William White’s first Purple Heart was given on the Fourth of July, 1944, for a chest wound courtesy of a German machine pistol or "burp gun". Withe was fortunate to survive, the bullet being just a few inches from his heart, and fortunate also to kill the German who was doing the shooting.
The second wound on the same day as the first also received a Purple Heart. William White was hit by a grenade, with grenade fragments finding their way to his forehead.
On July 5, 1944, White was shot in his right forearm by a German rifle. This was the third Purple Heart.
Again, William White was hit by a grenade on July 6, 1944, which left grenade fragments in his right arm. This brings the total to four.
A shell fragment was delivered to William’s right shoulder by the Germans on July 6, 1944. This was his fifth Purple Heart.
July 7, 1944 marked the day of White’s sixth Purple Heart. He received extensive damage to his right arm due to a shell fragment while in action near Carentan, France. This wound finally sent him to the hospital unconscious.
Bill, as his friends call him, expressed this about his hospital stay: "When I woke up there was a beautiful, blue-eyed blonde angel standing there. I thought I had finally made it to heaven. It ended up being a nursing taking care of me."
William White received his first six Purple Hearts in four days, July 4, 5, 6 and 7, 1944. On July 4, his regiment (330th IR) started off with 36 officers and 734 enlisted men, but four days later there was only a remnant of 90 men left to fight the battle at Normandy.
Major White received a seventh Purple Heart for wounds received from another grenade fragment in Luxembourg.
His eighth Purple Heart was much more serious. December 10, 1944, when his battalion (1st Bn of the 330th IR) was attacking the town of Strass, Germany, a machine gun burst in his stomach was serious enough to have his last rites read to him.
His last and ninth Purple Heart given in World War II was for shell fragments received while in combat on the Elbe River in Germany.
The tenth and last Purple Heart was given for battle fought in the Korean War. A rifle bullet went through White’s third and fourth front ribs, through a lung, broke the fifth back rib and rickashayed in his chest and came out his right elbow.
William White for some years held the record for Purple Hearts but now is tied for the record.
