HOW PFC ALBANESE TOOK OUT 6 SNIPERS ALONE
On December 1, 1966, PFC Lewis Albanese’s company was on a foot patrol in South Vietnam as part of a training mission. Exercises like this in the relatively safe rear area, away from the front line, were nothing unusual. What the soldiers did not know: some time before, North Vietnamese troops had moved into the area undetected and set a well-hidden ambush.
When the enemy suddenly opened fire, the Americans were caught off guard, but they reorganized fast and PFC Albanese was given the job of securing his platoon’s left flank. Fire then came in on that flank as well, from an enemy trench nobody had located until that moment. Several snipers had the platoon pinned down. Albanese saw the danger, fixed his bayonet and jumped into the trench alone to take on the enemy and give his platoon room to maneuver. Working his way along it, he found himself inside a wide, well-built system of positions that the enemy had dug long before and camouflaged perfectly. Still on his own, Albanese covered more than 100 meters in that trench, ran into enemy contact every few meters and took out 6 snipers in total. When his ammunition was gone he switched to his bayonet and kept moving through the trench, level with his platoon. He was finally killed in close combat against several North Vietnamese, but not before he had mortally wounded two of them.
PFC Albanese’s selfless action saved the lives of many of his comrades, who would otherwise have fallen to that sniper fire. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart, and a street in the Italian village where he was born was named after him.
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