Ron Speirs: The Forgotten Act of Valor & Wounding | American Artifact Episode 219

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:03]Currently I am standing on the southern bank of the Ryan River in the Netherlands. And following the failure of Operation Market Garden, the the 101st Airborne was going to move up to this spot where I am now on a strip of land that was known as the island, which is situated between the lower Rin River and the the Wall River. Uh, now in the 101st Airborne, well, you've got a guy by the name of Ron Spears, who figured prominently in the book and series Band of Brothers, but there was an action by Ron Spears here along the Ryan River that that didn't get covered in that series. And uh, we're going to talk a little bit about what he did here in the Netherlands during World War II and and also how he got wounded.

[00:01:04]Heat. Heat.

[00:01:34]I'm at the lower Ryan River and I'm standing near the spot where Ron Spears made his famous swim across the Rine and became what we think is possibly the first American to cross during World War II. It was October 10th, 1944, and he was trying to gather some intelligence.

[00:01:54]And here's a picture of Ronald Spears a little bit later in the war. And um this is a famous photo of him during the Battle of the Bulge. So, um this is a newspaper article about the event I'm talking about. Ronald Spears went over there to gather intelligence. he uh encountered some some German positions and noted those. He actually swam across and I can't imagine on October 10th swimming across the Ryan River. It um we're we're out here right now in in April, I mean March, and it's really cold. I can't imagine how cold it would have been in October. But um he did it and he went across gathered a bunch of intelligence and was awarded for that action, the silver star medal. And on the way back he found he found an enemy rubber boat. And instead of swimming back, he came back in the rubber boat.

[00:02:50]And when he was swimming or when he was crossing back onto the um the friendly side, uh a machine gun opened up on him shooting the boat and he swam the last little bit and a bullet from an MG42 went through his backside and he also received a purple heart for that. So here's his silver star and purple heart from this action. That was actually the second purple heart Ronald Spears received. He also received one in Normandy and this is an original um newspaper account that was saved by his mother and it was in his items when we got him along with the silver star and the purple heart. But you can read about it in more detail in the book Fierce Valor uh by myself, Eric Door, and Dr. uh Jared Frederick, my co-author. We wrote about it in detail and uh it's pretty neat. This is the first time I brought his medals back to this site.

[00:03:44]And um pretty interesting story. Ronald Spear is a true American hero and a silver star recipient during Operation Market Garden.