Milo Lemert
First Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company G, 119th Infantry, 30th Division. For actions near Bellicourt, France.
September 29, 1918
Born in Marshalltown, lowa, on March 25, 1890, Lemert entered service in his hometown of Crossville, TN. The American Legion Post in Savannah, TN, is named for him. Savannah's Milo Lemert Memorial Bridge was dedicated in 1930 and served the area until it was taken down in 1980. The new bridge, dedicate din 1981, was named the Harrison-McGarity Bridge in honor of two other Hardin County Medal recipients. The area Post Office is now the Milo Lemert Memorial Building. In 1991, the Tennessee Department of Transportation announced that the bypass around Crossville would be designated the Sergeant Milo Lemert Memorial Parkway.
On Sept. 29, 1918, near Bellicourt, France, the left flank of Lemert's company was under fire from a machine gun emplacement causing heavy casualties. Lemert found the location of the gun and, under heavy fire, he rushed it single-handed, one man against the machine gun. He killed the entire enemy crew with grenades and continued along the enemy trench ahead of his company. He charged again, silencing the second gun with grenades. When a third gun emplacement opened up on him from the left, he destroyed it as well. With another sergeant, he then attacked a fourth machine gun nest and was killed as he reached the emplacement. His courageous action and skill against the enemy guns prevented many casualties in his company.
Less than two months before he was killed, Lemert wrote to his mother, "I am a pretty good soldier and am proud of it....As for me I can shut my eyes and dream such sweet dreams of Tenn. that I am sure I will have to be chained in heaven if I do get bumped off in No man’s Land."
After Milo's death, his brother and fellow soldier Nathan Lemert, wrote to their mother, "There is no use to grieve, tho Mama...He died like a man and hero. No one can die a braver death than he did...Every man in the company loved him and would do anything for him...His last words were, ‘I am finished, boys, give them hell.’...I helped bury him. We put him with the rest of our boys who were killed."
