Appalachian Figures
“A Native of Strunk, Kentucky”
On 30 October 1944 a young private from McCreary County held off wave after wave of elite German troops near the French village of Saint Jacques. For more than five hours he fired a single light machine gun, refusing to withdraw even when his company was nearly destroyed and his own ammunition was gone.
For that action Private Wilburn Kirby Ross of Company G, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division received the Medal of Honor, the highest decoration in the United States military. His official citation records that he earned it “for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty” near St Jacques, France.
The Congressional Medal of Honor Society lists Ross as born and accredited to Strunk in McCreary County, Kentucky. In other words, the man who stopped a German breakthrough in the Vosges Mountains came out of a tiny Appalachian community tucked along the Kentucky Tennessee line.
Growing Up In Strunk
Ross was born on 12 May 1922 in Strunk, one of the coal and timber communities on the south end of McCreary County. Like many farm families on the Cumberland Plateau, the Ross family lived in the mixed economy of small scale agriculture and wage work.
In later interviews Ross remembered growing up on a farm and learning to shoot as a boy. He would set a match in the crook of a tree and practice lighting it with a shot from his .22 rifle, a detail preserved in later biographical sketches. The National WWII Museum’s oral history summary notes simply that he “grew up in Strunk, Kentucky,” worked on a farm, and briefly tried coal mining when he turned eighteen.
Coal did not keep him long. Like many young men in McCreary County, he sampled the mines then left, an early example of the back and forth between underground work and other jobs that shaped Appalachian lives in the twentieth century. Before the war he also worked as a welder in a Virginia shipyard, another step in the migration of mountain labor into defense industries.
Drafted Into A Global War
Ross’s draft notice caught up with him in 1942. He entered the U S Army that November and trained as a machine gunner. He was assigned to the weapons platoon of Company G, 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, a unit that fought in some of the hardest campaigns in the European theater.
The division went first to North Africa. Ross saw combat in Morocco, then in the brutal slog up the Italian peninsula. Later accounts describe him being wounded by shrapnel more than once and even spending time lost behind enemy lines in freezing weather, suffering badly frozen feet before he could rejoin his unit.
In August 1944 the 3rd Division took part in Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France along the Riviera. From there the division pushed inland through the mountains of eastern France in a drive that would eventually help close the Colmar Pocket and secure the upper Rhine. Wilburn Ross, a farm kid from Strunk, moved with them.
Saint Jacques: Five Hours On The Gun
By late October 1944 Ross’s company was dug in near the village of Saint Jacques, facing an entrenched force of German Gebirgsjäger, elite mountain troops. What followed has been retold often in official histories and popular narratives, but all of them draw heavily on the wording of his Medal of Honor citation and the recollections of those who watched him fight.
On the morning of 30 October Company G attacked the German position and paid dearly. According to the citation and later summaries, the company lost fifty five of its eighty eight men by late morning. Survivors fell back and prepared for counterattacks. Ross placed his light machine gun about ten yards in front of the foremost riflemen, deliberately exposing himself so that his gun would take the punch of the first German assault.
Over the next several hours German forces launched assault after assault against that thin line. Artillery and small arms fire chewed up the ground around Ross. Enemy grenadiers crawled to within a few yards of his position. The Medal of Honor citation notes that he held off seven attacks, then an eighth, even as the riflemen behind him ran out of ammunition and began crawling forward to strip rounds from his machine gun belt.
At one point Ross himself was nearly out. He was urged to fall back to the company command post with the last eight riflemen, but he declined because more ammunition was supposed to be on the way. When it finally arrived the Germans were swarming toward his foxhole. Ross reloaded and cut loose again. Official accounts credit him with killing forty and wounding ten more in that final storm of fire, breaking the last German attack and forcing a withdrawal.
All told, the Medal of Honor citation estimates that he killed or wounded at least fifty eight enemy soldiers in more than five hours of fighting and remained at his post for a total of thirty six hours. His exhausted company survived, and the line held.
Years later, when asked how he kept going through such a barrage, Ross gave a simple answer. In one recollection preserved in later interviews he said, “I had to do something. If I did not do something they would kill me.”
A Medal Presented On Hitler’s Parade Ground
Six months after Saint Jacques, on 23 April 1945, Ross and four other members of the 3rd Infantry Division received the Medal of Honor during a ceremony at Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg, once the site of enormous Nazi rallies. Lieutenant General Alexander Patch presented the medals in a stadium still scarred by bombing. For a Kentucky private who had grown up on a hillside farm, it was an almost unimaginable setting.
The citation that came with the medal repeated the language now familiar from so many Medal of Honor stories, praising his “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty” as a machine gunner near St Jacques.
From War’s End Back To The Mountains
When the war in Europe ended Ross returned to Kentucky, where he briefly worked a government job and then served with the Kentucky Highway Authority. A Saturday Evening Post profile later emphasized how close his upbringing had been to that of another famous mountain soldier, Sergeant Alvin York of Tennessee, whose home lay only about thirty miles away across the state line.
Ross’s homecoming to Strunk drew crowds. Contemporary accounts described a reception in which Kentucky’s Governor Simeon Willis and the already legendary Alvin York both helped honor the young private from McCreary County who had matched the older sergeant’s reputation for stubborn courage.
Like many veterans of the “Greatest Generation,” Ross reenlisted rather than return fully to civilian life. He went back into uniform and later saw combat again in Korea, where he was wounded after only a short time at the front. He remained in the Army until 1964, retiring as a master sergeant.
DuPont, Washington And A Quiet Life
After his military retirement Ross eventually settled in DuPont, Washington, near Fort Lewis. There he worked at a veterans hospital and in a local factory, raised six children with his wife Monica, and stayed active in veterans’ organizations.
Local histories from Washington state describe how the town named a park and memorial for Ross and placed his Medal of Honor citation on the monument. In 1963 he joined other Medal of Honor recipients at a White House reception hosted by President John F. Kennedy, an event captured in the widely reproduced photograph of Kennedy shaking Ross’s hand.
In 2010 France awarded Ross the Légion d’honneur, the country’s highest decoration, in recognition of his role in Operation Dragoon and the liberation of French territory.
When Senator Mitch McConnell rose on the Senate floor in 2017 to remember Ross after his death, he noted that Ross had turned down offers to have Hollywood dramatize his story. The McCreary County native seemed content to let others wear the word “hero” while he went about the ordinary work of a husband, father, and retired noncommissioned officer.
Ross died in Tacoma, Washington, on 9 May 2017, only three days before his ninety fifth birthday. He is buried at Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent, Washington, where his Veterans Legacy Memorial record lists his service in both World War II and Korea and notes his decorations, including the Medal of Honor, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart.
Remembering Ross In McCreary County
Although Ross spent much of his later life in Washington state, he never forgot his home county and it never forgot him.
In a 2013 Senate tribute, McConnell described Ross as a “native of Strunk, Kentucky” who returned almost every year around his birthday. Ross himself explained why in simple terms. “Everybody here treats me well,” he said of McCreary County.
Public records from Kentucky and federal agencies show his name woven into the geography of his home county. In 1978 a section of U S Route 27 in McCreary County was designated in his honor, and more recent Kentucky Transportation Cabinet documents refer to “WILBURN K ROSS HIGHWAY (KY 92)” in McCreary County construction projects. The Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area lists its Stearns ranger station address as 300 Wilburn K Ross Highway, a quiet testament to how his name anchors both local infrastructure and modern tourism into the Big South Fork gorge.
Child friendly encyclopedias and reference sites now routinely identify him as “Wilburn K. Ross of McCreary County” and note that a Kentucky highway carries his name. Kiddle’s biography of Ross, based on multiple sources, also records his induction into the inaugural class of the Kentucky Veterans Hall of Fame in 2014.
Congressional tributes and postal issues have carried his story far beyond the Cumberland Plateau. In 2013 the U S Postal Service released a set of World War II Medal of Honor Forever stamps; one of the portraits used on the cover set is Ross. That same year both the House and Senate recorded his name in the Congressional Record as part of a roll call and as the subject of formal tributes.
Yet for McCreary Countians, the most important memorial may still be the highway sign and the stories passed along in families who remember “Kirby” Ross as a neighbor from Strunk who went to war and came back decorated but unassuming.
An Appalachian Soldier’s Story
Wilburn Kirby Ross’s life traces a familiar Appalachian arc, stretched out over a century of upheaval from the Depression through two world wars and the Cold War. He grew up on a hillside farm, sampled coal mining, and followed war work out of the mountains. When drafted he took with him the marksmanship and stubbornness he had honed in the woods around Strunk.
On a French hillside he turned those skills into a one man stand that saved what remained of his company. For that he wore the pale blue ribbon of the Medal of Honor, met presidents, and collected decorations from foreign governments. Yet he kept returning to McCreary County for his birthday, content to let the highway sign and a few words in the Congressional Record speak for his place in history.
In telling Ross’s story, Appalachian historians are reminded how often global events pivot on quiet people from out of the way places. The boy who once lit matches with a .22 rifle in the trees above Strunk grew into the man who held a line alone in the Vosges. His life links the coal camps and farms of McCreary County to the shattered parade grounds of Nuremberg and the evergreen cemetery slopes of Washington state, a journey that makes his name worthy of the highway that carries it and the hills that raised him.
Sources & Further Reading
Congressional Medal of Honor Society, “Wilburn Kirby Ross,” official Medal of Honor entry with full citation and biographical details. Congressional Medal of Honor Society
United States Army Center of Military History, “Medal of Honor Recipients, World War II (M S),” official War Department listing of Ross’s award. Wikipedia
National WWII Museum, “Ross, Wilburn,” oral history interview and segment summaries. WWII Online
U S Department of Defense, “Medal of Honor Monday: Army Pvt. Wilburn Ross,” feature story summarizing his combat record and later life. U.S. Department of War
Veterans Legacy Memorial, “WILBURN K ROSS,” Department of Veterans Affairs memorial page confirming his dates, rank, awards, and burial at Tahoma National Cemetery. VLM
U S Senate, “TRIBUTE TO WILBURN K. ROSS” and “REMEMBERING WILBURN K. ROSS,” Congressional Record tributes that emphasize his Strunk, Kentucky origins, repeated visits home, and the highway named in his honor. Congress.gov+1
U S House of Representatives, “Roll Call of Heroes,” Congressional Record entry including Ross among World War II Medal of Honor recipients. Wikipedia
Matt Schudel, “Wilburn Ross, who received Medal of Honor for heroism in WWII, dies at 94,” Washington Post, 11 May 2017. Wikipedia
Regional coverage of his death and life in DuPont, Washington, including The Olympian and other local outlets, as summarized in later biographical overviews. U.S. Department of War+1
HistoryLink.org, “Wilburn K. Ross is awarded the Medal of Honor on April 14, 1945,” Washington state historical essay with detailed narrative of his life and commemoration in DuPont. HistoryLink
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, project listings referencing “WILBURN K ROSS HIGHWAY (KY 92)” in McCreary County. HeraldNet
Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area and regional tourism guides listing addresses along Wilburn K Ross Highway in Stearns, Kentucky. Kiddle
Andrew Stillman Phipps, “Private Wilburn Kirby Ross: An American Hero,” Saturday Evening Post, 2010. KIRO 7 News Seattle
Tim Lucas, “WWII Medal of Honor Recipient Wilburn K. Ross: His Life and Story,” MilitaryVALoan.com, based on a direct interview with Ross. Wikipedia+1
Tara Ross, “This Day in History: Wilburn K. Ross’s One Man Stand,” TaraRoss.com, 2025, which synthesizes earlier coverage and cites 1940s and 2010 era newspaper sources. Taraross
“This Is Why We Stand: Wilburn K. Ross,” memorial article collecting Ross’s recollections about the Saint Jacques action and his response to fear. Wikipedia
“Wilburn K. Ross,” Wikipedia, and derivative summaries such as Kiddle’s “Wilburn K. Ross facts for kids,” which compile key dates, honors, and the Route 27 designation and Kentucky Veterans Hall of Fame induction. Wikipedia+1