*GONZALES, DAVID M.
Rank and organization: Private First Class,
U.S. Army, Company A, 127th Infantry, 32d Infantry Division. Place and date: Villa
Verde Trail, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 25 April 1945. Entered service at: Pacoima,
Calif. Birth: June 9, 1923 at Pacoima, Calif. G.O. No: 115, 8 December 1945.
Citation:
He was pinned down with his company. As enemy fire swept the area, making any movement
extremely hazardous, a 500-pound bomb smashed into the company's perimeter, burying 5 men
with its explosion. Pfc. Gonzales, without hesitation, seized an entrenching tool and
under a hail of fire crawled 15 yards to his entombed comrades, where his commanding
officer, who had also rushed forward, was beginning to dig the men out. Nearing his goal,
he saw the officer struck and instantly killed by machinegun fire. Undismayed, he set to
work swiftly and surely with his hands and the entrenching tool while enemy sniper and
machinegun bullets struck all about him. He succeeded in digging one of the men out of the
pile of rock and sand. To dig faster he stood up regardless of the greater danger from so
exposing himself. He extricated a second man, and then another. As he completed the
liberation of the third, he was hit and mortally wounded, but the comrades for whom he so
gallantly gave his life were safely evacuated. Pfc. Gonzales' valiant and intrepid conduct
exemplifies the highest tradition of the military service.
