12/22/2025
Goodbye to the Greatest Generation and who also gave us the baby boomer generation.
On this day, 81 years ago, December 21, 1944, 19-year-old Private First Class Francis S. Currey of the United States Army was guarding a bridge and strongpoint on the edge of Malmedy, Belgium, when German tanks and infantry hit his position in the Battle of the Bulge.
He was an automatic rifleman with the 3rd Platoon, Company K, 120th Infantry Regiment, 30th Infantry Division, manning a defensive line that covered the bridge and nearby buildings when a powerful German attack overran American tank destroyers and antitank guns supporting the strongpoint.
As the German armor advanced and heavy fire swept the area, Pfc. Currey used his Browning Automatic Rifle to engage enemy infantry, exposing himself to fire as he shot and killed several German soldiers who were trying to push in behind the tanks.
Under the weight of tanks and troops, the position became untenable and the remnants of the 3rd Platoon pulled back to a nearby factory building, which offered some cover but was threatened by German armor now close to the bridge.
From the factory, Currey saw that a group of five American soldiers, two of them already wounded, were trapped in another building across the way, pinned down by tank and machine‑gun fire and unable to escape while the German armor and infantry covered every approach.
Realizing that the tanks and their supporting guns had to be stopped before the men could get out, he left the relative safety of the factory and ran through intense enemy fire to a knocked‑out American antitank position near the bridge.
There he found a bazooka and antitank rockets.
He grabbed the weapon and ammunition, then moved back into the open, using what little cover he could find as three German tanks rounded a corner and headed for the bridge and the factory.
Currey took up a firing position, aimed at the lead tank, and fired, disabling it and forcing the crew to abandon or withdraw the vehicle.
He then shifted his fire to the accompanying tanks, firing more rockets until all three had been hit and either knocked out or forced to retreat from the crossing, removing the immediate armored threat to the strongpoint and the trapped men.
Even with the tanks stopped, German infantry and machine‑gun positions still pinned down the five Americans across the way.
Currey moved again under fire, carrying the bazooka and also collecting additional weapons, including a Browning machine gun and an armful of ammunition.
From an exposed position, he laid down heavy suppressive fire with the machine gun against the German positions that covered the street and the building where the five soldiers were trapped, raking the doorways, windows, and emplacements that were firing into the area.
He alternated between weapons, using rifles, the automatic rifle, and the machine gun to keep enemy heads down and prevent them from firing accurately at the wounded and isolated men.
While Currey maintained this covering fire, the trapped Americans took their chance, scrambled out of the building, and ran toward the factory, two of them limping and bleeding as they crossed the open ground.
He kept firing until all five men reached safety inside the factory, then pulled back himself before enemy fire could zero in on his position.
Later in the day, as German forces continued to probe and try to force the river crossing, Currey again moved among positions, using his knowledge of different weapons to man and reposition guns that could cover key approaches and deny the enemy access to the bridge and the roads beyond.
Deprived of tanks at the crossing and hammered by his fire, the German force at that sector finally pulled back, abandoning the attempt to flank his battalion’s position at Malmedy through that route.
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty near Malmedy, Belgium, on December 21, 1944, Private First Class Francis Sherman Currey was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Francis S. Currey survived the war, later worked for the Veterans Administration in Albany, New York, and lived quietly in upstate New York in his later years.
He died on October 8, 2019, at the age of 94, at his home in Selkirk, New York, after health complications of old age, and he was laid to rest in Calvary Cemetery in Glenmont, New York.
