Captain Alexander R. Skinker, U.S. Army, Medal of Honor Recipient

Skinker of 138th Infantry, 35th Division was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Cheppy France on September 26, 1918.

Citation:

Unwilling to sacrifice his men when his company was held up by terrific machinegun fire from iron pill boxes in the Hindenburg Line, Capt. Skinker personally led an automatic rifleman and a carrier in an attack on the machineguns. The carrier was killed instantly, but Capt. Skinker seized the ammunition and continued through an opening in the barbed wire, feeding the automatic rifle until he, too, was killed.

 

Courtesy of the Missouri History Museum