captain on April 30, 1943, major on October 2, 1944, and lieutenant colonel on October 2, 1945. He was medically retired from the U.S. Army on February 26, 1946. Beginning at Fort Bragg, Urban served as a platoon leader. During the war he was a morale/special services officer, a platoon leader, a company executive officer and company commander, and a battalion executive officer and battalion commander of the 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division ("Old Reliables"). North Africa Urban first went into combat when he made the beach landing under fire with another soldier on a raft on November 8, 1942, the first day of the invasion of North Africa, of the North Africa Campaign. Along with a Purple Heart, one of the first medals he received during the war was a Silver Star. While serving with the Second Battalion, 60th Infantry, he was wounded in action seven times. A member of his unit, Sergeant Earl G. Evans, wrote "the major, only a lieutenant at the time, was wounded in Maknassy, Tunisia and refused to be evacuated. He followed up this refusal by taking out a combat patrol. At another time in Tunisia, our battalion successfully halted a German counterattack, and it was through the major's efforts that we succeeded. As our outfit was falling back, the major held his ground and grabbed the closest German. He killed him with a trench knife, took the German's machine pistol, and fired at the onrushing enemy." During the German counterattack Urban was wounded by grenade shrapnel. Sicily The 60th Infantry disembarked from Africa on July 28, 1943, on the , and arrived at Palermo, Sicily, on July 31, after the invasion of Sicily by an American amphibious landing force on July 9 and the Allied invasion of Italy on July 10. German planes raided the harbor and the Orizaba was also attacked by German planes in the early morning of August 1 before Urban's unit disembarked from the ship that day. Urban, on deck at the time, replaced an anti-aircraft gunnery crew's spotter who was machine-gunned by a German Stuka dive bomber. Using the badly wounded spotter's binoculars, Urban spotted the plane returning and the gun crew was able to shoot it down. After the invasion of Sicily, the Germans were entrenched in a fortified mountain stronghold where the 1st Infantry Division got bogged down by the difficult terrain. The 60th Infantry