![]() Rivers and his men waited that night as combat engineers constructed a bridge into Guebling. “You’re going back!” Turning to his team, the captain said, “Medics, get the stretcher.”īut Rivers knocked aside the morphine needle and struggled to his feet, saying “This is one order, the only order I’ll ever disobey.” Pushing past the stunned captain, Sergeant Rivers went over to another tank, ordered out the sergeant commanding it, and climbed aboard to take his place just as German mortar fire zeroed in, forcing the men on the ground to scatter. “I’m giving you a direct order!” Williams yelled. “Captain, you’re going to need me,” Rivers said back through gritted teeth. You’ve got a Silver Star and Purple Heart.” “Ruben, you’re going back,” Williams said. I could have told my sergeant to hold him down.” Williams stood beside Rivers “with the morphine needle in my right hand about a half inch from Sergeant Rivers’s leg. A medic radioed for the sergeant to be evacuated and tried to inject him with morphine. He was in agony, gripping his leg which had been torn open to the bone. ![]() A medical team that arrived on the spot a short time later found Rivers on the ground behind the tank. But Rivers continued.Įntering town, the lead Sherman rolled over a German anti-tank mine, which exploded with tremendous force and nearly flipped the vehicle on its side. As they crested a rise, the Shermans came under German artillery fire, which knocked out one of the American tanks. Approaching the town, Able Company’s eleven tanks split into two platoons, one of them led by Rivers. Wrecked tanks of the 4th Armored littered the roads and fields across which the Black Panthers advanced. On November 16, Rivers led the tanks of Able Company alongside GIs of the 26th Infantry Division toward the town of Guebling, which the 4th Armored Division had tried and failed to take some time earlier.
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