First Lieutenant Orville Bloch undertook the task of wiping out five enemy machine gun nests that had held up the advance of Allied Forces. Gathering three volunteers from his platoon, the patrol snaked its way to a big rock, behind which a group of three buildings and five machine gun nests were located. He attacked the first machine gun nest alone, charging into furious automatic fire, kicking over the machine gun, and capturing the machine gun crew of five.
Pulling the pin from a grenade, he held it ready in his hand and dashed into the face of withering automatic fire toward this second enemy machine gun nest located at the corner of an adjacent building 15 yards distant. When within 20 feet of the machine gun, he hurled the grenade, wounding the machine gunner, and the other two members of the crew fled into a door of the house. Calling one of his volunteer groups to accompany him, they advanced to the opposite end of the house, where they encountered a machine gun crew of five running toward the house. 1LT Bloch and his men opened fire on the enemy crew, forcing them to abandon the machine gun and ammunition and flee into the same house.
Without a moment's hesitation, 1LT Bloch, unassisted, rushed through the door into a hail of small-arms fire, firing his carbine from the hip, and captured the seven occupants, wounding three of them. The crew of six spotted 1LT Bloch the instant he saw them, and without a moment's hesitation, he dashed toward them. 1LT Bloch followed them through the door, firing his carbine from the hip, wounding two of the enemies and capturing six. Altogether, 1LT Bloch had single-handedly captured 19 prisoners, wounding six of them and eliminating a total of five enemy machinegun nests.
COL Orville Bloch was inducted into the Hall of Valor in 2011.
