On the afternoon of June 6, 1944, Staff Sergeant Harrison Summers of the 1st Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, was ordered to clear a row of stone buildings along Exit 4 from Utah Beach, near the village of Mésières. The buildings — code-named "WXYZ" — were being used as a German barracks and defensive position.

The soldiers assigned to Summers were mostly strangers — men from mixed units who had been gathered together in the chaos of the airborne drop. Many had never been in combat before. When Summers pointed at the fortified buildings and ordered the attack, nobody moved.

Alone Against Stone Walls

So Summers went alone. He ran to the first building, kicked in the door, and sprayed the interior with his Thompson submachine gun, killing four German soldiers. He moved to the next building and repeated the process. Then the next.

Building by building, Summers fought his way down the row. At some point, a single private — John Camien — joined him and began providing covering fire. But most of the assault on each building was Summers alone: running, kicking, firing.

At the largest building — a German mess hall — Summers found approximately 15 German soldiers eating a meal. He opened fire through the window. When he entered, a German officer came at him with a knife. Summers shot him.

By the end, Summers had personally cleared the entire complex, killing approximately 30 German soldiers. His hands were numb from the Thompson's recoil. "I don't know why," he told Captain Cassidy afterward. "They were just there and somebody had to get them out."

Colonel Robert Cole, who observed the assault, later told reporters that Summers's actions reminded him of the legendary Alvin York's exploits in World War I. Summers was nominated for the Medal of Honor but received the Distinguished Service Cross instead — wartime medal quotas being what they were.

After the war, Summers rarely spoke about June 6. He died in 1983.