![]() ![]() ![]() While serving with his platoon in 1944 in Guam and the Philippines, he was awarded two Bronze Star Medals with a "V" device, for exceptional valor in aiding wounded soldiers under fire. He consequently became a medic assigned to the 2nd Platoon, Company B, 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division. ĭoss refused to carry a weapon into combat because of his personal beliefs as a Seventh-day Adventist against killing. Meanwhile, his brother Harold served aboard the USS Lindsey. He was sent to Fort Jackson in South Carolina for training with the reactivated 77th Infantry Division. He chose military service, despite being offered a deferment because of his shipyard work, on April 1, 1942, at Camp Lee, Virginia. World War II service Doss on top of the Maeda Escarpment, May 4, 1945īefore the outbreak of World War II, Doss was employed as a joiner at a shipyard in Newport News, Virginia. ĭoss 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. He grew up in the Fairview Heights area of Lynchburg, Virginia, alongside his older sister Audrey and younger brother Harold. His mother raised him as a devout Seventh-day Adventist and instilled Sabbath-keeping, nonviolence, and a vegetarian lifestyle in his upbringing. 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.ĭesmond 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. ![]() Doss further distinguished himself in the Battle of Okinawa by saving an estimated 75 men, acting on his own, becoming the only conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor for this and other actions. He was twice awarded the Bronze Star Medal for actions on Guam and in the Philippines. Desmond Thomas Doss (February 7, 1919 – March 23, 2006) was a United States Army corporal who served as a combat medic with an infantry company in World War II. ![]()
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