On May 5th, 1945, American soldiers retreated down the cargo nets of Hacksaw Ridge on Okinawa, driven back by overwhelming Japanese fire. Approximately 75 wounded men remained trapped at the top of the 400 ft escarment, unable to move under their own power. One man refused to leave with the others.
Private First Class Desmond Doss stayed behind, alone and unarmed in the most dangerous place on the battlefield. For the next 5 hours, Doss crawled through machine gun fire and mortar explosions, dragging wounded soldiers one by one to the cliff edge. He fashioned a rope system using a special knot and lowered each man down the sheer rock face to safety below.
Between each rescue, he prayed the same prayer. Lord, help me get one more. By nightfall, every wounded soldier had been saved. Doss himself had not received a scratch. He was a 7th Day Adventist who refused to carry a weapon because of his religious beliefs. His fellow soldiers had once threatened to shoot him. Now they owed him their lives.
On October 12th, 1945, President Harry Truman presented Desmond Doss with the Medal of Honor, making him the first conscientious objector to receive America’s highest military decoration. This is his story. Desmond Thomas Doss was born February 7th, 1919 in Lynchburg, Virginia, the second of three children.
His father, William, was a carpenter and World War I veteran who suffered from what would now be recognized as PTSD. His mother, Bertha, raised Desmond and his siblings in the 7th Day Adventist Church with strict adherence to biblical teachings. Two childhood experiences shaped Desmond’s beliefs about violence. When he was young, Desmond got into a fight with his brother, Harold.
The scuffle turned serious when Desmond hit Harold with a brick, nearly killing him. The incident terrified Desmond. He looked at a framed picture on the wall showing the Ten Commandments, his eyes fixed on the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” From that moment, he vowed never to take a human life.
The second incident involved his father. William Doss came home drunk one day and threatened Desmond’s mother with a gun during an argument. Desmond wrestled the weapon away from his father and later hid it where his father couldn’t find it. The violence in his own home reinforced Desmond’s commitment to nonviolence. As a teenager and young man, Desmond attended church regularly and became a deacon at age 21.
He worked at the Lynchberg Lumber Company during the depression. then got a job at the Newport News Naval Shipyard. When war came after Pearl Harbor, Desmond faced a choice. His shipyard job qualified as essential war work, which would exempt him from the draft. His religious beliefs as a 7th Day Adventist entitled him to conscientious objector status.
Desmond chose neither exemption. He believed World War II was a just cause and wanted to serve his country, but he would serve in a way consistent with his faith. He would save lives, not take them. In April 1942, Desmond Doss enlisted in the Army and was sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina for basic training with the reactivated 77th Infantry Division.
He requested assignment as a medic, which he received. What he didn’t receive was understanding or acceptance from his fellow soldiers. Doss refused to carry or train with any weapon. He observed the Sabbath on Saturday, the 7th Day Adventist Holy Day, and would not work. He spent hours reading his Bible and praying.
To the other men in his unit, Doss seemed self-righteous, cowardly, and unwilling to do his share. The harassment began almost immediately. Soldiers mocked him, called him a coward, and made his life miserable. They resented that Doss got Saturdays off for religious observance while they had to work. What they didn’t know was that Doss had offered to pull guard duty and work on Sundays when others were on leave.
The officers had refused his offer. The verbal abuse turned physical. One night, several soldiers beat Doss while he slept. When questioned by officers, Doss refused to identify his attackers. This act of forgiveness earned grudging respect from some of his tormentors. His commanding officers weren’t much better. They saw Doss as a troublemaker and tried multiple times to have him removed from the army.
One officer attempted to discharge him for mental illness. Doss refused to accept the discharge, stating he would not agree to documentation that falsely claimed his religious beliefs were a mental disorder. Another officer tried to court marshall him for refusing to handle a rifle. The attempt failed. Military law protected conscientious objectors and Doss had enlisted voluntarily as a non-combatant.
He had broken no regulations. The low point came when Doss was granted leave to go home and marry Dorothy Shudy, a nurse he’d been courting. Just before his departure, officers arrested him for refusing to carry a weapon and charged him with insubordination. Doss spent time in the stockade and faced court marshal.
At the trial, Desmond pleaded not guilty, refusing to compromise his beliefs even to gain his freedom. The case seemed hopeless until his father, William, burst into the courtroom carrying a letter from his former World War I commanding officer, now a brigadier general. The letter stated that Desmond’s pacifism was protected by the Constitution.
The charges were dropped. Desmond married Dorothy and returned to his unit. The 77th Infantry Division shipped out to the Pacific in 1944. Doss was assigned to the medical detachment, Second Platoon, Company B, First Battalion, 307th Infantry Regiment. The men who had once threatened to shoot him in combat were now depending on him to keep them alive.
The 77th landed on Guam in July 1944. The island had been in Japanese hands since 1941, and the enemy had fortified it extensively. The fighting was brutal. American forces faced entrenched Japanese soldiers who fought to the death rather than surrender. During the battle for Guam, the men of Company B discovered what kind of man Desmond Doss truly was.
While under heavy enemy fire, Doss ran into exposed positions to treat wounded soldiers. He dragged men to safety while bullets cracked overhead. He administered first aid under circumstances that would terrify most combat veterans. The men who had called him a coward watched him display courage beyond anything they’d shown.
For his actions on Guam, Doss received the bronze star for valor. It was the first of many decorations he would earn. After Guam came Lee in the Philippines. Again, Doss showed extraordinary bravery under fire. He treated wounded men in forward positions, often crawling through enemy gunfire to reach casualties. He worked for hours without rest, moving from one wounded soldier to another.
For his service on Ley, he received a second bronze star. By the time the 77th Infantry Division reached Okinawa in April 1945, every man in Company B knew that Desmond Doss was the bravest soldier in the unit. The contempt had turned to deep respect. These men would follow their unarmed medic anywhere. The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest campaigns in the Pacific War.
The Japanese had spent years fortifying the island with an elaborate network of caves, tunnels, and bunkers. They intended to make the Americans pay for every yard of ground with blood. The 307th Infantry Regiment moved into position at the Mietta Escarment on April 29th, 1945. American soldiers called it Hacksaw Ridge.
The escarment was a sheer cliff approximately 400 ft high with the top 35 ft nearly vertical. Cargo nets had been strung up the cliff face so soldiers could climb to the top. On May 2nd, Company B climbed the nets and joined the fighting on the ridge. The Japanese defenders subjected them to constant machine gun, mortar, and artillery fire.
The fighting was so intense that one American soldier was decapitated by machine gun fire. Bodies piled up. Wounded men screamed for medics. Doss had removed all markings that identified him as a medic. He knew Japanese forces specifically targeted medics because killing one medic meant multiple soldiers might die for lack of medical care.
He worked continuously under fire, treating wounds, administering morphine, and dragging casualties to safer positions. For 3 days, the 307th held the top of Hacksaw Ridge against furious Japanese counterattacks. On May 5th, the situation became untenable. American commanders ordered a retreat. The men would climb back down the cargo nets and regroup.
But approximately 75 wounded soldiers couldn’t move on their own. They would have to be left behind. Desmond Doss refused to accept this. When the order came to retreat, he stayed behind. Alone on top of Hacksaw Ridge. With Japanese soldiers all around him and no weapon to defend himself, Desmond Doss began the most extraordinary rescue operation in American military history.
He crawled through enemy fire to reach wounded men. Some were unconscious. Some were in shock. Some were too badly hurt to move. Doss checked each man, provided first aid if needed, then dragged them to the edge of the cliff. At the cliff edge, Doss had fashioned a rope system using a special knot he’d learned.
He would secure a wounded man to the rope, then lower him down the sheer rock face to friendly hands below. The process was slow and dangerous. Japanese fire swept the area constantly. Doss could be killed at any moment. Between each rescue, he prayed, “Lord, help me get one more.” He would save one man, return to the killing zone, find another wounded soldier, and pray again.
Lord, help me get one more. For 5 hours, Doss worked alone. One by one, he brought the wounded to the cliff edge and lowered them to safety. Soldiers below watched in amazement as wounded men kept appearing over the cliff, lowered on Doss’s rope system. They couldn’t believe one man was doing this. By nightfall, every wounded soldier had been saved.
Doss had rescued 75 men single-handedly under constant enemy fire without a weapon to defend himself. He had not received a scratch. His company commander later said it was the most incredible thing he’d ever witnessed in combat. Doss’s work at Hacksaw Ridge was just beginning. For the next two weeks, he continued displaying extraordinary courage.
On May 5th, after the mass rescue, Doss braved enemy shelling to assist an artillery officer. He applied bandages and administered plasma while shells exploded around them. Later that day, when an American soldier was severely wounded near an enemy cave, Doss crawled 25 ft from the Japanese position, rendered aid, and carried the man 100 yards to safety while exposed to continuous fire.
On May 21st, during a night attack, Doss was finally wounded. A Japanese grenade landed near his position. The explosion sent shrapnel tearing into his legs. rather than call another medic into danger. Doss treated his own wounds and waited five hours for litterbearers. When the litterbearers finally arrived and began carrying Doss to safety, an enemy tank attack forced them to take cover.
Doss saw a more critically wounded soldier nearby. He rolled off his stretcher, crawled to the other man, and directed the bearers to take the other soldier first. While waiting for the bearers to return, Doss was hit again. This time by a sniper’s bullet that shattered his left arm. In excruciating pain, he used a rifle stock as a splint and bound it to his shattered arm.
Then he crawled 300 yd over rough terrain to the aid station. Doss’s combat service was over. He was evacuated from Okinawa aboard the hospital ship USS Mercy on May 21st, 1945. In addition to his wounds, he had contracted tuberculosis. He would spend years recovering. On October 12th, 1945, on the White House lawn, President Harry Truman presented Corporal Desmond Doss with the Medal of Honor.
Truman shook Doss’s hand firmly and said, “I’m proud of you. You really deserve this. I consider this a greater honor than being president.” The citation detailed Doss’s extraordinary heroism from April 29th to May 21st, 1945. It described how he refused to seek cover and remained in fire swept areas to save wounded men. It recounted the rescue of 75 men lowered down Hacksaw Ridge.
It noted his continued bravery even after being wounded. Desmond Doss became the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor. Two others would later receive it during the Vietnam War, but Doss was the first and the only one who refused to carry any weapon whatsoever. In addition to the Medal of Honor, Doss received two bronze stars for his actions on Guam and Ley and three purple hearts for his wounds.
At the 100th anniversary of the Medal of Honor in 1962, the other recipients selected Doss to represent them at a White House ceremony with President John F. Kennedy. Doss was discharged from the army in 1946, but his ordeal wasn’t over. The tuberculosis he’d contracted in the Philippines ravaged his body.
He spent most of the next 6 years in hospitals. His left lung had to be surgically removed along with five ribs. For the rest of his life, he survived on a single lung. The antibiotics used to treat his tuberculosis damaged his hearing. He became nearly deaf. Later in life, he lost his remaining lung to cancer but survived.
His body bore the permanent scars of his service. Despite his health problems, Doss remained active in his church and community. He married Dorothy and they had one son. He worked various jobs and became a prominent figure in the 7th Day Adventist Church. Desmond Doss died March 23rd, 2006 in Piedmont, Alabama at age 87.
He was buried at Chattanooga National Cemetery in Tennessee. His story inspired the 2004 documentary The Conscientious Objector and the 2016 film Hacksaw Ridge, which won two Academy Awards. Desmond Doss proved that courage doesn’t require a weapon. In a war fought with rifles, machine guns, grenades, and bombs, one man saved 75 lives armed only with faith, determination, and compassion.
His fellow soldiers had once called him a coward. They threatened to shoot him in combat. They couldn’t understand how someone could go to war without a weapon. Doss showed them that saving lives requires greater courage than taking them. The prayer he repeated on Hacksaw Ridge captured the essence of his character.
Lord, help me get one more. He didn’t pray for safety or survival. He prayed for the ability to save one more life. When he’d saved that life, he prayed to save another and another until all 75 were safe. President Truman was right to call meeting Doss a greater honor than being president. Desmond Doss embodied the best of human nature in the worst circumstances imaginable.
He maintained his principles under tremendous pressure. He showed mercy in the midst of merciless combat. He chose to save rather than destroy. His legacy endures not just in the Medal of Honor citation or the Hollywood film, but in the lives he saved and the example he set. Those 75 men went home to their families because one unarmed medic refused to leave them behind.
Their children and grandchildren exist because of Desmond Doss. He wanted people to remember not the number of men he saved, but that God had used him for good. In his own words, I don’t want to ever say I took care of 75. All I want to say is I was just thankful that the Lord was able to use me and forget the number.
But history won’t forget the number. 75 men saved by a medic who never fired a shot. Thank you for watching. And remember, if you know a World War II veteran, take a moment to thank them. And if you’re a veteran yourself from any era, thank you for your service. These stories are your legacy.
Until next time, stay strong, stay curious, and never forget. Jesus. Jesus.
