LTC Matt Urban: America’s Most Decorated Combat Veteran of World War II
Lieutenant Colonel Matt Urban, born Matthew Louis Urbanowicz, (1919 – 1995) shares with Audie Murphy the distinction of being the most decorated American combat veteran of World War 2. Earning more medals for valor than the legendary Murphy, he was awarded 29 U.S., French, and Belgian medals including the Medal of Honor. When Army officials discovered they mistakenly had overlooked awarding the Medal of Honor to Urban, they notified President Carter, who presented it to him 35 years after his remarkable combat achievements. His Medal of Honor commendation cited ten separate acts of bravery that spanned almost the entire Normandy campaign. He was wounded seven times in 20 months and returned to the front each time but the last. His ability to return again and again from near-fatal wounds led the Germans to dub him “the Ghostâ€. His combat career was distinguished not only by great personal courage but also by his ability to inspire similar bravery in the men he led.
Matt Urban’s Biography
Born in Buffalo, NY, to Polish immigrants, he graduated from Cornell University in 1941 and immediately entered the U.S. Army. He first went into combat in 1942 when he made the beach landing under fire in Operation Torch, the U.S-British invasion of French North Africa. Although wounded in Tunisia, he refused to be evacuated and instead led a combat patrol. Having destroyed a German observation post, Urban led his men in a frontal assault on a fortified enemy position. During a German counterattack, he killed an enemy soldier with his trench knife, then took the man’s machine gun and wiped out the rest of the oncoming Germans. He was wounded a second time by grenade shrapnel.
LTC Matt Urban
In 1943, he was in combat during the invasion of Sicily. The Germans were entrenched in a fortified mountain stronghold, which obstructed the advancement of U.S. forces. Urban’s unit was given the mission of crossing the mountains undetected to flank the Germans. His unit successfully snuck soldiers with pack-mules in single file during the night, which caught the Germans off guard and caused them to retreat to the next line of defense. Urban was then sent back to England for a rest and to re-equip and train for the Normandy invasion.
Urban in uniform wearing his belated Medal of Honor
In June, 1944, Urban landed on Utah Beach at Normandy and attacked German positions. When his company was hit by heavy enemy small arms and tank fire, Urban picked up a bazooka after the bazooka gunner was shot and ran through the hedgerows with his ammo carrier to a point near the oncoming tanks. Exposing himself to the enemy, he knocked out two Panzer tanks, which enabled the company to move forward and route the enemy. Later that day, while advancing forward, Urban was struck in the left leg by shrapnel from a German tank who spotted and aimed towards him before he could fire the bazooka. Urban refused to be evacuated after a medic attended him and continued directing his company from position to position while being carried by his men sitting on a litter. The next day, he was again wounded. The battalion doctor who treated him in the field had him evacuated to a hospital surgical tent where Urban underwent surgery on his left calf by doctors using lanterns for light. Urban was then shipped to England for further treatment. Recovering at a hospital in England in July 1944, he learned that his unit had been taking severe losses in the hedgerows of France and were lacking experienced combat officers. In order to go back to his men instead of going back to the U.S. because of his leg injury, he took charge of training forty soldiers near the hospital who were soon being sent to Normandy. He then shrewdly managed to leave with them on a troop carrier.
Arriving near St. Lô, France, Urban, limping with a stick he made as a cane, found that his unit was pinned down by German machine guns and an anti-tank gun. He located another American support tank that was still operable but the turret gunner had been wounded. Urban crawled alongside the tank and got to the tank turret under fire. He ordered the tank driver to advance in high gear and, as the tank jumped off, he manned the machine gun and placed devastating fire on the German machine gun emplacement. This rallied the battalion behind Urban into a unified assault. He then destroyed more machine gun positions and his unit overran the Germans lines with hand-to-hand fighting, which caused a number of German soldiers to surrender. The battalion commander witnessed Urban’s actions at his command post from another hill with his binoculars and recommended Urban for the Medal of Honor. Unfortunately, the commander later died in combat and his commendation was somehow misplaced on its way through the administrative chain. Fortunately, the Medal of Honor commendation was discovered 35 years later.
In August 1944, Urban was wounded in the chest by a shell fragment that narrowly missed his heart. He again refused to be evacuated to a hospital. When the battalion commander was then killed in action at Cherbourg, Urban was given command. Two weeks later, Urban was wounded again by shrapnel but remained with his unit.
In September 1944, Urban’s battalion was in Belgium and was ordered to attack the Germans in the village of Philippeville, Belgium, which was well-defended with machine guns, tanks, and antiaircraft guns. Urban attacked the next day and, while charging at a forward enemy machine gun emplacement with two grenades, he was shot through the neck, leaving his larynx permanently disabled. One of Urban’s men got to him and immediately plugged and bandaged his two neck wounds. Another soldier arrived and both then dragged Urban one hundred yards to a muddy ditch while under fire from another German machine gun. After the battalion doctor and chaplain arrived at the ditch, the doctor gave Urban plasma and did a tracheotomy on him. The chaplain gave Urban last rites after the doctor nodded to him that he would not live. Urban of course did live and recovered with damaged vocal cords that left him raspy-voiced to the end of his days.
President Carter awarding the belated Medal of Honor to Urban as his wife, Jenny, and daughter Jennifer, look on
Urban’s first marriage was to Shirley “Shirl†Holmes and lasted 25 years. Urban’s second wife Jenny said she never knew of his exploits until after they wed, when she happened to open a drawer where he had stashed some things. “There were all these medals,†she recalled. “I said, ‘What is all this?’†Efforts are now underway to have his image printed on a stamp of the United States Postal Service.
Urban’s gravestone at Arlington National Cemetery. He is buried in Section 7-A, near both theMemorial Amphitheater and the Tomb of the Unknowns
