James Ernest Karnes

James Ernest "Buck" Karnes was a Sergeant in the United States Army who received the Medal of Honor for his actions near Estrees, France on October 8, 1918 during World War I.

James Ernest Karnes
Medal of Honor recipient
Born(1889-07-20)July 20, 1889
Arlington, Tennessee, US
DiedJuly 8, 1966(1966-07-08) (aged 76)
AllegianceUnited States
Service/branchUnited States Army
RankSergeant
UnitU.S. 117th Infantry Regiment
Battles/warsWorld War I
*Meuse-Argonne Offensive
Awards Medal of Honor
Silver Star

Biography

James Ernest "Buck" Karnes (July 20, 1889–July 8, 1966), was born in Arlington, Tennessee and grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee. Karnes entered active duty with the United States Army's 117th Regiment from the Tennessee National Guard during World War I. On October 8, 1918 during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, Karnes' company was stopped near Estrées, France by a German machine gun position. Karnes and Private Calvin John Ward, deciding they had "had all they could take" of this situation, fixed bayonets, charged and captured the position. This freed their company to advance against German lines in the last major offensive of the war. Both men received the Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism in this action.

The Alcoa Highway (U.S. Route 129) bridge over the Tennessee River in Knoxville is named after Karnes.

Medal of Honor citation

Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company D, 117th Infantry, 30th Division. Place and date: Near Estrees, France, October 8, 1918. Entered service at: Knoxville, Tenn. Born: 1889, Arlington, Tenn. G.O. No.: 50, W.D., 1919.

Citation:

During an advance, his company was held up by a machinegun, which was enfilading the line. Accompanied by another soldier, he advanced against this position and succeeded in reducing the nest by killing 3 and capturing 7 of the enemy and their guns.

gollark: When it finds a wikilink, it uses algorithms™ and the full text of the paragraph to generate a short snippet of context.
gollark: And the page parsing logic iterates over the markdown AST, and uses the accursed wikilink regex to find wikilinks.
gollark: So, pages are now parsed on save, right.
gollark: Safety will tend toward 0 and minoteaur progress will progress inevitably (I just made context work).
gollark: It will be a glorious day of gollariosity.

See also

References
  • "Regimental History & Lineage - 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment". Archived from the original on 2009-10-25. Retrieved September 29, 2010.
  • "East Tennessee Medal of Honor recipients" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on September 29, 2007. Retrieved September 29, 2010.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.