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Medal of Honor Recipient

Harold Leo Turner

U.S. Army · World War I

MOH-RC-001951Source-based record

The award

Representative medal image: 1904 Army design, early suspension ribbon. Not a portrait or a photograph of this recipient’s own medal.
Army Medal of HonorRecorded presentation: 1919

Portrait not yet available. Representative medal shown.

About this image

Representative form selected from the recorded presentation year (1919), not authenticated medal-object provenance.

Medal imagery and historical designs →

Medal of Honor

October 8, 1918

near St. Etienne, France

Rank at action
Corporal
Service
U.S. Army
Conflict
World War I
Unit or command
Company F, 142d Infantry, 36th Division
Presentation date
December 31, 1919

The Citation

Sources ↓
After his platoon had started the attack Cpl. Turner assisted in organizing a platoon consisting of the battalion scouts, runners, and a detachment of Signal Corps. As second in command of this platoon he fearlessly led them forward through heavy enemy fire, continually encouraging the men. Later he encountered deadly machinegun fire which reduced the strength of his command to but 4 men, and these were obliged to take shelter. The enemy machinegun emplacement, 25 yards distant, kept up a continual fire from 4 machineguns. After the fire had shifted momentarily, Cpl. Turner rushed forward with fixed bayonet and charged the position alone capturing the strong point with a complement of 50 Germans and 1 machineguns. His remarkable display of courage and fearlessness was instrumental in destroying the strong point, the fire from which had blocked the advance of his company.

Sources & record notes

General Order comparison: pending. Current-profile review does not mean that the underlying original order has been examined.

  1. Harold Leo Turner — current Society profile ↗Congressional Medal of Honor Society · Checked 2026-08-30

    current identity, service, action metadata, and citation comparison

Transcription, metadata & provenance notes
Award ID
MOH-AW-001961
Transcription status
Legacy full text · current reference profile matched
Last source check
2026-08-30
Recorded order reference (not verified against the original)
59
Later or highest recorded rank
Second Lieutenant
Entered service at
Seminole, Okla.
Archive transcription SHA-256
89c61a6d995c54c13c6aa51febb80854ac2d450b778a2343b581ced29a186bc9

Legacy transcription retained without substantive editing; rendered current reference profile variants documented in the Phase 10 evidence snapshot.

The current authoritative source expands or normalizes the inherited name from Harold L. Turner to Harold Leo Turner; both renderings remain preserved. The current profile supplies rank at time of action as Corporal; the inherited rank field remains preserved as None. The current profile records later or highest rank Second Lieutenant; it is stored separately from rank at time of action. The current historical action-place wording replaces only the controlled canonical geocoder field; the complete inherited place remains preserved. The current authoritative profile classifies the action under World War I; the inherited unclassified value remains preserved in the audit record.