Badass Report: Master Sgt Vito Bertoldo
48 hours of killing Germans with no rest… a serious Badass
On Jan 10th, 1945, US Army Master Sgt Vito Bertoldo was maybe the bravest man in France that day. While defending an outpost in the village of Hatten France against a massive German armored and infantry assault, he left the protection of the building and set up his belt-fed in the street to cover his unit’s retreat. Essentially alone for 12 hours he stayed and drove back the attacks in basically full view of machinegun and 88mm counterfire, taking out every Nazi he could spot.
Things really got hairy as the tanks moved up, so he moved back into his unit’s building and strapped his machinegun to a table by a window to keep up the pressure from cover. The Nazi’s brought up a tank and from only 75 yards away, put a round directly on him, blasting him across the room. But Sgt Bertoldo would not go away, and waited quietly as the tank led the infantry close to his location, then popping up in a window, he took out every one of them, killing over 20.
Moving to another building he kept up the machinegun fire for another day, until the German’s were able to get an 88mm within a few feet of his building, and putting the muzzle almost directly in his window, and blasting him across the room again. But even as dazed as he was, he went back to his gun and killed more Nazis for the rest of the day.
Another day and another wave of Germans came, this time Sgt Vito was down to grenades, and still pushed the enemy back. Then came another wave and another tank round into Vito’s holdout, and again he was blown across the room, and again he grabbed a rifle and stayed in the fight. Finally the town was abandoned, all US troops retreated thanks to Sgt Vito Bertoldo who withstood more than 48 hours straight without rest, escaping death repeatedly, and killing more than 40 Germans, wounding countless more. He was a serious Badass, and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his courage.