WISCONSIN (SPECTRUM NEWS) - This weekend in Leves, France and the City of Chartres, 96-year-old Eugene Schulz will receive the Honor of Chevalier in the Order of the Legion of Honor.

""I've already gone through a bunch of emotions," Schulz told Spectrum News 1. "It's going to be awesome and humbling, and there will be tears because you can't help hold back, [and] the fact that all these people are going to say, "Wow-- this guy was there!"

"There" was August 16th, 1944 just outside of Chartres, France where Schulz was serving in General George Patton's Third Army as an operations officer with XX Corps.

"Our objective was to liberate Paris and so we started heading toward Paris and came to the City of Chartres," Schulz said. "It's a city about 50 miles southwest of Paris, and Chartres is famous for its beautiful cathedral, Notre Dame de Chartres."

The cathedral had stood for more than 700 years at that point, but it posed a tactical challenge for the American troops.

"It was believed there were snipers in the bell towers and they were using it as an observation post, and the country is very flat," Schulz said. "We were only 15 miles away in the woods and if there were snipers there, they could see us so the objective was to get rid of the cathedral if there were snipers because it's in the way."

Before the bombing run began, though, Schulz says the officer he was assisting, Colonel Welborn Griffith, mysteriously took off.

 "Nobody knows why, he personally went into Chartres, beyond enemy lines, he went into the cathedral and checked it out," Shulz said, "climbed the bell tower and did not find any German snipers at all, so he immediately said to the artillery, "Rescind that order to shell and destroy"-- nobody knew-- and that's the reason why Chartres Cathedral is standing today."

Col. Griffith was shot and killed hours later in nearby Leves.

Now, all those years later, Schulz and his family will come together with the family of Col. Griffith in France to be honored and tour the cathedral they helped to save 75 years ago. Schulz and his wife of 70 years, Eleanor, who now live at Harwood Place Retirement Community in Wauwatosa, says he's humbled by the honor.​

"It's not [about] me," Schulz said. "Most attention should be on Colonel Griffith, but also all the soldiers who were there with me and those who didn't come back."

To read more about Schulz's story, he's written his memoirs titled, "The Ghost in General Patton's Third Army."​