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US soldier and Medal of Honor recipient (1919–2006) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Desmond Thomas Doss (February 7, 1919 – March 23, 2006)[1] was a United States Army corporal who served as a combat medic with an infantry company in World War II. Due to his religious beliefs, he refused to carry a weapon.
Desmond Doss | |
---|---|
Birth name | Desmond Thomas Doss |
Born | Lynchburg, Virginia, U.S. | February 7, 1919
Died | March 23, 2006 87) Piedmont, Alabama, U.S. | (aged
Buried | Chattanooga National Cemetery, Chattanooga, Tennessee |
Allegiance | United States of America |
Service/ | United States Army |
Years of service | 1942–1946 |
Rank | Corporal |
Service number | 33158036 |
Unit | Company B, 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division |
Battles/wars | |
Awards | Medal of Honor Bronze Star Medal (2) Purple Heart (3) |
Spouse(s) |
|
Children | Desmond Doss Jr. (b. 1946) |
He was twice awarded the Bronze Star Medal for actions on Guam and in the Philippines. Doss further distinguished himself in the Battle of Okinawa by saving an estimated 75 men,[lower-alpha 1] acting on his own, becoming the first of only three conscientious objectors to receive the Medal of Honor for this and other actions.[lower-alpha 2]
His life has been the subject of books, the 2004 documentary The Conscientious Objector, and the 2016 Oscar-winning film Hacksaw Ridge, in which he was portrayed by Andrew Garfield.
Desmond Thomas Doss was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, to William Thomas Doss (1893–1989), a carpenter, and Bertha Edward Doss (née Oliver) (1899–1983), a homemaker and shoe factory worker.[3][4][5] His father served in the Army during World War I, he was awarded the Silver Star, and he later suffered from PTSD.[6][7] His mother raised him as a devout Seventh-day Adventist and instilled Sabbath-keeping, nonviolence, and vegetarianism in his upbringing.[8] He grew up in the Fairview Heights area of Lynchburg, alongside his older sister Audrey and younger brother Harold.[5]
Doss attended the Park Avenue Seventh-day Adventist Church school until the eighth grade, and subsequently found a job at the Lynchburg Lumber Company to support his family during the Great Depression.[5] Before the outbreak of World War II, Doss was employed as a joiner at a shipyard in Newport News, Virginia.[5]
Doss chose military service, despite being offered a deferment because of his shipyard work,[9] on April 1, 1942, at Camp Lee, Virginia.[10] He was sent to Fort Jackson in South Carolina for training with the reactivated 77th Infantry Division. Meanwhile, his brother Harold served aboard the USS Lindsey.[11]
Doss refused to carry a weapon into combat because of his personal beliefs as a Seventh-day Adventist against killing.[12] He consequently became a medic assigned to the 2nd Platoon, Company B, 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division.
While serving with his platoon in 1944 in Guam and the Philippines, he was awarded two Bronze Star Medals with a "V" device,[13] for exceptional valor in aiding wounded soldiers under fire. During the Battle of Okinawa, he saved the lives of 50–100 wounded infantrymen atop the area known by the 96th Division as the Maeda Escarpment or Hacksaw Ridge.[14] Doss was wounded four times in Okinawa,[15] and was evacuated on May 21, 1945, aboard the USS Mercy.[16] Doss suffered a left arm fracture from a sniper's bullet while being carried back to Allied lines and at one point had seventeen pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body after attempting to kick a grenade away from himself and his comrades.[16] He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Okinawa.[17]
After the war, Doss wanted to continue his career in carpentry but extensive damage to his left arm made that impossible.[5] In 1946, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, contracted on Leyte.[16] He underwent treatment for five and a half years — losing a lung and five ribs — before being discharged from the hospital in August 1951 with 90% disability.[18]
After an overdose of antibiotics rendered him completely deaf in 1976, he was given 100% disability; he was able to regain his hearing after receiving a cochlear implant in 1988.[3][16] Despite his injuries, he managed to raise a family on a small farm in Rising Fawn, Georgia.[16]
Doss married Dorothy Pauline Schutte on August 17, 1942, and they had one child, Desmond "Tommy" Doss Jr., born in 1946. Desmond, Jr. followed in his father's footsteps, serving as an army medic, then as a firefighter and paramedic.[16][19][20] On November 17, 1991, Dorothy died in a car accident that happened while Doss was driving her to the hospital for cancer treatment.[16] Doss remarried on July 1, 1993, to Frances May Duman.[1][3]
After being hospitalized for difficulty breathing, Doss died on March 23, 2006, at his home in Piedmont, Alabama.[21] He was buried on April 3, 2006, in the Chattanooga National Cemetery, Tennessee.[22] Frances died three years later on February 3, 2009, at the Piedmont Health Care Center in Piedmont, Alabama.[23]
Rank and organization: Private First Class, United States Army, Medical Detachment, 307th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division.
Place and date: Near Urasoe Mura, Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, April 29, 1945 – May 21, 1945.
Entered service at: Lynchburg, Virginia
Birth: Lynchburg, Virginia
G.O. No.: 97, November 1, 1945.
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, March 3, 1863, has awarded in the name of The Congress the MEDAL OF HONOR to
PRIVATE FIRST CLASS DESMOND T. DOSS
UNITED STATES ARMY
for service as set forth in the following
Citation: Private First Class Desmond T. Doss, United States Army, Medical Detachment, 307th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division. Near Urasoe-Mura, Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, 29 April – 21 May 1945. He was a company aid man when the 1st Battalion assaulted a jagged escarpment 400 feet high. As our troops gained the summit, a heavy concentration of artillery, mortar and machinegun 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 a cliff to friendly hands. On 2 May, 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 two days later he treated four 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 four separate trips under fire to evacuate them to safety. On 5 May, he unhesitatingly braved enemy shelling and small arms fire to assist an artillery officer. 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. Later that day, when an American was severely wounded by fire from a cave, Private First Class 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. On 21 May, 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. Rather than call another aid man from cover, he cared for his own injuries and waited five hours before litter bearers reached him and started carrying him to cover. The trio was caught in an enemy tank attack and Private First Class 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. Awaiting the litter bearers' return, he was again struck, this time suffering a compound fracture of one arm. With magnificent fortitude he bound a rifle stock to his shattered arm as a splint and then crawled 300 yards over rough terrain to the aid station. Through his outstanding bravery and unflinching determination in the face of desperately dangerous conditions Private First Class Doss saved the lives of many soldiers. His name became a symbol throughout the 77th Infantry Division for outstanding gallantry far above and beyond the call of duty.October 12, 1945
THE WHITE HOUSE[24]
On February 18, 1959, Doss appeared on the Ralph Edwards NBC TV show This Is Your Life.[39]
Doss is the subject of The Conscientious Objector, a 2004 documentary by Terry Benedict.
The 2016 feature film Hacksaw Ridge, based on his life, was produced by Terry Benedict and directed by Mel Gibson, with Andrew Garfield portraying him.[40] Garfield was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance.
Doss was profiled in a three-part TV series by It Is Written in November 2016.[41]
Doss is the subject of four biographical books:
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