrets." (U.S. Army video.)

The Defense Department's portrait. The Department's short film on Conner, released the week of the ceremony. (U.S. Department of War video.)

The widow remembers. CBS Evening News, June 26, 2018: Pauline Conner on the husband who never talked about the war. (CBS Evening News.)

Into the Hall of Heroes. The full Pentagon induction, June 27, 2018 — Secretary of the Army Mark Esper: "We are finally able to pay Murl the recognition he deserves." (U.S. Army video.)

Sources

Further record

Part of Betrayed, Not Forgotten — this site's accounting for the service members and veterans their own institutions failed. Videos are embedded from their publishers; nothing here is re-hosted.