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

 

 

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!

 

Do you remember the movie Hacksaw Ridge, where aid man Pfc. Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia, lowered wounded soldiers 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.

 

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

 

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

 

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