World War II Medal of Honor recipient Walter Ehlers, hero of Normandy invasion, dead at 92
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World War II Medal of Honor recipient Walter D. Ehlers (EE'-lurz) has died in California at age 92.
Ehlers's wife, Dorothy says her husband of 58 years died Thursday at a hospital in Long Beach. The cause was kidney failure.
In 1944, Ehlers was a 23-year-old Army staff sergeant when the Allies invaded the beaches of France in some of the war's deadliest fighting.
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According to his Medal of Honor citation, he killed seven enemy soldiers, knocked out two machine-gun nests and rescued a wounded comrade despite being shot in the back.
His older brother, Roland, died during the D-Day invasion.
Ehlers moved to California from his native Kansas after the war and worked for many years as a Veterans Administration benefits counselor.
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He took part in numerous D-Day memorials.