Report on a Hero

The mountain road out of the Alsatian village of Climbach was crawling with German supply trucks. Climbach had to be taken; a task force of infantrymen, tanks and tank destroyers of the 103rd Division set out to do the job. In a scout car, jouncing along at the head of the little column, was Lieut. Charles Thomas, a Negro company commander in the Negro 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion.

Thomas' car was on the crest of a hill when the Germans opened up on them. Thomas was wounded, but he grabbed the car's .50-caliber machine gun and raked the woods and the buildings ahead while his wounded companions crawled away. When Thomas followed them, he was struck again in the chest, legs, arms.

Badly wounded as he was, he ordered the emplacement of two antitank guns, called his junior officer and gave him cool and careful directions for bringing other guns into position to blast out the enemy. Only after he had everything in order did he allow himself to be carried from the fireswept hilltops. Climbach was taken.

Last week 24-year-old Charles Thomas, of Detroit, Mich., onetime metal pourer and molder at Ford, now a captain, became the first living Negro to get the Distinguished Service Cross in World War II. The only other Negro to get the D.S.C. in this war: Private George Watson, who gave his life helping men to safety from a sinking boat off New Guinea two years ago.

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