Desmond Doss January 17, 1919 - March 23, 2006
Conscientious objector and US Army medic who won the Medal of Honor for rescuing scores of his comrades on Okinawa
DESMOND DOSS was the only conscientious objector to win the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration of the United States. He survived the bitter fighting of Leyte, Guam and Okinawa without a gun, with a complete disregard for his own safety and a degree of luck that many of his comrades interpreted as divine protection. Since the Second World War, both hawks and doves in America have offered him up as an example of faith-keeping under fire. His brand of patriotic pacifism offered something for everyone.
Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1919, Doss was raised as a Seventh-Day Adventist. He was fascinated by a picture in the family home of Cain standing over the dead body of Abel. This, he said, made him determine never to take a human life. After childhood misadventures doctors told him he would lose the use of his left hand, and that a leg would need to be amputated, but in both cases he made a full recovery; something he ascribed to fervent prayer.
After Pearl Harbor Doss went to the recruitment office with his minister to enlist as a non-combatant. He was told he would need to register as a conscientious objector if he wanted to avoid the call-up or a court martial.
Doss insisted that he was a "conscientious co-operator"and was allowed to join the regular forces, yet once there he refused to carry a weapon, train on Saturday or eat meat, exasperating his comrades and commanders. He was roundly despised from his first day in 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry Regiment of the 77th Infantry Division, and would endure a gauntlet of missiles and insults each night as he knelt to pray. His commanding officer sought a Section Eight dismissal, suggesting that Doss was mentally deficient, but the infantryman vehemently denied this, saying that he was as capable and willing a medic as the Army possessed. To the intense irritation of his battalion, he was allowed to stay. One of his comrades assured Doss that, once they were in combat, he would shoot him himself.
After surviving Guam, Doss was sent in October 1944 to Leyte in the Philippines. There he showed tremendous courage in tending his injured comrades; in one instance a Japanese sniper was seen to hold him in his sights for long seconds but never fired. In April 1945 the 307th were thrown against the 400ft Urasoe-Mura Escarpment, an outcrop that formed the most daunting aspect of the defenders' second Shuri Defense Ring on Okinawa and was known colloquially as Hacksaw Ridge. It was honeycombed with Japanese caves, installations and pillboxes, and trying to overcome it had cost the
307th infantry 1,021 casualties, with some platoons reduced to five or six men. The 307th took five days to take Needle Rock at the narrow point of the ledge, gaining and losing the top of the escarpment nine times. On the night of April 30, 1st Battalion 307th made a push to secure the top with the use of 50ft (15m) ladders and cargo nets borrowed from the Navy.Doss's Company B was by now sufficiently tolerant of him to let him pray for them before the assault, particularly after hearing that Company A had been cut to pieces. Incredibly, B company had two platoons on the cliff edge before dark on May 1 without a single casualty, which they put down to Doss's appeal to God. But at midnight a massive Japanese counterattack pushed both platoons back over the edge, leaving only Doss and dozens of dead and wounded.
By use of a rope and litter, Doss worked through the night to lower the wounded down the escarpment, which required him to crawl within feet of Japanese-held caves. He did not lower himself down until certain that he could find no more survivors. His comrades reckoned that at least 100 men were evacuated; Doss said no more than 50. On his citation this difference was split to read 75. The escarpment was finally taken on May 6 with the use of demolition explosives to fill in the caves and murderholes. Two weeks later Doss brought to safety the company commander Jack Glover, who later said: "The man I tried to have kicked out of the Army ended up being the most courageous person I've ever known."
Doss suffered a bullet in the arm and a shattered leg from a grenade explosion. His citation records that he rolled out of his litter and insisted that medics take a more seriously injured man in his stead.
Doss spent six years in hospital for his injuries and a bout of tuberculosis. He was awarded the Medal of Honor as well as the bronze star and purple heart. He lived for most of the rest of his life in Rising Fawn, Georgia, where he was involved with his local church. He spent his final years close to relatives in Piedmont, Alabama.
He is survived by his wife, Frances, and their son.
Desmond Doss, US Army medic and conscientious objector, was born on January
17, 1919. He died on March 23, 2006, aged 87.