Fields, James H, born 16-06-1920 at Caddo, Texas, 
United States, the son of Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Fields. James graduated from Lamar High School in Houston 
and was drafted into the army in 1942. His father was a former drilling superintendent for Roeser and Pendleton Incorporated and the family moved to Oklahoma and Kansas to follow the oil boom. James began working in the oil fields at age fourteen and graduated from Lamar High School in Houston. Fields attended the University of Oklahoma for one semester before returning to the oil field at Dayton, Texas. James enlisted in the army on 26-02-1942, and became a member of the Tenth Armored Infantry, Fourth Armored Division, 
United States Army, under command of Major General Henry Welles Baird 
. His training began in California and continued in Hawaii, but he transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia, 
where he attended officer candidate school. His unit staged in Boston, Massachusetts, before traveling to England in December 1943. First Lieutenant Fields was cited for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty” on 27-09-1944, at Réchicourt, France. General Patton, George Smith, “Old Blood and Guts” 
presented Fields with the Congressional Medal of Honor 
at a command post in Luxembourg. James led his depleted platoon in a counterattack on an enemy position and exposed himself to enemy fire while attending to one of his wounded men. He himself was wounded 
in the face by a bursting shell. Badly injured and rendered speechless he continued to direct his platoon in the attack by hand signals. Two enemy machine-guns had the platoon in a deadly crossfire. Fields left his foxhole, picked up a light machine gun, and, firing from the hip, 
knocked out both the enemy positions. His action inspired his men to increase the pressure of the attack. Only when the enemy was scattered did Fields allow himself to be evacuated to the command post. There he refused further evacuation until he could brief the battalion commander. Only eleven of the fifty-five men in his platoon survived the day’s engagement. Fields’s heroism was largely responsible for the repulse of the enemy forces and was an inspiration to the entire command. After the war he relocated to Fort Worth, 
and later became an independent oil operator in Mississippi and Florida. He died at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Houston (now the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Houston) on 17-06-1970, and was survived by his wife, Mathilde, and four children.
James H. Fields was the first person decorated in the field with the Medal of Honor by General George Smith Patton Jr., and was promoted to captain. After Fields received his Medal of Honor, General Patton sent Fields back to the United States. General Patton stated in his memoir “War as I Knew It,” “I told Gaffey I did not want Lieutenant Fields sent to the front again, because it has been my unfortunate observation that whenever a man gets the Medal of Honor or even the Distinguished Service Cross , he usually attempts to outdo himself and gets killed, whereas, in order to produce a virile race, such men should be kept alive.”
After the war, James Fields became an independent oil operator in Texas, married, and had four children. He died on 17-06-1970, at age 49, in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Houston. James was buried on June 20 in the Houston National Cemetery, in Houston, Texas.
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