Awaiting the litter bearers’ return, he was again struck, by a sniper bullet, while being carried off the field by a comrade, this time suffering a compound fracture of one arm. Doss, seeing a more critically wounded man nearby, crawled off the litter and directed the bearers to give their first attention to the other man. The trio was caught in an enemy tank attack and Pfc. Rather than call another aid man from cover, he cared for his own injuries and waited 5 hours before litter bearers reached him and started carrying him to cover. On May 21, in a night attack on high ground near Shuri, he remained in exposed territory while the rest of his company took cover, fearlessly risking the chance that he would be mistaken for an infiltrating Japanese, and giving aid to the injured until he was himself seriously wounded in the legs by the explosion of a grenade. Doss crawled to him where he had fallen 25 feet from the enemy position, rendered aid, and carried him 100 yards to safety while continually exposed to enemy fire. Later that day, when an American was severely wounded by fire from a cave, Pfc. He applied bandages, moved his patient to a spot that offered protection from small arms fire and, while artillery and mortar shells fell close by, painstakingly administered plasma. On May 5, he unhesitatingly braved enemy shelling and small arms fire to assist an artillery officer. On May 2, he exposed himself to heavy rifle and mortar fire in rescuing a wounded man 200 yards forward of the lines on the same escarpment and 2 days later he treated 4 men who had been cut down while assaulting a strongly defended cave, advancing through a shower of grenades to within eight yards of enemy forces in a cave’s mouth, where he dressed his comrades’ wounds before making 4 separate trips under fire to evacuate them to safety. Doss refused to seek cover and remained in the fire-swept area with the many stricken, carrying all 75 casualties one-by-one to the edge of the escarpment and there lowering them on a rope-supported litter down the face of a cliff to friendly hands. As our troops gained the summit, 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 was a company aid man when the 1st Battalion assaulted a jagged escarpment 400 feet high. The citation for his Medal of Honor reads like a ridiculously implausible action movie: Desmond Doss receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Harry S. It would be difficult for any motion picture to do justice to Doss’ service. The film tells the remarkable story a man dedicated to serving his country and his comrades in battle while refusing to carry a weapon.
But now, his story is the subject of the motion picture Hacksaw Ridge. Given the scale of sacrifice and courage shown by soldiers of the 77th, it’s not surprising the story of Corporal Doss received such a brief write-up. Myers also reminded readers that the intense fighting on Okinawa claimed the life of famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who was accompanying the 77th. And how Company E, surrounded by Japanese soldiers, held their ground for two days, losing all but 48 of their 204 men. Richard Hammond and three other privates held back 200 enemy soldiers until they were relieved at dawn. George Benjamin, weighed down by a radio and carrying only a pistol, led an attack under fire on an enemy-held hill. Myers’ account of Doss’ service takes up just one paragraph of the story - after all, the medic was just one of many men who had served with distinction. The article claimed that Doss had saved at least 50 lives during the battle. During the battle for Okinawa, Doss earned the Medal of Honor for rescuing wounded men from the battlefield, treating their injuries, and then lowering them down an escarpment to safety.
One of the soldiers Myers mentions is Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who served as a medic in the 77th. Max Myers (ret.) cites several acts of heroism and sacrifice by soldiers of the 77th Division during the Pacific campaign of World War II. In the January 11, 1947, edition of the Post, Lt.
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