Medal of Honor · World War II
Desmond Thomas Doss
Corporal, U.S. Army
- Date of Action
- May 5, 1945
- Location
- Hacksaw Ridge, Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands
- Medal Presented
- October 12, 1945
Values Embodied
- Courage
- Sacrifice
- Integrity
Official Citation
This citation is paraphrased from public-domain histories and is pending verbatim verification against the Congressional Medal of Honor Society archive.
Corporal Doss was a company aid man when the 1st Battalion assaulted a jagged escarpment 400 feet high on Okinawa. As the Americans reached the crest, a heavy concentration of artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire crashed into them, inflicting approximately 75 casualties and driving the others back. Private First Class Doss refused to seek cover, and remained in the fire-swept area with the many stricken, carrying them one by one to the edge of the escarpment and there lowering them on a rope-supported litter down the face of the cliff to friendly hands.
On subsequent days he repeatedly braved enemy fire to treat and evacuate the wounded. He saved the lives of an estimated 75 men and was himself seriously wounded.
Biography
Before the War
Desmond Thomas Doss was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, on February 7, 1919. He grew up in a Seventh-day Adventist home and took the Sixth Commandment — Thou shalt not kill — literally. As a boy he pinned a framed illustration of the Ten Commandments to the wall of his bedroom and studied it. When the United States entered the Second World War, Doss declined deferment and enlisted, but refused to carry a rifle. He asked to serve as a combat medic — a “conscientious cooperator,” as he insisted on calling himself, not a conscientious objector. The Army did not know what to do with him. His fellow soldiers in basic training hazed him, called him a coward, threw boots at him while he prayed. An officer tried to have him discharged under Section VIII as mentally unfit. Doss refused. He would serve his country, but he would not carry a weapon, and he would not train on Saturday, his Sabbath.
The Action
By the spring of 1945, PFC Doss was a medic attached to the 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division, on Okinawa. On April 29, the battalion was ordered to take a 400-foot jagged escarpment the Americans called Hacksaw Ridge. Twice the assault reached the crest and was driven back by murderous artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire. Roughly 75 wounded Americans lay stranded on top.
Doss went back up alone. He stayed on the exposed ridge as his company withdrew, found the wounded one by one, dragged them to the cliff edge, and lowered them on a rope-and-litter system he had improvised — a double bowline he had learned years earlier at summer camp. Each time he lowered a man, he prayed, Lord, please help me get one more. He kept going for hours. The estimates vary — 50 men, 75, 100. Doss himself refused to say. He only said that the Lord had answered his prayer.
On May 21, still on Okinawa, he was wounded by a grenade, then later by a sniper’s bullet that shattered his arm. While being carried to safety on a stretcher, he rolled off to treat a more seriously wounded man and waited for the litter team to return. He carried with him, throughout his service, a small Bible his wife had given him. It is on display today at the Smithsonian.
After the War
Doss came home to Lynchburg unable to work. Tuberculosis contracted during the war cost him a lung and five ribs. He was declared 100% disabled. He spent the rest of his life in quiet farming, carpentry, and speaking to young audiences about faith and service. He died on March 23, 2006, at the age of 87. He was the first conscientious objector in American history to receive the Medal of Honor.