ERDC dedicates supercomputer to Col. Van T. Barfoot

VICKSBURG, Miss. (VDN)— The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, ERDC, dedicated it’s new supercomputer in honor of the late Col. Van T. Barfoot Thursday, Jan. 22. 

Barfoot is a Mississippi native and a Medal of Honor recipient. The supercomputer has been dubbed “Barfoot” in his honor. 

During World War II, on May 23, 1944, near Carano, Italy, then Tech. Sgt. Barfoot’s platoon was surrounded by German forces. Taking it upon himself and showing untold bravery, Barfoot ran alone across the battlefield and singlehandedly took out two machine gun nests using hand grenades. But he didn’t there. He continued forward progress and marched determinedly on defending his country and comrades. 

According to accounts and documents, by the end of the battle Barfoot had successfully neutralized multiple threats resulting in the capture of 17 enemy soldiers. Later the same day, after Barfoot reorganized his men and consolidated the newly captured ground, the enemy forces launched a counterattack. Barfoot secured a bazooka and took position directly infant of three advancing tanks.

From about 75 yards, he shot the track of the leading tank effectively disabling it. As soldiers dismounted the disabled tank, Barfoot killed three of them. He then advanced and destroyed a German fieldpiece with a demolition charge. While returning to his platoon, Barfoot, although exhausted assisted two wounded men 1,700 yards back to a place of safety.

Barfoot’s extraordinary heroism and demonstration of magnificent valor became an inspriration to soldiers. His bravery and leadership earned him a promotion to second lieutenant and a Medal of Honor, which he received in Epinal, France.

ERDC will continue to remember Barfoot’s unparalleled bravery. Located at ERDC is some of the world’s largest unclassified supercomputers. The computers are utilized in creating and applying advanced information technology to support the Warfighter and Department of War. Supercomputing helps in reducing defense system costs by shortening the design cycle and reducing reliance on expensive and destructive live experiments and prototype demonstrations which provides a technological advantage for military projects. 

ERDC began naming their supercomputers after special gem stones such as topaz, because of the stones rarity and greatness, but later switched to naming the supercomputers after Medal of Honor recipients who were born in Mississippi. Barfoot is the fourth. The others are named Carpenter after Cpl. William “Kyle” Carpenter, Wheat after LCpl Roy Wheat and Freeman after CPT Ed Freeman.

In a release, ERDC stated with 212,736 AMD compute cores and 437,760 terabytes of memory, the Barfoot supercomputer will enhance ERDC’s ability to support the toughest challenges facing the nation in military engineering and civil works. It is capable of performing over nine quadrillion calculations per second.

“So what does that really mean, nine quadrillion calculations per second,” said Dr. Ben Parsons, Director ofEngineer Research & Development Center Supercomputing Resource Center. “Imagine this. Take every man, woman and child on earth and give them a calculator. That’s eight billion people. You tell those people to perform one calculation per second. No breaks, no stopping. It would take them two weeks to perform what Barfoot can do in a second.”

As a special guest of honor, Barfoot’s son, Jim Barfoot addressed the crowd during the ceremony. He said learning that ERDC was naming a supercomputer after his dad caught the whole family by surprise.

“When we received the news he was having a supercomputer named after him, one of my sons called and said, ‘Dad, they’re naming a supercomputer after Gran-Gran? Did he even have one?'” said J. Barfoot.

By his sons’s account, at the age of 72, Barfoot purchased his very first Hewitt Packer computer.

“Dad’s first think in life, was that of service. He served our Lord. He served our family. He served our country and the last thing he did, was serve our flag,” said J. Barfoot.

One of his last efforts in serving was fighting his local Home Owners Association for the right to put up a vertical flagpole in his front yard. The HOA said that he couldn’t.

“He did it anyway. He won that battle,” said his son.

Patricia Sullivan, Deputy Director of ERDC said the moment was special.

“We are honoring our past and celebrating our future,” said Sullivan.