The Woodsman's Journal Online: May 2025

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Pfc. Desmond Doss, the Rest of the Story, Part Two©

Author’s note -- I hope that you enjoy learning from this resource! To help me to continue to provide valuable free content, please consider showing your appreciation by leaving a donation HERE. Thank you and Happy Trails!

Last week we talked about part Pfc Desmond Doss’s story that was not in the movie Hacksaw Ridge, and now for the rest of the story.

Unlike the movie, the story of Pfc. Desmond Doss’s heroism doesn’t end with him lowering more than seventy five wounded soldiers to the bottom of a cliff. Earlier that same day, he crawled 200 yards (183 meters) into Japanese controlled territory to rescue a wounded man. A few days later, on May 4, he saw four men wounded while trying to knock out an enemy cave stronghold. Despite intense Japanese fire, he advanced four times to within 8 yards (7 meters) of the cave entrance to treat their wounds and carry them to the safety of the American lines. The next day, May 5^th he bandaged a wounded officer under heavy Japanese small arm and artillery fire and moved him to a covered spot before administering plasma. Later the same day, Doss saw a man wounded 25 yards in front of cave, which the engineers were preparing to demolish. He moved to him, tended his wounds, and then carried him under continuous Japanese fire over 100 yards of rough terrain to the safety of an aid station.

During a bold night attack on May 21^st, Company B was forced to take cover from incoming Japanese fire, however there were wounded that couldn’t take cover and Doss courageously moved from one to another administering first aid. He and two other soldiers crawled into a hole to wait out the darkness, when suddenly a Japanese grenade landed among them. The other soldiers were able to scramble out in time, but as Doss attempted to kick a grenade away from himself and the others it detonated beneath his leg. He was badly wounded and bleeding from more than seventeen wounds in his left leg. Refusing to call for another medic, who would have had to risk his life leaving cover, Doss bandaged his own wounds and later, at daybreak, when the pain became too intense, he gave himself an injection of morphine.

He waited for five hours until dawn when fellow soldier T/5 Ralph E. Baker, and a few other men, carried him on a litter to the aid station. After they had carried him approximately 50 yards (45 meters), they were forced to take cover from three Japanese tanks. Seeing another severely wounded soldier who had a head wound, Doss told them to take the other soldier to safety.

While waiting for the return of the litter party, Lewis Brooks, who was “walking wounded”, came along the trail. He offered to help Desmond and the two started down the path. Brooks’s had his arm around Desmond’s waist, supporting him, and Doss had his left arm draped over his shoulder when Desmond was wounded again, this time by sniper fire. The sniper’s bullet punched through his left forearm and lodged in his upper arm, leaving him with a compound fractures both above and below his elbow. He instructed Brooks’s on how to treat and splint the fractures of his arm using a discarded rifle stock. Then he and Brroks crawled more than 300 yards over rough terrain to the aid station. On the hospital ship , seventeen pieces of shrapnel were removed from Doss’s leg and his arm set in a cast.

His actions on the Maeda Escarpment earned him the highest honor America can bestow on one of her sons or daughters, the Congressional Medal of Honor. On October 12, 1945, President Harry S. Truman presented, now, Corporal Doss with the Medal of Honor in a ceremony on the White House lawn. President Truman shook Doss’s hand and told him, “I’m proud of you. You really deserve this. I consider this a greater honor than being president”. US Army medic Desmond Doss became the first, and only, conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor during World War II. Doss said of the honor, “I feel that I received the Congressional Medal of Honor because I kept the Golden Rule that we read in Matthew 7:12. ...All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them...”

Desmond Doss's war was over. He'd fought a good fight, a just fight and he had fought it his own way without ever compromising his beliefs. Later he said, “I felt like it was an honor to serve God and country, we were fightin' for our religious liberty and freedom”.

And “Now you know the rest of the story”.

I hope that you enjoy learning from this resource! To help me to continue to provide valuable free content, please consider showing your appreciation by leaving a donation HERE. Thank you and Happy Trails!

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE. Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube. If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site. I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sources

Benedict, Terry L.; The Conscientious Objector, Cinequest

Desmonddoss.com; “Desmond Doss: The Real Story”, https://desmonddoss.com/bio/bio-real.php, accessed May 17, 2025

Herndon, Booton; Redemption at Hacksaw Ridge, [Remnant Publications, Coldwater, MI, 2016]

Home of Heroes; “Desmond T. Doss”, [© 2018 by Legal Help for Veterans, PLLC], https://homeofheroes.com/heroes-stories/world-war-ii/desmond-t-doss/#:~:text=After%20soundly%20defeating%20the%20Japanese,released%20by%20Lionsgate%20in%202016, accessed May 17, 2025

National WW2 Museum; “Private First Class Desmond Thomas Doss Medal of Honor”, October 12, 2020, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/private-first-class-desmond-thomas-doss-medal-of-honor, accessed May 10, 2025

Prefer, Nathan N.; “Hell on Hacksaw Ridge”, August 2021, https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/hell-on-hacksaw-ridge/#:~:text=Doss%2C%20the%20only%20surviving%20aid%20man%20in,to%20GIs%20below%2C%20saving%2075%20wounded%20Americans, accessed May 10, 2025

United States Civil Defense; Rescue Skills and Techniques TM-14-1, [Federal Civil Defense Administration, United States Government Printing Office, October 1957], page 21-22, https://books.google.com/books?id=JezBftEUj7EC&pg=PP3&dq=%22Rescue+Techniques+and+Operations+TM-14-1+%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjGkYeR45KNAxUjK1kFHQ1wIf0Q6AF6BAgJEAM#v=onepage&q=%22Rescue%20Techniques%20and%20Operations%20TM-14-1%20%22&f=false, accessed May 10, 2025

United State Civil Defense Office; Technical Manual: TM., Issue 14, [Federal Civil Defense Administration, United States Government Printing Office, September 1952], page 21, https://books.google.com/books?id=LvvDCx5EwOkC&pg=PA20&dq=%22civil+defense%22+%22life+basket%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiVmsvW4JKNAxX0EFkFHZedL0cQ6AF6BAgJEAM#v=onepage&q=%22civil%20defense%22%20%22life%20basket%22&f=false, accessed May 10, 2025

Unknown, “Desmond Doss: The Real Story”, https://desmonddoss.com/bio/bio-real.php, accessed May 17, 2025

U.S, Army; “Private First Class Desmond T. Doss Interview, March 20, 1987”, https://web.archive.org/web/20161108195456/http://ameddregiment.amedd.army.mil/moh/bios/dossInt.html, accessed May 17, 2025

van Dujin, Tina, et. al; Can analogy instructions help older people (re)learn activities of daily living?, July 2024, https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Description-of-the-bowline-knot-by-the-rabbit-analogy-Source_fig1_382735870, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia; “Citation for PFC Desmond Doss (1944 - 1945) 10325_2006_001”, January 6, 2006, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Citatie_Desmond_Doss.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia; “Citation for PFC Desmond Doss(1944 - 1945) 10325_2006_002”, January 6, 2006, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Citatie_2_Desmond_Doss.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia; “Desmond Doss, on top of the Maeda Escarpment, Battle of Okinawa”, May 4, 1945, by United States Army, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doss_Maeda.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia; “The grave of Desmond Doss in the Chattanooga National Cemetery”, April 24, 2011, by Fred Bullmer, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desmond_Doss_Grave.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia; “Doss wearing an HBT jacket with a medic’s kit bag around his neck on Okinawa”, 1945, by United States Army, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desmond_Doss_in_Okinawa.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia, “Americans_on_Okinawa_hear_of_victory_in_Europe”, 1945 by United States Army, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Americans_on_Okinawa_hear_of_victory_in_Europe.jpg, accessed May 17, 2025

History vs Hollywood; “Hacksaw Ridge (2016)”, https://web.archive.org/web/20161118225423/http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/hacksaw-ridge, accessed May 17, 2025

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Pfc. Desmond Doss, the Rest of the Story, Part One©

Last week we talked about Pfc Desmond Doss and how he used a double bowline with a chest safety hitch to lower wounded American soldiers down a 35 foot (10 meter) cliff overhang.

But there is more to Desmond Doss’s story than what Hollywood showed in the movie Hacksaw Ridge. And “now for the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey would say in that old time radio program.

Desmond T. Doss was born on February 7, 1919, in Lynchburg, Virginia, and he died on March 23, 2006, in Piedmont, Alabama. Even though Doss was employed as a joiner at a shipyard in Newport News, Virginia, and had a deferment because of his shipyard work, he enlisted April 1, 1942. Doss believed the war was just and desired to do his part by saving lives, not taking them, that is why he described himself as a “conscientious cooperator”.

After training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, Doss was assigned as a medic to the 2^nd Platoon, Company B, 1^st Battalion, 307^th Infantry, 77^th Infantry Division and in the spring of 1944, shipped out, bound for the Pacific.

The 77th landed in Guam in July 1944. For his bravery during the Second Battle of Guam (July 21 to August 10, 1944) in treating wounded men under fire, Doss was awarded a Bronze Star with the “V” device for valor. Whenever the cry, “medic” rang out across the battlefield, he never thought of his own safety, he repeatedly braved enemy fire to reach and treat a wounded soldier and carry him back to safety.

After Guam, the 307th landed behind Japanese lines at Ormoc and help end of the Battle of Leyte Island, (October 17 to December 26, 1944). Time after time at Leyte, Desmond faced Japanese fire to rescue the wounded and get them to safety. Once while moving into an open to rescue a fallen soldier, his fellow soldiers watched in horror as a Japanese sniper leveled his weapon at Desmond. They were unable to fire at the sniper, for fear of injuring some of their own. For his repeated heroism during the Battle of Leyte, Doss was again awarded a Bronze Star with the “V” device for valor.

After the Battle of Leyte, Doss and 307th fought at the Battle of Okinawa, (April 1 to June 22, 1945) landing on Yakabi Shima and Zamami Shima before the main landings of April 1st Later the 307th would land on Ie Shima, before coming ashore on Okinawa and relieving the 96th Division at Hacksaw Ridge. The Battle of Okinawa was the bloodiest, fiercest, biggest and costliest battle of the Pacific War, rivaling Normandy in size and complexity.

Doss and Companies A and B of the 307th Infantry, began their attack on Hacksaw Ridge on Sunday, April 29, using scaling ladders to get atop the cliff. According to the accounts by both “Private First Class Desmond T. Doss Interview, March 20, 1987” and the “Desmond T. Doss” Home of the Heroes, before climbing the cliff, Desmond Doss had prayed and it wasn’t until he said “amen”, that the soldiers began climbing the scaling ladders to reach the top of the escarpment. When they reached the top of the cliff, Co. B was immediately pinned down by the heavy enemy fire. To their left, where Co. A was fighting to secure its sector of the cliff edge, the first five men to the top were killed and casualties climbed to the point that Co. A was unable to proceed. Headquarters radioed Co. B to report its casualties. They radioed back that so far there had been none. Co. B was ordered to continue the assault and take the Maeda Escarpment, so the men of Doss’s B company swept across the cliff edge, engaging the enemy, and knocking out eight or nine pillboxes. At the end of the day, they had taken their objective with not a single man was killed and only one soldier wounded in the hand when a rock fell on it.

The next day an inquiry was made to determine how Co. B had accomplished the assault on the Maeda Escarpment cliff edge without a single casualty. A photographer was sent to take a picture on May 4, 1945, and Lieutenant Goronto of Co. B sent Pfc. Desmond Doss back to the top of the escarpment to pose. There was no reasonable way to explain how Co. B had pulled off the assault and taken the cliff edge without any casualties. “Desmond T. Doss” Home of the Heroes, with no other way to conclude the report, the official answer was filed, “Doss prayed”.

However, Companies A and B remained stuck along the top of the cliff edge while the majority of the Maeda Escarpment remained in Japanese hands. On May 2nd, under heavy artillery and mortar fire, Co. B was ordered to withdraw from the clifftop. Desmond refused to withdraw and leave wounded Americans behind, he voluntarily stayed behind to rescue and lower more than seventy five wounded American soldiers down the 35 foot (10 meter) cliff overhang of the Maeda Escarpment, while under constant enemy fire,

Please come back next week to read the rest of Desmond Doss’s story in “Pfc. Desmond Doss and the rest of the Story Part Two©”

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sources

Desmonddoss.com; “Desmond Doss: The Real Story”, https://desmonddoss.com/bio/bio-real.php, accessed May 17, 2025

Unknown, “Desmond Doss: The Real Story”, https://desmonddoss.com/bio/bio-real.php, accessed May 17, 2025

Wikimedia; “Citation for PFC Desmond Doss (1944 - 1945) 10325_2006_001”, January 6, 2006, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Citatie_Desmond_Doss.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia; “Citation for PFC Desmond Doss(1944 - 1945) 10325_2006_002”, January 6, 2006, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Citatie_2_Desmond_Doss.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia; “Desmond Doss, on top of the Maeda Escarpment, Battle of Okinawa”, May 4, 1945, by United States Army, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doss_Maeda.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia; “The grave of Desmond Doss in the Chattanooga National Cemetery”, April 24, 2011, by Fred Bullmer, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desmond_Doss_Grave.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

History vs Hollywood; “Hacksaw Ridge (2016)”, https://web.archive.org/web/20161118225423/http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/hacksaw-ridge, accessed May 17, 2025

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Pfc. Desmond Doss, Hacksaw Ridge and the Double Bowline Knot©

Do you remember the movie Hacksaw Ridge, where aid man Pfc. Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia, lowered woundedsoldiers down a cliff? It’s based on the true story of the assault on the Maeda Escarpment, Okinawa, known to the American soldiers as Hacksaw Ridge. Just eighty years ago, on May 2, 1945, 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry, Company B assaulted the ridge and were driven back, leaving their wounded behind. Medical aid man Pfc. Doss, refused to withdraw with his Company and stayed behind to treat the wounded.

Doss, seen here at the top of Hacksaw Ridge, also called the Maeda Escarpment, dragged 75 severely wounded men to the edge of the ridge and lowered them down a 35 foot high cliff overhang to safety below, where they could be treated by other medics. To rescue the soldiers, he used a knot that he had learned as a youth, when as a Seventh day Adventist’s Pathfinder, he helped to rescue West Virginia flood victims.

Private Doss made a “life basket” using a “bowline-on-a-bight” knot, with a “chest safety hitch”, instead of a standard single “bowline”. Do you know how to make a life basket? You should because someday someone’s life might depend on it.

First make a loop, a bight, by folding the tail of the rope back on itself so that the loop extends from one hand under your feet and back to your other hand. The easiest way for me to remember how to tie a bowline, with either a single or doubled strand, is the “rabbit and tree” method.

· Make a loop a foot or two from the end of the loop to form the RABBITHOLE.

· The rabbit comes UP through the hole.

· The rabbit goes AROUND the tree.

· The rabbit goes back DOWN through the hole.

Once you have tied a bowline-on-a-bight, slide the loops up over the victim’s legs and tie the chest safety hitch around their upper torso.

· To tie a chest safety hitch, form a half hitch around the chest by looping the standing end of the line under the right arm, around the back and under the left arm, before passing it under and then over portion going under the right arm. The tail end of the line is “c” of Figure 18 below.

· Next pull a loop of the standing end under the half hitch around the chest. This loop is called the lower bight and is “a” on Figure 18 below. This loop also forms the upper bight “b” on Figure 18.

· Pull the lower bight “a” up through the loop of the upper bight, “b” on Figure 18 below. Bight “a” and the tail end of the line or “c”, should both completely pass through bight “b”.

Today the life basket is commonly taught to rescue personnel, firefighters and other workers who routinely work high up on trees or poles, it is a safe way to lower injured and potentially unconscious victims to the ground. The best thing about the life basket is, if you have more than one person to lower safely to the ground, it doesn’t have to be completely retied for each victim. The rescue personnel on the ground only need to untie the chest safety hitch, slide the leg loops off the first victim and the rope is ready to be hauled back up to be turned into a life basket for the next victim. And this is how eighty years ago Pfc. Desmond T. Doss rescued at least seventy-five wounded soldiers and lowered them to safety down the cliff face at Hacksaw Ridge.

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Pfc. Desmond Doss and the Rest of the Story ©”, where we will talk about the rest of Desmond Doss’s story.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sources

Wikimedia; “Citation for PFC Desmond Doss (1944 - 1945) 10325_2006_001”, January 6, 2006, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Citatie_Desmond_Doss.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia; “Citation for PFC Desmond Doss(1944 - 1945) 10325_2006_002”, January 6, 2006, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Citatie_2_Desmond_Doss.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia; “Desmond Doss, on top of the Maeda Escarpment, Battle of Okinawa”, May 4, 1945, by United States Army, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doss_Maeda.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

Wikimedia; “The grave of Desmond Doss in the Chattanooga National Cemetery”, April 24, 2011, by Fred Bullmer, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desmond_Doss_Grave.jpg, accessed May 10, 2025

About Me

I live near Buffalo, New York and have more than 25 years of experience in the outdoors. I enjoy being in the wilderness, paddling a canoe or exploring the woods, when I am not researching survival, woodcraft, camping skills or life on the Old Northwest Frontier of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I am a published author and I have been a guide for Birchbark Expeditions and an Outdoor Skills trainer for the Boy Scouts since 2014. I am also a martial artist, having studied several different combat arts over the past 30 years. Currently, I am the author of The Woodsman’s Journal Online and BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.

The Woodsman's Journal Online

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Sunday, May 25, 2025

Pfc. Desmond Doss, the Rest of the Story, Part Two©

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Pfc. Desmond Doss, the Rest of the Story, Part One©

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Pfc. Desmond Doss, Hacksaw Ridge and the Double Bowline Knot©

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