NOTE - After 19 years online, HomeOfHeroes.com may soon close it's doors. Many of the HERO STORIES, history, citations and other information detailed in this website are, at least for now, available in PRINT or DIGITAL format from AMAZON.COM. The below comprise the nearly 4-dozen books currently available. Your HomeOfHeroes CONTENT & Navigation is below the following Advertisement. Medal of Honor Books This series of books contains the citations for ALL Medals of Honor awarded to that branch of service, with brief biographical data and photos of many of the recipients. Some of them also include citations for other awards, analysis of awards, data tables and analysis and more. Click on a book to find it on Amazon.com where you can find more details on what is contained in each book, as well as to get a free preview. Each volume is $24.95. Heroes in the War on Terrorism NAVY    -  MARINES   -  AIR FORCE   - ARMY O.E.F.  - ARMY O.I.F. These books contain the citations for nearly all of the awards of the Silve Star and higher to members of each branch of service in the War on Terrorism. Books include photos of most recipients, some biographical data, analysis of awards by rank, unit, date, and more. ENCYCLOPEDIA of AMERICAN MILITARY HEROES With the 5 Medal of Honor volumes above, these books comprise a virtual 28-volume ENCYCLOPEDIA of decorated American heroes(15,000 pages)  with award citations, history, tables & analysis, and detailed indexes of ACEs, FLAG OFFICERS, and more. (Click on any book to see it in Amazon.com - $24.95 Each Volume) United States Army Heroes Distinguished Service Cross Distinguished Service Medals 1873 - 1941 Korea Vietnam 1862 - 1960 RVN - Present United States Navy Heroes Navy Cross Silver Star Navy Corpsmen 1915 - 1941 WWII Korea - Present WWII United States Marine Corps Heroes Navy Cross Silver Star 1915 - WWII Korea - Present 1900 - 1941 WWII 1947 - Korea Vietnam - Present WINGS OF VALOR The Defining Generation Visit My AUTHOR PAGE  "From a cautious experiment the Army has received an unexpectedly rich reward.  A group of sinewy oriental soldiers only one generation removed from a nation that was fighting fanatically against the U.S. was fighting just as fanatically for it." (From an article in Time Magazine in July, 1944.")             "Anzio" All Roads Lead To Rome   The goal of the entire push northward across the Apennine Mountains was the liberation of Rome.  Field Marshall Kesselring was determined to prevent the fall of the Italian capitol, and committed his finest troops to battle the Allies.  Monte Cassino was the dominant point in his Gustav line, and it had held.            On January 22, 1944, two days before the 100th made its first assault on Monte Cassino, the U.S. 5th Army landed at Anzio, a beach-head south of Rome.  The goal was to relieve the pressure at Monte Cassino by placing 50,000 Allied soldiers north of the Gustav line.  After the 100th Infantry Battalion's last assault on Monte Cassino, the unit was pulled back into the mountains to recuperate.   A month later on March 15th a second wave of bombers, greater than the first, rained tons of bombs on the mountain.  The Germans held stubbornly through attacks by 5 Allied Divisions.  Not until May 17th did Monte Cassino fall.  Meanwhile, the 100th Infantry found itself stalemated with the other Allied soldiers near the beaches of Anzio. After their last attack on the monastery on February 18th, the 512 men of the Purple Heart Battalion had pulled back to "heal".  Some 200 replacement were brought in, bringing the battalion to about half-strength.  On March 26th the 100th, moving out of Naples, made an amphibious landing to join the forces of the 6th Army at Anzio. The Anzio landing, dubbed "Operation Shingle" because it would peel away enemy resistance like shingles off a roof, didn't relieve the pressure at Monte Cassino.  Instead, Kesselring sent eight German divisions south from Rome to contain the new invasion. "Containment" is probably as apt a description of those first four months at Anzio as one could find.  Winston Churchill referred to the operation as "a stranded whale".  After the initial landing in January against light resistance, the battleground became oddly reminiscent of the battlefields of World War One.  The Allies had secured a 15-mile beach head that bulged inward only a few miles.  Between the Americans and the German forces was a flat, open "no-man's-land" across which the opposing forces could watch each other through binoculars during daylight hours.  Skirmishes were fought under cover of darkness as each side probed the other.  When the sun came up the two sides would pull back to their secure areas.  Though devastating artillery barrages were launched by both sides during the day, there was almost a "gentleman's agreement" between the two sides that no infantry war would be conducted while the sun shined.  The men would fight at night, then relax to eat, sleep and sunbathe during the day.  When the men of the 100th recall the two month period after their March 26th landing at Anzio, they often refer to it as their "Dracula Days"...sleeping during the day...drawing blood at night. This is not to infer that there were no battles, no deaths, and that all was peaceful on the Italian coast.  The artillery barrages were devastating, and the efforts to break out see-sawed back and forth.  The town of   Carrocetto changed hands no less than 8 times during the four months, as the Allies fought to break out and the Germans fought to contain them. The fall of Monte Cassino on May 17th was a crushing blow to Kesselring's Gustav line.  The Allies now controlled the high ground and the entrance to the Liri valley.  It was time to end the stalemate, mount a powerful offensive, and push the last 20 miles to reach and liberate Rome.  Once again, it was time for all out war. Fifth Army military planners selected May 23rd, six days after the fall of Monte Cassino, as "break out" day.  The only concern was the lack of intelligence information on the strength and positions of the German units.  There was rumor that the enemy ahead was supported by a crack German Tank Division, carefully camouflaged beyond the no-man's-land.  Patrols had been sent out at night to scout the area including one reconnaissance mission by a company-strength probe supported by American tanks.   Not a single enemy soldier had been captured to allow the interrogators opportunity to learn what kind of resistance the May 23rd breakout would face.  It seemed to be a problem without a solution, one that could mean disaster to the impending offensive.  Once again, the answer came from the 100th Infantry Battalion.  This time, it would only take two soldiers to do the impossible.  One of them was an officer...the unstoppable Lieutenant Kim who looked the 100th's battalion commander in the eye and said, "Send me out and I'll bring back a prisoner."  Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Singles replied:   "That's Crazy"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A blanket covered the window in the second story of the old farm house.  "Crazy," Lieutenant Colonel Singles thought to himself again, as he moved the blanket slowly aside to peer through his binoculars across the wheat field and barbed wire that marked the no-man's land between Bravo company and the Germans.  The men of Bravo company usually slept during the daytime, but not on this day...May 17, 1944.  In the distance, Lieutenant Young Oak Kim and Pfc Irving Akahoshi were slowly crawling towards the enemy.  Two men, alone...in broad daylight.   "Definitely crazy."

Sometimes it was the crazy ideas that were most successful.  So Lieutenant Kim had argued in his bid to get permission to nab a German prisoner.  The Korean-born officer of the Purple Heart Battalion explained his plan.  The reason, he had told headquarters, that previous patrols had been unsuccessful in snatching a P.O.W. were three-fold:

• Previous patrols had gone out only at night, when the enemy was most alert.  He had watched them through the same second story farm house window for days, noted that they came in from night patrols to eat breakfast, then slept to prepare for the next night's patrols.

• Previous patrols had been too large, one even company size.  So large a patrol was easy to spot and avoid.

• Most patrols did what the enemy expected, taking the routes that afforded the most cover under the blanket of darkness.

The enemy would never expect a patrol of two men to crawl through an open wheat field under the bright sunshine.  So that was what he and Akahoshi would do. 

The previous evening several of Bravo Company's best automatic riflemen had left the safety of the rear staging area at 10 P.M. to crawl through the wheat field to the mid-point of no-man's land.  Kim had positioned them carefully in foxholes about 2 A.M., then cut a hole in the barbed wire so that he and Akahoshi could slip through into enemy territory.  Carrying only a submachine gun, a pistol and a few grenades, the two soon slipped upon an enemy patrol returning to their own staging area.  Slowly and quietly the two Americans had crawled more than a quarter of a mile as they followed the enemy.  Dawn had broken to reveal the Germans preparing for breakfast.  Kim and Akahoshi crawled to a ditch Kim had seen earlier in aerial photographs of the area, and the two men pressed their bodies to the ground and prayed for luck.  By 9 A.M. they heard the sounds of snoring as the enemy soldiers bedded down.

Though the soldiers slept during the day, the observers in the nearby enemy outposts would be awake and alert.  Kim knew they had to move, skirt the patrol until they could find the right place and moment.  Back in the American camp the soldiers anxiously watched the progress.  Kim pressed on, praying that he was correct in believing the German observers wouldn't bother to watch their own area.  They'd be busy training their field glasses on the Americans on the other side of the barbed wire.  "Crazy...like a fox."

After a nervous 2 hour crawl around the enemy, Kim and Akahoshi found their prey...two Germans soundly sleeping in a dugout.  When the enemy awoke it was to the taste of gun metal.  Kim and Akahoshi had carefully placed their submachine guns in the sleeping soldiers' mouths, then awakened them.   Removing all weapons, they quietly forced the two to crawl back to the ditch where the Americans had hidden earlier.  As dusk began to fall, the four crawled the rest of the way to the barbed wire where the B.A.R. men of Bravo Company waited.  Then, with the full darkness of night, the entire patrol returned to the company area.

The two prisoners turned out to be an enemy Sergeant and Pfc from a German division's headquarters.  The information obtained provided the strategy for the 100th's break out from Anzio a week later.  A month later a special ceremony was held to honor Lieutenant Kim and other heroes of the Purple Heart Battalion.  On that day General Mark Clark personally pinned the Distinguished Service Cross on Kim's uniform shirt.  Then the general stepped back and looked at the Lieutenant again, recognition dawning.  Just a few months earlier Clark had presented this same brave lieutenant with a Silver Star.  The 5th Army commander called one of his aides, a captain, to his side.  He removed one of the aide's parallel silver bars, and pinned them on Kim.  Most people, including General Clark, always thought of Kim as being Japanese because of his role with the 100th Infantry Battalion.   Captain Kim was the ONLY Korean-American to receive the Distinguished Service Cross in World War II. 

The break out from Anzio began as scheduled on May 23rd.  Thanks to intelligence reports generated by the interrogation of the prisoners captured six days earlier by Kim and Akahoshi, the Fifth Army chose to make the main thrust through the same area the two soldiers had crawled in their daring feat.   Knowing where the enemy was, what his strength was and how best to deploy the Allied troops didn't negate the danger, however, or the fact that every mile to Rome would be a battleground.  Once the Fifth Army broke out of the beach head and crossed no-man's land, they would be faced with digging a well entrenched German force out of the rugged mountains and valleys.

On May 28th the 7th Infantry was slugging its way through the enemy strongholds near Artena.  When a rifle company became bogged down, a mainland soldier of Filipino-Spanish descent from Vista, California came to the rescue.  Staff Sergeant Rudolph Davila moved his machine gunners along an exposed hillside when the enemy opened fire.  Davila urged his gunners forward but they were reluctant in the face of the fierce enemy fire.  Sergeant Davila crawled 50 yards to the nearest machine gun, set it up alone, and began returning the enemy's fire.  Kneeling in an exposed position in order to maintain accuracy, the brave sergeant stayed in an exposed position firing his gun while enemy bullets bounced off the metal tripod of his own gun.   Ordering one of his men to replace him at the trigger, Davila crawled forward to direct the fire of his team until both of the threatening enemy positions were destroyed.   He brought his three remaining guns forward and commanded and directed their fire until the enemy pulled back.

On the move again, a bullet slammed into Davila's leg.  Enemy fire peppered the hillside as the wounded sergeant ignored his pain to run towards a burning tank.  Bullets ricocheted off the hot metal of the destroyed tank as Davila pulled himself to the turret to turn its big gun on the enemy.   That done, his attention was drawn to a house 150 yards away from which enemy fire poured down on his men.  He forced himself to run to within 20 yards, crawled the rest of the way, and charged into the building hurtling grenades and firing at the enemy.   When the 5 enemy who had held the house were dead, Sergeant Davila climbed to the attic.  The walls were falling apart as fire raked the building.  Davila found a large shell hole in the attic and again rained death on the enemy, destroying two more enemy guns and forcing the enemy to abandon their positions.  Sergeant Davila was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism that day. 

Fifty-six years later when President Clinton presented Medals of Honor to 22 Asian-American heroes of World War II, Rudolph Davila was present.  One of the 22 awards went to a Chinese-American for heroism in the Pacific.  The other 21 awards went to heroic warriors for their heroism in the European theater.  Of the many Asian-Americans who fought in Italy and France in units other than the 100th/442nd, Davila was the only one to receive the Medal of Honor.

On June 2nd the 442nd Regimental Combat Team landed at Naples to move north and link up with its Nisei brothers.  Relief for the 1300-man Purple Heart Battalion that had suffered more than 900 casualties during nine months of combat, was on the way.  Before the reunion however, there would be more casualties.

Even as the 442nd was landing at Naples, the 100th was going into battle again.  Joined by two artillery battalions, two antitank companies and a chemical mortar company, the 100th was part of "Task Force Singles" led by their battalion commander Colonel Gordon Singles.  Their job was to spearhead the drive through Lanuvio and La Torreto, taking the cities and opening Highway 7 all the way into Rome.  If they were successful the Fifth Army could move swiftly, liberating the city and entering it ahead of the British.

Even as Yeiki Kobashigawa's Nisei brothers of the 442nd were arriving on Italian soil, the 26-year old from Wailua, Hawaii was in the fight of his life.  Yeiki was an original member of the 100th.  Drafted to military service a month before Pearl Harbor, he had been assigned to the 298th Regiment of Hawaii's National Guard.  After the immediate hysteria and summary discharge of Japanese-American soldiers that followed the attack, when the 100th Infantry Battalion was organized, Yeiki Kobashigawa had been there.  From the battalion's first landing nearly a year before, he had fought his way through the rugged Apennines.  Now, as Bravo Company moved against the Germans near Lanuvio, a series of heavily fortified machinegun nests raked the Nisei of his company with devastating fire.

The young sergeant finally spotted one of the enemy positions 50 yards away.  With one of his men he crawled forward.  With split-second timing he threw a grenade at the enemy position while the other soldier opened fire.  Amid the hail of both friendly and enemy fire he charged forward through the smoke and debris of the grenade to kill one enemy and capture two more.  When a second enemy position opened up on him, Sergeant Kobashigawa moved forward again, throwing grenades and giving cover fire to the soldier with him who rushed forward to capture the 4-man enemy gun crew.  Continuing to lead and direct his men, Sergeant Kobashigawa managed to destroy two more enemy gun emplacements.  Fifty-six years later the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions that day was upgraded, and President Clinton hung the blue ribbon of the Medal of Honor around the neck of the 82 year old war hero.

A short distance away at La Torreto, Private Shinyei Nakamine crawled 175 yards towards an enemy machine gun nest that had caught his platoon in a cross-fire.  Suddenly he charged, hurtling grenades and firing his submachine gun.  Three enemy soldiers fell dead and two others surrendered.  The young Army private's first charge of the day had been a success.

A second enemy position fell to the intrepid private later in the day.  As other soldiers from his squad provided covering fire, he again rushed forward with grenades to wound one enemy, capture four more, and destroy his second enemy position.  A third position would not fall so easily.  This time as the brave warrior from Hawaii rushed forward, the men of his squad watched in horror as his valiant charge was abruptly halted by a hail of enemy bullets.  When his DSC was upgraded 56 years later, relatives would accept the award on behalf of the private who gave his life destroying the enemy positions that threatened his fellow soldiers.

The battle for Highway 7 lasted two days.   In the end Lanuvio and La Torreto fell.  From there Task Force Singles moved swiftly through Arricia, Albano, and Fattochie.  Fifteen brave soldiers of the Purple Heart Battalion gave their lives in the march to Rome, 63 were wounded.  By the afternoon of June 5th the Task Force had moved within 7 miles of the Italian Capitol and the long awaited triumphant entry was in sight.  Excitement spread among the men, exuberance at victory, the thrill of being first to enter and liberate the first European capitol from the Axis. 

Then the march was halted, not by the Germans, but by General Harmon of the American First Armored Division.  The men of the Purple Heart Battalion were ordered to halt their advance.  They sat along the road watching other units march triumphantly down the Highway and into the heroes welcome lavished upon them by the liberated citizens of Rome.  It was one of the saddest indignities the men who had fought so hard and given so much could have suffered.  Finally, as night fell, a convoy of trucks arrived to transport the weary soldiers of the 100th Infantry Battalion to the outskirts of the city.  Years later even the award of the Presidential Unit Citation to the 100th Infantry for its Rome-Arno Campaign (January 22 - September 9, 1945) could not soften the disappointment many of the men felt at the tragedy that befell them on the road to Rome, not by the enemy, but by their fellow Americans.

 

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