1. Albert Andrew Schmid was a United States Marine awarded the Navy Cross for his heroism at the Battle of the Tenaru during the Guadalcanal campaign in World War II.
16 Facts About Al Schmid
1. 2.
Albert Andrew Al Schmid was born in the Burholme neighborhood of Philadelphia, the second son and third child of Adolph and Marian Al Schmid who both came from Germany to Philadelphia in the early 1880s.
3.
Al Schmid's father worked as a truck driver and baker.
4.
Al Schmid's mother died around 1932, and his father remarried in 1934.
5.
Al Schmid enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on December 9,1941, after hearing on the radio of the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor.
6.
Al Schmid received recruit training at Parris Island, South Carolina, and further training at New River, North Carolina, where he was assigned to the 11th Machine Gun Squad, Company H, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.
7.
Al Schmid refused medical treatment for a serious foot infection in order to remain in combat with his team and fellow Marines.
8.
Al Schmid took over the gun and fired it for over four hours.
9.
Diamond's fire direction, Al Schmid kept shooting the gun by himself and loading 250-round belts of ammunition with and without help.
10.
In spite of being blinded by the blast, Al Schmid resumed manning the gun, both firing and replacing ammunition belts in response to physical and verbal cues from Diamond as the Japanese continued to pour across the Ilu firing their weapons at the gun emplacement covered by a sniper firing from a tree across the river.
11.
Al Schmid subsequently returned stateside for treatment of his wounds at the San Diego Naval Hospital.
12.
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Private Albert Andrew Al Schmid, United States Marine Corps Reserve, for extraordinary heroism and conspicuous devotion to duty while serving as a Machine Gunner of the Eleventh Machine Gun Squad, Company H, Second Battalion, First Marines, First Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese armed forces at the Tenaru River, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on 21 August 1942.
13.
Al Schmid spoke at war bond rallies across the nation before being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps on December 9,1944.
14.
Al Schmid remained in the public's eye throughout the war largely through Roger Butterfield's book, Al Schmid, Marine and the Warner Bros.
15.
In June 1946, Al Schmid was named Father of the Year in Pennsylvania, and the Democratic Party nominated Al Schmid as a candidate for the Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Affairs, but he lost the election.
16.
Al Schmid eventually recovered partial sight in one eye, but problems with his leg during the cold winters led him to retire in 1957 and move to St Petersburg, Florida, with his wife and two sons.