Gino Merli, who was awarded the Medal of Honor in World War II for operating a machine gun that blocked a German advance at a United States Army outpost in Belgium, died last Tuesday at his home in Peckville, Pa. He was 78.

He had heart and kidney problems and Parkinson's disease, his family said.

Mr. Merli fought with the First Infantry Division in two epic battles. On June 6, 1944, he took part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy, going ashore at Omaha Beach. In December 1944, he was in the Battle of the Bulge.

But it was a firefight outside a Belgian town, midway between those two campaigns, that brought him the nation's highest award for valor.

On Sept. 4, 1944, Private Merli was a machine-gunner with the First Infantry Division's 18th Infantry when 14 men from his company set up a roadblock near the village of Sars la Bruyere, a few miles from the French border.