They had little if any combat experience. Sergeant Coolidge had fought with the 36th Infantry Division in Italy before it moved into France, and most of the troops under his command in the fall of 1944 were replacements for those who had been killed or wounded in the division’s long slog. In the last week of October 1944, Sergeant Coolidge and some 30 outnumbered soldiers in his rifle and machine-gun section faced annihilation by German troops with tanks during a major battle in the Vosges Mountains of eastern France, near the German border. Coolidge about five years ago, said in a phone interview on Wednesday. Williams, who had last been in touch with Mr. “We both have been blessed by God with a long, long life,” Mr. Williams received it for his exploits fighting with the Marines on Iwo Jima in World War II. Williams, 97, as the oldest surviving recipient of the medal. He was 99 and the oldest living recipient of the nation’s highest award for valor. Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, Mr. In the aftermath of World War II, it was Sergeant Coolidge making the rounds of his home state, telling of another harrowing firefight in France, this one bringing him the nation’s highest decoration for valor in his own right.Ĭelebrated in Chattanooga with a park and a highway and at the Charles H. Alvin York, the Tennessean famed for World War I exploits that brought him the Medal of Honor.
When Charles Coolidge was growing up outside Chattanooga, his grammar school class received a visit from Sgt.