This Farm Boy Fixed a Jammed Machine-Gun — And Changed the Battle

September 13, 1944. 0430 hours, Hill 265, west of Nancy, France. The Browning M 1919. A four machine gun had been firing continuously for 17 minutes when Private First Class James Robert McKinley heard the sound every machine gunner dreaded. The steady bark of 30 caliber rounds suddenly became an irregular stutter, then stopped completely.
In the darkness, broken only by tracer fire and exploding mortars, the 19-year-old farm boy from Iowa found himself staring at 600 lb of jammed steel that was supposed to be protecting his company from a German counterattack that threatened to overrun their position. Through the pre-dawn darkness, McKinley could hear the distinctive sound of German voices shouting orders less than 200 yards away.
The second battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, had seized this hilltop after 36 hours of continuous fighting, but now elements of the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division were attempting to retake it before American forces could consolidate their position. The platoon’s other machine gun had been destroyed by a direct mortar hit 20 minutes earlier.
McKinley’s weapon was now the only automatic fire preventing German infantry from reaching the American foxholes. His assistant gunner, Private Eddie Kowolski from Chicago, was already dead, killed by the same artillery barrage that had showered the gun position with dirt and debris. His ammunition bearer had been wounded and evacuated.
McKinley was alone with a weapon that had suddenly become a 400 lb paperweight at the exact moment when 600 German soldiers were advancing up the hillside. What happened in the next four minutes would not only save McKinley’s company, but would demonstrate how American training, industrial quality, and individual initiative combined to create soldiers capable of extraordinary performance under impossible pressure.
The farm boy, who had never seen a machine gun until 9 months earlier, was about to apply lessons learned fixing tractors in Marshall County, Iowa, to solve a problem that military training manuals said required an armorer to repair. The path that brought James Robert McKinley to Hill 265 began on March 7th, 1925 on a 160 acre farm outside Marshalltown, Iowa.
The second of four children born to Robert and Mary McKinley, James grew up during the depression, learning early that survival required making do with whatever resources were available. The McKinley farm operated with equipment that was often decades old, held together through improvisation and mechanical ingenuity. By age 12, James was responsible for maintaining the farm’s aging farmal F20 tractor, a 1924 model that required constant adjustment and repair.
The nearest mechanic was 14 mi away in Marshall Town, a journey the family could rarely afford during harvest season. Young James learned to diagnose problems by sound, to understand mechanical systems through touch and observation, to solve problems with whatever tools were immediately available.
His father, Robert McKinley, a veteran of the First World War who had served with the 42nd Rainbow Division in France, taught his son that machines were logical. They did what you told them if you understood their language. When something stopped working, it was because something had broken, something had shifted out of alignment, or something had gotten where it did not belong.
Find that something, fix it, and the machine would work again. This mechanical philosophy would prove more valuable than any formal education. James attended Marshalltown High School through his junior year before dropping out in 1942 to help run the farm when his older brother enlisted in the Navy. He spent that year maintaining equipment that should have been replaced decades earlier, keeping the farm productive while his father aged and his younger siblings were too young for heavy work.
The draft notice arrived April 15th, 1943. James Robert McKinley, now 18 years old, was ordered to report for induction at Fort Dodge, Iowa on May 3rd. Basic training at Camp Walters, Texas, lasted 13 weeks. McKinley proved an excellent marksman, qualifying as expert with the M1 Garand rifle. But his real distinction came during weapons familiarization.
During machine gun training in week seven, the instructors demonstrated the Browning M1919A4. When the gun suddenly jammed during a demonstration, McKinley approached the instructor after the malfunction was cleared. Sergeant, that jam happened because the buffer spring is worn. You can hear it bottoming out before the bolt finishes its travel.
The recoil spring is also weak. That is why it is short stroking on the return. Sergeant Firstclass Theodore Bronky, a decorated veteran of Casserine Pass and Sicily, stared at the Iowa farm boy. How the hell do you know that? Sounds just like my dad’s tractor when the valve springs got weak. Same rhythm, same failure pattern.
The timing is off because Warren Springs cannot return the moving parts fast enough. Bronky fieldstripped the machine gun and discovered McKinley was correct. The instructor made a note in McKinley’s training file. Exceptional mechanical aptitude recommend for specialist training. But the note went nowhere. The army needed riflemen for the European theater.
And Private McKinley continued through the infantry pipeline. By December 1943, Private James Robert McKinley was ready for assignment to a combat unit. The journey to Europe began January 8th, 1944. The crossing took 9 days through submarineinfested waters. McKinley spent most of the voyage below decks in compartments packed with hundreds of men, learning to sleep despite the constant noise and motion, adapting to the military culture of hurry up and wait.
In early March, he received orders assigning him to the 26th Infantry Regiment, First Infantry Division, the Big Red One. At that moment, preparing for what would become the invasion of Normandy. McKinley joined the regiment at their training area near Dorchester on March 9th, 1944. The first infantry division was a veteran formation that had fought in North Africa, Sicily, and Solerno.
But by early 1944, casualties had depleted the division’s experienced personnel. Replacements like McKinley filled ranks that would soon face the most ambitious amphibious operation in history. If you are finding this story compelling, make sure to subscribe to the channel. We bring you incredible true stories from history every week.
stories of courage, innovation, and extraordinary individuals who change the course of events. Hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications so you do not miss any of these remarkable tales. The first infantry division landed on Omaha Beach on June 6th, 1944. Private McKinley, assigned as an ammunition bearer to a machine gun squad in Company E, Second Battalion 26th Infantry, waited ashore at 0715, directly into the firestorm that would make Omaha Beach synonymous with American sacrifice.
McKinley’s squad leader, Sergeant William Patterson, was killed by machine gunfire within minutes of landing. The squad’s machine gunner, Corporal James Rodriguez, was wounded severely by artillery fragments as they reached the seaw wall. McKinley, the ammunition bearer with the least training on the weapon, suddenly found himself promoted to machine gunner by battlefield necessity.
Under intense fire, McKinley and his new assistant gunner, Private Eddie Kowalsski, dragged their Browning M1919 A4 to a position behind a disabled Sherman tank. For the next 4 hours, they provided covering fire for infantry attempting to advance through the German defenses. McKinley fired over 3,000 rounds that day, changing barrels twice as they overheated.
By nightfall, company E had suffered 43% casualties, but they had gained the bluffs and pushed inland. McKinley had proven himself under fire. More importantly, he had developed an intimate understanding of his weapons behavior under extreme conditions. He learned how it responded when hot, how it performed with different ammunition lots, how to recognize the subtle sounds that indicated developing problems before they became critical malfunctions.
The campaign through Normandy tested every soldier. McKinley squad, now down to four men from its original nine, operated their machine gun constantly. McKinley became known for his ability to keep the weapon functioning even under the worst conditions. While other crews struggled with jams caused by mud, dust and continuous firing, McKinley’s gun rarely stopped.
The attack on Nancy, France began September 5th, 1944. The city, a key communications and transportation hub, had been fortified by German forces determined to delay the American advance. Hill 265, a relatively small elevation west of Nancy, held strategic importance because it overlooked the approaches to the city and provided observation over several miles of the surrounding countryside.
The attack began September 11th with an artillery preparation that lasted 30 minutes. At 0600 hours, Second Battalion 26th Infantry began their assault. For the next 6 hours, the battle devolved into close-range fighting. By 1600 hours, American forces had gained the crest of Hill 265, but faced immediate German counterattacks.
The third counterattack, the one that would test McKinley beyond anything he had experienced, began with an artillery barrage at 0300 hours on September 13th. For 20 minutes, German 105 millimeter and 150 mm howitzers hammered the hilltop. McKinley’s machine gun position took a direct hit from an air burst round that killed his assistant gunner instantly and buried the weapon under debris.
McKinley, protected by the pit’s depth, survived with only minor cuts. As he dug himself out, he could hear German voices in the darkness below the hill. Company S’s other machine gun had been destroyed completely. McKinley’s weapon was now the primary automatic fire for the entire platoon perimeter. He hauled the Browning out of the debris, checkedit quickly in the darkness.
The barrel appeared intact. The receiver looked undamaged. The tripod was bent but functional. He loaded a fresh belt of ammunition, charged the weapon, and pressed the trigger. The first 10 rounds fired normally. Then the rhythm changed. Instead of the steady bark, the gun began to stutter. Individual shots instead of continuous automatic fire.
Then it stopped completely. In the darkness, McKinley conducted immediate action drills. He pulled back the charging handle to clear any obstruction. The bolt moved sluggishly, but completed its cycle. He released the handle, letting the spring drive the bolt forward. He pressed the trigger again. Nothing.
The firing pin was falling. He could hear the click, but no round was firing. He cleared the weapon completely, removing the belt and locking the bolt to the rear. Using a small flashlight covered with red cellophane, he examined the chamber. Empty. He inspected the feed mechanism, the bolt, the extractor. Everything looked normal, but when he tried to manually cycle around from the belt into the chamber, the bolt would not pick up the cartridge properly.
This was not a simple malfunction. This was a mechanical failure that training manuals said required an armorer to diagnose and repair. Standard procedure called for McKinley to abandon the weapon and fight as a rifleman until it could be repaired. But there was no time for standard procedures. German infantry were advancing up the hill at that moment.
McKinley did something that was either brilliant or insane. Instead of following procedures, he relied on the mechanical intuition developed over thousands of hours maintaining farm equipment. He stopped thinking of the Browning as a military weapon and started thinking of it as a machine, a collection of moving parts that followed mechanical principles.
He removed the top cover completely and set it aside. Using his flashlight and his fingers, he traced the path a cartridge should follow from the belt into the chamber. The feed mechanism should lift the round from the belt, position it in front of the bolt face. Then the bolt should strip it from the feed mechanism and drive it into the chamber.
But something in that sequence was failing. He cycled the bolt manually, slowly, watching how the parts moved. The bolt would travel forward, contact the cartridge, but instead of smoothly driving it into the chamber, it would stop short. The cartridge remained at an angle caught between the bolt face and the chamber. He examined the bolt face closely with his flashlight.
There, barely visible, was a small piece of metal, a fragment from the artillery shell that had nearly killed him, wedged into the ejector slot on the bolt face. The fragment, no larger than a grain of rice, was preventing the bolt from seating completely against the cartridge base. When the firing pin fell, it was striking the primmer offc center through the metal fragment, not with enough force to ignite the primer.
The solution was simple in theory. Remove the fragment. But the fragment was wedged tight in a space designed with tolerances measured in thousandth of an inch. McKinley used his pocketk knife, a simple two-blade folder his father had given him when he turned 12. He opened the smaller blade and used its point to work the metal fragment loose.
The work required steady hands despite the darkness, the sound of approaching Germans, and the knowledge that mortar rounds could land on his position at any moment. After 90 seconds, that felt like 90 minutes, the fragment came free. He cycled the bolt manually again, feeding around from the belt. This time, the cartridge seated smoothly into the chamber. The bolt closed completely.
He replaced the top cover, loaded a fresh belt, charged the weapon, aimed into the darkness toward the sound of German voices, and pressed the trigger. The Browning roared back to life. 30 caliber rounds streamed downhill at 500 rounds per minute. red tracers marking their path through the pre-dawn darkness. McKinley traversed the weapon left and right, walking fire across the hillside where German infantry had been forming up for their assault.
The effect was immediate and devastating. The German attack, which had been gathering momentum, broke apart under the unexpected automatic fire. Soldiers who moments before had been advancing confidently, suddenly found themselves in a killing zone. They scattered, seeking cover. The assault losing cohesion before it properly began.
McKinley continued firing. Short bursts aimed at muzzle flashes and movement, conserving ammunition but maintaining pressure. The platoon commander, First Lieutenant Robert Harrison, later reported that McKinley’s machine gun singlehandedly broke the German counterattack. The enemy force estimated at battalion strength 5 to 600 men had expected to find American positions disrupted after the artillery barrage.
Instead, they met concentrated automaticweapons fire that inflicted heavy casualties and forced them to withdraw. As dawn broke at 0530 hours, American observers counted over 100 German bodies on the hillside below Company S positions. Dozens more wounded had been dragged away during the withdrawal. Prisoner interrogations later revealed that the attacking force had suffered 38% casualties and been rendered combat ineffective.
They would not attack again. McKinley’s action had saved more than just his immediate platoon. Hill 265 anchored the entire battalion defensive line. If the hill had fallen, German forces would have achieved a salient into American positions that could have threatened the entire regiment’s advance on Nancy. The city, which fell to American forces on September 15th, might have required additional weeks to capture if German forces had successfully recaptured Hill 265.
First Lieutenant Harrison recommended McKinley for the Silver Star, the third highest decoration for valor. The citation approved six weeks later read, “Private first class.” James Robert McKinley distinguished himself by gallantry in action on 13th September 1944 near Nancy, France when his machine gun malfunctioned during a critical enemy counterattack.
Private First Class McKinley working alone and under intense enemy fire diagnosed and repaired a complex mechanical failure using only a pocketk knife. His initiative and mechanical skill restored his weapon to action at the precise moment when its fire was most desperately needed. Breaking an enemy attack that threatened to overrun his company’s position.
His actions reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army. As daylight fully illuminated Hill 265, McKinley sat beside his machine gun, exhausted, and waited for the armorer to arrive. When Sergeant Technical Grade 4 Leonard Washington reached the position at 0800 hours, McKinley explained what had happened and showed him the metal fragment that had caused the malfunction.
Washington, an experienced armorer who had been maintaining weapons since North Africa, examined the Browning carefully. You fixed a deadlined weapon with a pocketk knife in the middle of a firefight. They do not teach that at ordinance school. Most soldiers would have given up and used their rifle. You understood the weapon well enough to diagnose the problem and solve it with whatever tool you had available.
That is not just luck. That is skill. Washington filed a detailed report on the incident. The report reached not just division level but was forwarded to the ordinance department for review. The case study of a soldier successfully field repairing a complex malfunction under combat conditions provided valuable data for future training programs and maintenance procedures.
The Browning M 1919. A four that McKinley repaired that morning had been manufactured in 1942 at the Colt Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut. The weapons development history traced back to 1919 when Browning successfully adapted his earlier water cooled M1917 design into an air cooled weapon.
The M1919 A4 variant adopted in 1936 incorporated several improvements. It featured a lighter barrel that could be changed more quickly, an improved bolt design that enhanced reliability, a better feeding mechanism that reduced malfunctions, and simplified maintenance procedures that allowed field level repair of most common failures.
The weapon fired the standard 306 Springfield cartridge, the same ammunition used by the M1 Garand rifle. It operated on a short recoil principle, using the energy from firing to cycle the action. The rate of fire, approximately 400 to 600 rounds per minute, represented a balance between sustained fire and barrel life.
The industrial effort required to produce these weapons revealed American manufacturing capacity. Colt Patent Firearms produced approximately 12,000 M191904 guns during the war. The Buffalo Arms Corporation manufactured another 18,000. The Sagenos Steering Gear Division of General Motors produced 11,000. Ammunition production dwarfed weapon manufacturing.
The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Missouri alone produced over 47 billion rounds of small arms ammunition during the war, including billions of 3006 rounds. This single plant employed over 20,000 workers, predominantly women, who manufactured ammunition around the clock in three shifts.
This industrial excellence created the reliability that soldiers like McKinley depended on. The Browning M1919, a four, had a reputation for extraordinary durability. It could fire thousands of rounds without cleaning, operate in extreme temperatures, function after being buried in mud or submerged in water, and continue operating even when damaged.
Before we continue with how this incident influenced military training, if you are enjoying this deep dive into an individual’s impact on history, do not forget to subscribe to the channel. These stories matter because they showhow ordinary people rose to extraordinary circumstances. Hit that subscribe button so you never miss another incredible story of courage and innovation from history.
The Army’s training program for machine gunners had evolved substantially during the war. Early training focused almost exclusively on employment. By 1944, experience had shown this approach was inadequate. Combat created weapon failures faster than armorers could repair them. The training program was revised to emphasize mechanical understanding.
The new curriculum taught soldiers not just how to operate weapons, but how they worked. Students learned the function of each component, how parts interacted, what could go wrong, and why. They practiced field repairs using improvised tools. They diagnosed malfunctions by observing weapon behavior.
The goal was creating soldiers who understood their weapons mechanically, not just operationally. McKinley’s farm background had given him exactly this kind of mechanical intuition. Growing up, maintaining aging equipment with minimal resources had trained him to diagnose problems, improvise solutions, and understand mechanical systems at a fundamental level.
The army had refined these skills through training, but the foundation was laid years earlier in Iowa fields. His action on Hill 265 represented a pattern that American forces demonstrated repeatedly. Individual soldiers, often from rural backgrounds with mechanical experience, would solve critical problems through initiative and improvisation.
These small acts of ingenuity, multiplied across thousands of similar incidents, contributed to American tactical success as much as superior firepower or logistics. The German military, despite its tactical excellence, struggled with this kind of adaptive initiative. German training emphasized precision and adherence to doctrine.
Soldiers learned to execute procedures exactly as taught, which worked well when circumstances matched training, but created problems when reality diverged from expectation. This difference reflected deeper cultural distinctions. The American military, drawing from a diverse population with varied backgrounds, necessarily relied more on individual initiative.
Training could be standardized only to a point. Beyond that, the army depended on soldiers applying common sense and personal experience. This approach proved more adaptable to the chaos of combat. McKinley himself continued serving with Company E through the fall and winter of 1944. The first infantry division participated in the battle of Aken in October.
In December, they faced the German Arden’s offensive, the Battle of the Bulge. During the desperate fighting around Butgunbach, McKinley’s machine gun again proved critical. His squad helped defend against repeated attacks, firing over 15,000 rounds during three days of continuous combat. By February 1945, McKinley had been promoted to sergeant and given command of a machine gun section, two guns, and eight men.
He trained his crews in the same mechanical understanding that had saved his life on Hill 265. He taught his men to listen to their weapons, to recognize subtle changes that indicated developing problems, to understand the machines well enough to keep them running under any circumstances. The war in Europe ended May 8th, 1945.
Sergeant McKinley, now 20 years old, had survived 11 months of continuous combat. The official casualty statistics for Company E told a stark story. Between June 6th, 1944 and May 8th, 1945, the company suffered 314 casualties from an authorized strength of 193 men. This meant the company had been replaced more than one and a half times.
McKinley was one of 17 soldiers who had served continuously from Normandy to Germany. The Silver Star he received recognized not superhuman heroism, but intelligent initiative applied under pressure. McKinley had not charged machine gun nests or single-handedly destroyed enemy tanks. He had simply refused to accept that his weapon was inoperative, applied mechanical knowledge to solve a problem, and restored his gun to action when it was desperately needed.
This pattern repeated thousands of times across hundreds of battlefields contributed to American victory as much as strategic decisions or technological advantages. The cumulative effect of individual soldiers solving problems, maintaining equipment, and adapting to circumstances created tactical advantages that overwhelmed enemies who often possessed superior training or equipment.
After the wars end, Sergeant James Robert McKinley returned to Marshalltown, Iowa in September 1945. He was discharged at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin on September 23rd. He did not return to farming. He used GI Bill benefits to attend Iowa State University studying mechanical engineering. He graduated in 1949 and took a position with John Deere in Waterlue, Iowa, working on tractor design and agricultural equipment development.
His military experience influenced hisengineering career profoundly. He emphasized reliability over innovation. Believing that equipment needed to work consistently under adverse conditions, he designed maintenance procedures that soldiers could have followed, assuming minimal tools and training. He believed machines should be comprehensible to their operators, not mysterious black boxes that only specialists could repair.
McKinley rarely spoke about his combat experiences. Like many veterans of his generation, he considered the war something to be survived and then left behind. His children knew he had served in Europe, knew he had been decorated for valor, but learned few details. In 1976, a writer researching First Infantry Division history interviewed McKinley about Hill 265.
McKinley, then 51 years old, eventually agreed. The interview revealed his perspective on what had happened 32 years earlier. I did not do anything special that night. The gun was broken and I fixed it. That is what you do when equipment breaks down. You figure out what is wrong and you fix it. My father taught me that when I was 12 years old working on our tractor.
The army taught me how the Browning worked. I just combined what I already knew with what I had learned and solve the problem. When asked about courage, McKinley responded, “I was not thinking about courage. I was thinking that if I could not fix the gun, a lot of people were going to die, probably including me.” Fear makes you focus very clearly on what needs to be done.
I was scared, but I was also concentrating on the mechanical problem. My hands were steady because I understood what I was doing. James Robert McKinley died February 14th, 2006 at age 81. His obituary mentioned his military service briefly. veteran of World War II, served with First Infantry Division in Europe, awarded Silverstar for gallantry in action.
To his neighbors and colleagues, he was Jim McKinley, a retired engineer who had lived a productive life. But to military historians studying small unit actions and individual initiative in combat, McKinley represented something significant. His story illustrated how American military effectiveness resulted not just from superior resources but from the quality of individual soldiers.
The emphasis on mechanical understanding, the encouragement of initiative, the assumption that soldiers would solve problems creatively. These approaches created forces that could adapt and overcome challenges. The broader lessons from McKinley’s experience remain relevant. First, mechanical understanding matters.
Soldiers who comprehend their equipment can maintain and repair it when procedural knowledge alone fails. Second, prior experience provides unexpected advantages. McKinley’s farm background gave him mechanical intuition more valuable than additional military training. Third, initiative must be encouraged.
McKinley made a decision to attempt a repair that doctrine said was impossible. This judgment call made under extreme pressure by a 19-year-old private first class proved correct. Fourth, small actions can have large consequences. Removing a tiny metal fragment took 90 seconds, but prevented a German breakthrough that could have affected an entire operation.
Leadership at all levels should recognize that individual actions by junior personnel can influence outcomes far beyond their immediate situations. The machine gun that McKinley repaired on Hill 265 continued in service until March 1945 when it was finally deadlined for barrel wear after firing over 60,000 rounds.
The gun Colt serial number 473298 still exists in a military museum collection, its service record attached, including a note about the field repair in September 1944. The hill itself, now simply another low elevation in the countryside west of Nancy, bears no markers. Local French residents know little of the battle fought there.
Nature has erased the evidence of combat that once made this location important enough that hundreds of men fought and died for its possession. But in the history of the first infantry division, in the ordinance department’s training programs, and in the example of soldier initiative under fire, Hill 265 remains significant.
The 19-year-old farm boy who fixed a jammed machine gun with a pocketk knife demonstrated qualities that characterized American soldiers throughout the war. practical intelligence, mechanical aptitude, calm under pressure, and refusal to accept defeat when solutions were possible. James Robert McKinley’s story reminds us that military history is not just about generals and grand strategy.
It is about individual soldiers solving immediate problems under impossible circumstances. It is about young men, often barely out of high school, who found themselves responsible for weapons they had never seen before entering the military and who learned those systems well enough to keep them functioning under the worst conditions imaginable.
It is about farm boys and factory workers, mechanics andstudents, people from every background who contributed their individual skills to collective victory. And it is about the American approach to military training that trusted soldiers to think, to understand, to improvise, and to take initiative when circumstances required action that procedures did not cover.
That night on Hill 265, when Private First Class James Robert McKinley removed a tiny piece of shrapnel from a bolt face and restored his machine gun to operation, he was not thinking about larger implications. He was thinking about solving a mechanical problem so he and his comrades could survive until dawn.
But in that focused, practical moment, he embodied principles that helped America win a global war. The 19-year-old farm boy who fixed a jammed machine gun changed the course of a battle, helped capture a city, and illustrated how individual excellence multiplied across millions of soldiers, overcame the most powerful military forces the world had ever seen.
His story explains how America achieved victory not through superhuman heroism or miracle weapons, but through the accumulated competence of ordinary citizens who became extraordinary soldiers when their nation needed the Post.