When Germans Left Him for Dead, He Killed 200 of Them in 48 Hours

At 05:30 hours on September 16th, 1944, Private First Class Oscar Johnson crouched behind an embankment at the base of Monticello Ridge, watching German mortar rounds explode 200 yards up the slope. He was 23 years old. A dairy farmer from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a mortar gunner who had just fired his last mortar round.

 His company had 205 men when they started the assault 3 days earlier. By nightfall, Oscar would be the only man left left flank. In the next 48 hours, five companies of German paratroopers would attack his position. Every man in his squad would be killed or wounded. Oscar Johnson would hold a shallow foxhole alone with nothing but rifles taken from the dead and grenades arranged in rows within arms reach.

 When it was over, more than 200 German bodies would lie in front of his position. Oscar Johnson would walk away without a scratch. Oscar Godfrey Johnson Jr. was born on March 25th, 19 21 in Foster City, Michigan, a small crossroads in the Upper Peninsula. Oscar grew up on his parents’ dairy farm.

 When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, Oscar was 20 years old. By October 1942, he had enlisted in the United States Army at Iron Mountain. He trained at Camp Adair in Oregon, learned to operate the 60-mm mortar, and shipped out to North Africa in the spring of 1944. Oscar was assigned to Company B, 363rd Infantry Regiment, 91st Infantry Division.

 The 91st was nicknamed the Powder River Division after a river in Montana. Their motto was “Let her buck.” Most of the men came from the West Coast and Mountain States, farm boys, ranch hands, loggers, men who knew how to work and how to wait. The division trained at Camp Adair in Oregon and Camp White in Southern Oregon.

 They conducted a 91-mile march through the Cascade Mountains as part of their conditioning. The march took several days. Men who could not keep up were reassigned to other units. The army wanted soldiers who could move through difficult terrain without breaking. In Algeria, the division practiced amphibious landings at Arzew Bay.

 They learned to climb cargo nets, wade through surf with full packs, hit the beach, and keep moving. The Mediterranean water was cold. The equipment was heavy. Men who fell went under and did not come back up. By the time training ended, every survivor knew how to get from ship to shore without drowning. By June 1944, they were in Italy, landing at Naples and moving north toward the German defensive lines.

 The 361st Regimental Combat Team was the first element of the 91st to see combat. They were attached to veteran units at Anzio, where Allied forces had been locked in a bloody stalemate since January. The 361st participated in the final breakout on June 3rd, pushing through German positions near Velletri and liberating Rome 2 days later.

 By the time the full division entered combat in July, the men had learned what German artillery sounded like. They had learned what it meant to dig in and hold ground under fire. They had learned that the Italian campaign was not a sideshow. It was a meat grinder. The Italian campaign was supposed to be a sideshow. The main event was Normandy, where Allied forces had landed on June 6th, but Italy still had to be taken.

 The Germans had fortified the peninsula with a series of defensive lines, each one anchored to the mountains that ran down the center of the country. The Gustav Line had held the Allies at Monte Cassino for 4 months. Now, in September 1944, they faced the Gothic Line. The Gothic Line stretched 200 miles across Italy, from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Adriatic, following the crest of the Apennine Mountains.

The Germans had spent 13 months building it. 15,000 Italian laborers had been forced to dig trenches and pour concrete under German supervision. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring had personally overseen the construction. He called it the Green Line. The Allies called it the Gothic Line. Whatever the name, it was designed to stop armies.

 German engineers had blasted bunkers into solid rock. Characteristic pillboxes were large enough to hold five men, built of concrete with roofs covered by 3 ft of logs and dirt. The firing slits were 6 in high and 3 ft wide. Each bunker was camouflaged so carefully that you could not see it until you were close enough to die.

 Grass was planted on rooftops. Fake bushes concealed entrances. From 50 yd away, the bunkers looked like natural rock formations. They had laid minefields in every ravine. Teller mines that could destroy a tank. S-mines that bounced 3 ft into the air before exploding, spraying 360 steel balls at groin height. The mines were positioned in patterns designed to channel attackers into killing zones.

Step off the path, you died. Stay on the path, the machine guns found you. They had strung barbed wire across every approach. Rows of it 1 ft high and 25 ft deep, positioned at 100-yd intervals up the mountainsides. Not meant to stop soldiers, just to slow them down long enough for the machine guns to find them.

 The wire was positioned so that soldiers cutting through would expose themselves to fire from multiple bunkers. They had positioned artillery on every peak. 88-mm guns that could reach anything that moved in the valleys below. Mortar positions zeroed in on every approach route. Machine gun nests with overlapping fields of fire.

 The German defensive doctrine was simple, interlocking fires. Every position could cover every other position. Attack one bunker and three others would kill you. If you want to see how a dairy farmer from Michigan held off five companies of German paratroopers, please hit that like button. It helps us share more forgotten stories like this.

And please subscribe if you haven’t already. Back to Oscar. The 91st Division was assigned to break through the Gothic Line at Il Giogo Pass, a narrow gap in the mountains 25 mi north of Florence. The pass was dominated by two peaks, Monte Altuzzo on the right and Montecelli Ridge on the left. Both were held by German forces.

Both had to be taken. Montecelli Ridge was the left bastion of the Il Giogo defense area. The ridge rose 3,000 ft, wooded 3/4 of the way up, but bare rock and open ground for the last 600 ft to the summit. The Germans had built their bunkers into that final stretch. Each pillbox was positioned to provide covering fire for the others.

 If you attacked one, three more would cut you down. On the reverse slope of Montecelli, the Germans had constructed elaborate dugouts blasted straight back into the mountain for 75 ft, large enough to hold 20 men, safe from artillery. One dugout near the summit had been carved from solid rock in the shape of a U, with cooking facilities and sleeping quarters for 50 soldiers.

 Oscar’s regiment, the 363rd Infantry, was assigned to take Montecelli. Company B was positioned on the extreme left flank of the entire corps. That meant Oscar’s company would be the most exposed unit in the attack. If the Germans broke through on the left, they could roll up the entire American line. But, the men defending Monticello were not ordinary German soldiers.

They were Fallschirmjäger, paratroopers. The fourth parachute division. The fourth parachute division had been formed in Venice in November 1943. Built from veterans of the elite second Fallschirmjäger division and volunteers from Italian parachute units. These were not conscripts. These were men who had volunteered to jump out of airplanes into enemy territory.

 Men who had trained for years in close combat, demolitions, and small unit tactics. They had fought at Anzio in January 1944, where Allied forces had landed behind German lines and been trapped on the beachhead for 4 months. The paratroopers had helped contain the Allied breakout, fighting in the hills around Nettuno and Cisterna. They knew how to defend ground.

 When Rome fell on June 4th, 1944, the fourth parachute division was the last German unit to leave the city. They did not retreat in panic. They withdrew in good order, fighting rear guard actions through Viterbo, Siena, and Florence. By September, they had taken up positions on the Gothic Line, anchoring the defense at Futa Pass and Il Giogo Pass.

 The paratroopers at Monte Cassino had held off the entire Fifth Army for 4 months. The paratroopers at Anzio had pinned down six Allied divisions on a beachhead the size of a small county. Now, Oscar Johnson was about to face five companies of them alone. The attack on Monticello began on September 13th, 1944. For 3 days, the 363rd Infantry fought up the slopes, taking pillboxes one at a time.

 Each bunker required direct artillery hits or infantry assaults with grenades. The Germans counterattacked constantly. Mortar fire rained down on American positions. Machine gun bullets raked every approach. The fighting was brutal. Between Monte Altuzzo and Monticelli, the 91st Division suffered 2,731 casualties in 6 days, nearly 500 men killed or wounded per day.

 The slopes were littered with bodies. The medics could not keep up. Each pillbox had to be knocked out individually. Artillery could suppress them, but rarely destroyed them. Infantry squads would crawl up the slopes, find cover, throw grenades through the firing slits, and hope the men inside died before they could throw the grenades back.

 Sometimes the grenades came back. Sometimes the bunker turned out to be connected to another bunker by underground tunnel, and fresh German soldiers appeared from nowhere. By September 16th, the regiment had reached the base of the final slope. The last 600 ft of bare rock before the summit. Company B received orders to advance. Oscar was a mortar gunner.

His job was to drop 60-mm rounds on German positions while the riflemen moved forward. He carried a base plate, a tube, and as many rounds as he could manage. When the company moved, he moved with them. When they took cover, he set up and started firing. By 0530 hours on September 16th, Oscar had fired his last mortar round.

No resupply coming. The supply lines were under constant German artillery fire. Men who tried to bring ammunition forward were being killed before they reached the front lines. Oscar was a mortar gunner without mortars. He picked up an M1 Garand from a dead soldier and became a rifleman.

 The company commander had a problem. Company B had taken cover behind an embankment at the base of Monticelli Ridge. The position offered protection from frontal fire, but the left flank was completely exposed. If the Germans attacked from the left, they could enfilade the entire company, firing down the length of the American line.

 Oscar Johnson was ordered to lead a squad of seven men 50 yards to the left of the company position. Their mission was simple, hold the flank. Do not let the Germans through. Oscar picked his spot, a shallow depression in the rocky ground, barely deep enough to call a foxhole. Maybe 2 ft of cover. It offered a clear field of fire to the left and front, but no protection from artillery.

He positioned his seven men in a rough semicircle, rifles facing outward. They settled in and waited. The Germans were firmly entrenched at the crest of Monticello Ridge, Oscar later remembered. They laid a heavy mortar barrage against our positions at the base of the hill, and then threw many grenades. Our casualties were heavy.

 The Germans attacked that afternoon. Mortar rounds began falling on the American positions. First ranging shots, then concentrated barrages, then the machine guns opened up. MG 42s firing 1,200 rounds per minute. The sound was like canvas being ripped, continuous and overwhelming. Then the infantry came, German paratroopers, Fallschirmjäger, some of the best soldiers in the Wehrmacht.

They came down the slope in disciplined formations, using the terrain for cover, firing as they advanced. Oscar’s squad returned fire. The noise was overwhelming. Explosions, rifle fire, men screaming. Smoke and dust filled the air. Visibility dropped to yards. Oscar fired at shapes moving through the haze. He worked the bolt of his rifle, chambered rounds, fired again.

 His men started falling. One by one, the soldiers in his squad were hit. A mortar round landed in the middle of the position. Two men killed instantly. Another caught shrapnel in the chest. By 1800 hours, six of Oscar’s seven men were dead or wounded. By nightfall, Oscar was alone. He should have withdrawn to the company position. Standard doctrine.

 When your unit is destroyed, you pull back to the next defensible line. But Oscar understood what withdrawal meant. If he left, the left flank would be open. The Germans would pour through. Company B would be destroyed from the side. The entire attack on Monticelli would fail. Oscar stayed. He collected weapons and ammunition from his fallen comrades.

Four M1 rifles, positioned around his foxhole for easy access. 11 grenades, arranged in a row within arm’s reach. Eight round clips, laid out on the edge of his trench. He had organized his position like a one-man firebase. When one rifle overheated, he would grab the next. That night, the Germans launched their heaviest attack on Company B.

They committed five full companies of paratroopers. They put their greatest pressure against the lone defender of the left flank. They did not know there was only one man there. They thought they were attacking a fortified position. The first wave hit Oscar’s position around 2100 hours. The September night was cold at 3,000 ft.

Oscar could see his breath in the darkness. He could not see the Germans, but he could hear them. Boots scraping on rock, equipment rattling, whispered commands in German. The sounds came from multiple directions. They were trying to surround him. Then the muzzle flashes started. Dozens of them. Sparks of orange light in the blackness, advancing toward his foxhole.

 Oscar aimed at the flashes and fired. The Garand’s eight-round clip emptied in seconds. The rifle pinged as the empty clip ejected. Oscar grabbed another rifle, fired again. The Germans kept coming. When they got close enough to throw hand grenades, Oscar threw grenades back. He could hear them land in the darkness, the metallic clatter on rock.

Then the explosions, screams, then silence, then more movement. The first attack lasted 20 minutes. When it ended, Oscar could hear Germans moaning in the darkness, wounded men calling for medics. He stayed in his foxhole and reloaded. He did not know how many he had killed. He did not know how many were still out there.

 He knew only that they would come again. The second attack came at 2300 hours. This time they tried to infiltrate, crawling through the rocks instead of charging. Oscar heard them moving to his left, trying to flank his position. He fired at the sounds. Muzzle flashes answered from the darkness. Bullets whipped past his head. He kept firing until the movement stopped.

 The third attack came at 0200 hours. The fourth at 0400. Each time the Germans came closer. Each time Oscar drove them back. He could not sleep. He could not rest. If he closed his eyes for a moment, they would be on top of him. His eyes burned from the smoke and the strain of staring into darkness.

 His hands were raw from working the rifle bolts. His ears rang from the constant gunfire. Mortar fire crashed around him throughout the night. The Germans were trying to zero in on his position, adjusting their fire based on his muzzle flashes. Explosions threw dirt and rock fragments into the air. Shrapnel whistled past.

 One round landed close enough to knock Oscar off his feet. He got up and kept firing. Machine gun bullets whipped the crest of his shallow trench. The MG42 bursts came every few minutes, probing, searching. Oscar could hear the bullets passing inches above his head. If he stayed low, he could not see the Germans approaching.

If he stood up, the machine gun would find him. In spite of the mortar fire that crashed around him and the machine gun bullets that whipped the crest of his trench, Oscar Johnson stood erect and repulsed every attack. He had no choice. Standing was the only way to maintain his field of fire. So, he stood and shot at anything that moved.

 Between attacks, the silence was worse than the noise. Oscar strained to hear any sound of movement. Every rustle of wind through the rocks sounded like a German crawling toward him. Every distant cough or whisper made him tighten his grip on the rifle. He remained awake and on alert throughout the night, frustrating all attempts at infiltration.

 When dawn came on September 17th, Oscar was still in his foxhole, still alone, still holding the flank. The first light revealed the cost of the night’s fighting. German bodies lay scattered across the rocky slope in front of his position. Some had fallen within grenade throwing distance of his foxhole. Others lay further back, cut down by rifle fire in the darkness.

 That morning, 25 German soldiers walked toward his position with their hands up. They surrendered to him. One man. They had spent all night attacking his position. They had committed five companies of paratroopers. They had lost dozens of men, and now they surrendered. Oscar covered them with his rifle until other Americans could take them prisoner.

 One of the prisoners was a German officer, a company commander. When the officer realized he had surrendered to a single American soldier, his face showed disbelief. Five companies had attacked this position. Five companies had been repulsed by one man. Word spread through Company B. The mortar gunner from Michigan had held the left flank alone all night.

 Men who had been pinned down by German fire learned that one soldier had been doing the same thing 50 yards to their left without any support. In the afternoon, the company commander sent two men to reinforce Oscar’s position. They never made it. A German artillery barrage caught them in the open. Both men were hit by the same shell.

Oscar saw them fall. They lay half buried in a crater, seriously wounded, unable to move. German fire continued to rake the area around them. They had taken nearly a direct hit from an anti-tank shell, Oscar later explained, which all but buried them under the debris. Oscar could have stayed in his foxhole, the smart play, the safe play.

Instead, he ran toward the shell crater. German fire followed him. Bullets kicked up dirt around his feet. Machine gun bursts raked the ground behind him. He dove into the crater and landed beside the wounded men. Oscar covered their position with his rifle while a medical corpsman named James L. Christopher from Mount Vernon, Ohio, crawled forward to render aid.

Christopher moved through the same fire that had wounded the two soldiers. He reached the crater and began treating their wounds while Oscar provided covering fire. Together, they stabilized the wounded men and waited for darkness. The Germans continued to fire at the crater throughout the afternoon.

 Mortar rounds landed nearby. Machine gun bursts swept the area. Oscar and Christopher stayed low and waited. That night, Oscar helped secure their evacuation to the rear. Then he went back to his foxhole. He remained on watch until Company B was relieved the following morning. September 18th, 1944. Two days, two nights, 48 hours in a shallow trench holding the left flank of an entire company against five companies of German paratroopers.

 When the fighting stopped and the Americans moved forward to consolidate, they counted the German dead. The official citation would credit Oscar with killing 20 Germans and capturing 25 prisoners, but that was the conservative count. The soldiers who were there said the real number was much higher. In the Company B sector alone, more than 150 German bodies were found after the fight.

 Oscar’s fellow soldiers believed he was responsible for most of them. Some estimates put the number at more than 200 killed or wounded by one man with a rifle and a pile of grenades. Company B had started the attack on Monticello with 205 men. By the time the ridge was secured on September 18th, only 37 were left. The company had suffered 14 killed and 126 wounded in Oscar’s sector alone.

 Company B had taken 75% casualties. Oscar Johnson was one of the 37 survivors. He did not have a scratch. The company had lost all its officers, dead or wounded, everyone. The machine guns had been silenced. The mortars had run out of ammunition. The communications had been cut and through all of it, one dairy farmer from Foster City had held the left flank.

Lieutenant Frank Drieskowski of Bessemer, Michigan was there. He watched Oscar hold the line. He just stood in his hole and kept firing, Drieskowski said later. We attempted to send aid, but they were either killed or wounded, but Oscar held the enemy back. When the fighting stopped, Oscar marched out with another 24 prisoners, including a German commanding officer.

Five companies of a German paratroop regiment had been repeatedly committed to the attack on Company B. They had failed to break through. One dairy farmer from Foster City had held them. Five days later, on September 20th, Oscar found some stationery he had taken from a dead German soldier. He sat down and wrote a letter to his parents.

 “I put in a busy afternoon a few days ago,” he wrote. “With God’s protection, I came through without a scratch. Everything turned out okay.” That was all he told them. He did not mention the two nights alone in the foxhole. He did not mention the five companies of German paratroopers. He did not mention the 200 dead.

He did not mention that he had stood in an open trench while machine gun bullets passed inches above his head. He was a farm boy from Michigan. He did not talk about himself. Oscar continued fighting in Italy through the winter of 1944-1945 and into the spring. The Gothic Line was breached, but the war was not over.

 The 91st Division pushed north through the Apennines, fighting through mud and snow and German rearguard actions. On June 25th, 1945, Oscar was wounded near Livergnano. It was a minor wound, but it was the first time he had been hit in almost a year of combat. The shy, freckled farm boy who had survived 48 hours alone against five companies of paratroopers had finally caught a piece of shrapnel.

That same day, General Mark W. Clark presented Oscar Johnson with the Medal of Honor in a ceremony at Gorizia, Italy. Oscar had been promoted to sergeant after the battle at Monte Cassino. The citation read, “He practically single-handedly protected the left flank of his company’s position in the offensive to break the Germans’ Gothic Line in spite of mortar fire which crashed about him and machine gun bullets which whipped the crest of his shallow trench.

 Sergeant Johnson stood erect and repulsed the attack with grenades and small arms fire. Five companies of a German paratroop regiment had been repeatedly committed to the attack on Company B without success. 20 dead Germans were found in front of his position. By his heroic stand in utter disregard for personal safety, Sergeant Johnson was in a large measure responsible for defeating the enemy’s attempts to turn the exposed left flank.

In addition to the Medal of Honor, Oscar received the Purple Heart for his wound at Livergano and two Bronze Star medals for his service in Italy. But he never talked about the medals. He never talked about any of it. Oscar was a national hero. Newspapers across Michigan carried his story. The Escanaba Daily Press ran a headline, “Sgt.

 Oscar Johnson, War Hero, returns to farm at Foster City.” The town held a parade when he came home in July 1945. Oscar attended the parade. He shook hands. He accepted congratulations. Then he went back to the farm. He did not want to talk about Italy. He did not want to talk about Monticelli Bridge. When people asked about the war, he changed the subject.

 “I just did my job,” he said. “That’s all.” After the war, Oscar tried to return to normal life. He enrolled in a two-year agriculture program at Michigan Agricultural College, now known as Michigan State University. He wanted to learn modern farming techniques. He wanted to be a better dairy farmer. He married a local girl named Luwana Wood.

They bought an 80-acre farm near DeWitt in Clinton County, Michigan. They raised five children together. Oscar worked the farm, milked the cows, fixed the equipment. He was good with his hands. He was good at everything he tried, but farming in Michigan was hard, and the money was never enough. In November 1950, Oscar joined the Michigan National Guard.

It was steady work. He was assigned to a headquarters unit in Lansing, working as foreman of a vehicle maintenance shop. He was good at fixing things. He was good at working without supervision. He rose through the ranks quietly. During his 30 years in the National Guard, Oscar saw a lot of changes. “During the ’50s, we got a lot of boys joining to avoid the draft,” he said in a 1980 interview.

 “A lot of them were farm boys who knew a lot about equipment.” He understood them. He had been one of them. Oscar spent 30 years in the National Guard. He retired in 1980 holding the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 4. 30 years of service after the war. Most of his colleagues knew he had a Medal of Honor. Few of them knew the details.

 Oscar did not volunteer information about himself. In 1990, Oscar moved back to Kingsford, near where he had grown up. The Veterans Affairs Hospital in Iron Mountain was named after him. The Oscar G. Johnson V.A. Medical Center. A stretch of Michigan Highway 69 near Foster City was designated the Sergeant Oscar G. Johnson Memorial Highway.

 There is a stone memorial along the road near the crossroads where he grew up. Oscar Johnson died on May 13th, 1998 at the age of 77. He was buried in DeWitt Cemetery in DeWitt, Michigan. His grave marker lists his name, his dates, and the Medal of Honor. In 2018, a booklet was published about his life. Sgt. Oscar Godfrey Johnson Jr.

 World War Medal of Honor recipient from Dickinson County, Michigan. The booklet contained over 20 photographs and detailed accounts from contemporary newspapers. Copies were sold at the Cornish Pumping Engine and Mining Museum in Iron Mountain. Few people bought them. The farmers who live near Foster City today might not recognize Oscar Johnson’s name.

The highway sign is there, but most people drive past without stopping. Cars speed through the crossroads without slowing down. The stone memorial stands near the road, but no one stops to read it. Those who knew Oscar in his later years said he never talked about the war. Not to his family, not to his friends, not to anyone.

He would attend Good Friday services at his church in DeWitt. At the end of the service, when congregants were invited to approach the cross at the altar, Oscar would walk forward with his slight limp. He did not bow. He did not touch the cross. He did not kiss it. He gave it a quiet, respectful soldier’s salute.

Then he walked back to his pew. Once a reporter asked him about the Medal of Honor. Oscar thought for a moment. Then he said, “The citation makes me sound a little better than I was.” That was Oscar Johnson, a shy, freckled dairy farmer from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Good at everything he tried, held the left flank of his company for 48 hours against five companies of elite German paratroopers, killed or wounded more than 200 enemy soldiers, walked away without a scratch.

Then he went home, married a local girl, raised five children, and never talked about it again. The men who attacked his position that night were some of the best soldiers Germany had. They had fought at Anzio. They had held Monte Cassino. They had been the last unit to leave Rome, and they could not break through a single dairy farmer in a shallow foxhole.

 Oscar Johnson did not think he was a hero. He thought he was just doing his job. But for 48 hours on a rocky ridge in Italy, one man held the line that saved his company. One man stood when everyone else had fallen. One man faced the darkness alone and did not break. That is what heroes do, even if they never talk about it.