VIPs

   Slide 17

John J. Tominac

JOHN J. TOMINAC (1922-1998)
was a first lieutenant with the 3rd Battalion, Company I, 15th Infantry Regiment and was from Conemaugh Township, Cambria County, Pennsylvania. He was awarded the Medal of Honor and Purple Heart in WWII. Tominac remained in the Army after World War II, reaching the rank of colonel and serving in both the Korean and Viet Nam Wars. The Maple Street Bridge in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in Cambria County, is named the Colonel John Joseph Tominac Memorial Bridge in his honor. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington County, Virginia.

He was awarded the Medal of Honor for action on September 12, 1944 in Saulx de Vesoul, France and it was presented to him in Nuremberg at the Zepplinfeld Stadium on April 22, 1945.

MEDAL OF HONOR CITATION:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty on September 12, 1944, in an attack on Saulx de Vesoul, France 1st Lt. Tominac charged alone over 50 yards of exposed terrain onto an enemy roadblock to dispatch a 3-man crew of German machine gunners with a single burst from his Thompson machinegun. After smashing the enemy outpost, he led 1 of his squads in the annihilation of a second hostile group defended by mortar, machinegun, automatic pistol, rifle and grenade fire, killing about 30 of the enemy. Reaching the suburbs of the town, he advanced 50 yards ahead of his men to reconnoiter a third enemy position which commanded the road with a 77-mm. SP gun supported by infantry elements. The SP gun opened fire on his supporting tank, setting it afire with a direct hit. A fragment from the same shell painfully wounded 1st Lt. Tominac in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. As the crew abandoned the M-4 tank, which was rolling down hill toward the enemy, 1st Lt. Tominac picked himself up and jumped onto the hull of the burning vehicle. Despite withering enemy machinegun, mortar, pistol, and sniper fire, which was ricocheting off the hull and turret of the M-4, 1st Lt. Tominac climbed to the turret and gripped the 50-caliber antiaircraft machinegun. Plainly silhouetted against the sky, painfully wounded, and with the tank burning beneath his feet, he directed bursts of machinegun fire on the roadblock, the SP gun, and the supporting German infantrymen, and forced the enemy to withdraw from his prepared position. Jumping off the tank before it exploded, 1st Lt. Tominac refused evacuation despite his painful wound. Calling upon a sergeant to extract the shell fragments from his shoulder with a pocketknife, he continued to direct the assault, led his squad in a hand grenade attack against a fortified position occupied by 32 of the enemy armed with machineguns, machine pistols, and rifles, and compelled them to surrender. His outstanding heroism and exemplary leadership resulted in the destruction of 4 successive enemy defensive positions, surrender of a vital sector of the city Saulx de Vesoul, and the death or capture of at least 60 of the enemy.