McKenzie: Chubby getting high French honor

In 1942, Carl D. Proffitt Jr. started on an extended European vacation, sailing to England on the Queen Mary, spending a memorable day on a beach in France and touring Normandy’s scenic hedgerows and fields on his way to Germany.

Now, to venerate his time, the French are awarding him the Ordre National de la Légion d'honneur, chevalier class — The Legion of Honor.

“A friend of mine who knew my story applied on my behalf a year ago or so and it came through,” said the easy-going Charlottesville resident still saddled with his childhood nickname, Chubby. “The award was created by Napoleon and it’s a pretty high honor. [The French] have been recognizing some of us [World War II veterans] and it means a lot.”

On Feb. 15, Mr. Proffitt will join other Americans at the French Embassy in Washington to receive the award for his effort at liberating Europe — especially France — from the Nazis.

Upon his return, his friends at Shadwell’s American Legion Post 74 will throw a congratulatory reception.

The Legion of Honor award was created after the French Revolution to recognize military and civilian personnel of all ranks and professions. Birthright and bank account do not matter, only merit and bravery do, and Mr. Proffitt showed much of each.

Mr. Proffitt joined the U.S. Army National Guard in the late 1930s to earn a little extra money. Called to active duty after Pearl Harbor and rising to the rank of technical sergeant — three stripes on top, two on the bottom — while training in England, Mr. Proffitt led his platoon out of a Higgins boat onto French soil on D-Day at Omaha Beach.

They weren’t welcomed.

“The beach was covered by withering enemy rifle, machine gun and artillery fire,” reads the citation accompanying his Distinguished Service Cross, the award for gallantry that is one step below the Medal of Honor. “In spite of the great number of casualties that were being inflicted on his company, Sgt. Proffitt on a number of occasions fearlessly exposed himself to this intense fire in order to encourage and lead his troops across the beach.”

If the beach was hell, the road away from it was no bargain, either, Mr. Proffitt recalled to Cadet Ryan Koniak of the Virginia Military Institute in 2005. Seems a disabled American tank was blocking the one road that troops could use and a German machine gunner was pinning down the tankers and the troops.

“I said, ‘Well, I’m going to see what I can do about getting rid of that machine gun nest over there.’ I just kept my helmet and my rifle and went sailing off down the road there where this tank was and bullets were whizzing and ricocheting off that tank like you wouldn’t believe when I jumped up on it,” he told Cadet Koniak. “You could hear the bullets ricocheting down the road. I was lucky. I was real lucky. I did it on the spur of the moment. I jumped up on the tank and I told the tank commander, I said, ‘Swivel your turret around here and I’ll point out exactly where that machine gun nest is.’”

He did.

The tanker blew the machine gunner away.

“Then I went back up to my platoon and we got under way,” Mr. Proffitt recalled. “That’s probably the only way we got through there because we knocked that one heavy machine gun out.”

Three times Mr. Proffitt would be wounded as his unit rolled through France and Germany. Three times he returned to the unit, the last time with a fresh battlefield commission to lieutenant.

By the end of his time in France and Germany, Mr. Proffitt would accumulate three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and two Bronze Stars, plus a variety of ribbons and awards besides the Distinguished Service Cross and his commission.

“People asked if I was afraid and I told them anyone who says they weren’t is either lying or crazy. I didn’t need to use my trenching tool to dig a foxhole,” he joked. “I could just lie down and I was shaking so much that I’d dig a hole from fear.”

After all of these years, even for the Charlottesville area’s most decorated veteran, the Legion of Honor means a lot.

“It’s an honor to receive it and I understand that it’s quite important for the French to give out,” Mr. Proffitt said. “I did what I had to and was real lucky. Not everyone was.”