Fort Hamilton hosts medal ceremony for D-Day veteran and ex-POW
A veteran of D-Day came to the Fort Hamilton Army Base on June 28 to receive three decorations he should have been given 78 years ago.
The Dept. of the Army gave 97-year-old William Kellerman the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War Medal for his actions in France during World War II.
Pvt. First Class Kellerman was 19 when he landed on Utah Beach in Normandy in 1944. On July 4, while on a mission to contact his battalion headquarters, he stumbled upon a Nazi tank and was captured. While en route to a POW camp, he snuck away from his captors during a nighttime rest stop. He ran to a nearby farmhouse, borrowed an unattended bicycle and rode about 600 miles to a bike shop, which turned out to be a front and hideaway for the French Resistance.