HACKSAW RIDGE

(The Exceptional Bravery of a

Soldier)

By

Alex Kelly

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 Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE............................4

Making of Doss............................4

CHAPTER TWO...........................9

The Military.................................9

CHAPTER THREE......................13

The Battle...................................13

CHAPTER FOUR........................20

Doss Legacy...............................20

THE END...................................23

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Hacksaw ridge is about the story of a

young World War II medic who

singlehandedly saved the lives of 75

American soldiers without carrying a

single weapon on the Maeda

Escarpment of Okinawa in 1945. This is

the exceptional story of a brave man

named Desmond Doss.

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CHAPTER ONE
Making of Doss

Born on February 7, 1919, Desmond

Doss radiated the kind of empathy that

he’d display as a soldier later in life. The

young Doss was born into a Christian

home and thus, this was one of the

major reason why he adheres to some

strict rules and doctrines which has been

imbibed in him. Apart from that,

Desmond had been raised with a fervent

belief in the Bible. When it came to the

Ten Commandments, he applied them

personally. During childhood, it was

known that his father purchased a large

framed picture at an auction. The large

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framed picture portrayed the Ten

Commandments with colorful

illustrations. Next to the words, "Thou

shalt not kill" was a drawing of Cain

holding a club and standing over the

body of his dead brother Abel. As a boy,

the little Desmond would look at that

picture and ask, "Why did Cain kill

Abel? In Desmond's mind, God said, "If

you love me, you won't kill." With that

picture firmly embedded in his mind,

Desmond determined that he would

never take life. Being brought up in a

Seventh-day Adventist family also made

his belief strong. Desmond Doss major

despised for weapons was as a result of

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watching his drunken father pull a gun

on his uncle during an argument.

During this period, his mother was able

to confiscate the .45 pistol from her

husband and told the young Doss to run

and hide it. Doss was so shaken at this

incidence and thus, vowed that would be

the last time he would ever hold a

weapon. As a young boy, Doss has a

resilience spirit. It was also told that

Doss spent his childhood flattening

pennies on railways and also engaged

his brother in wrestling. His brother

would later said, Desmond wasn’t much

fun to wrestle with because you could

never win — not because Desmond was

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particularly skilled, but because he’d

never surrender and didn’t know how to

give up. During WWII, Doss at age 18

decided to register for the draft so as to

work at a shipyard in Newport News,

Virgina. He was working here during

this period of war when the Japanese

attacked Pearl Harbor. Thus, his

position made him eligible for

deferment, but despite his inherent

pacifism, Doss felt a moral obligation to

fight for his country. He hoped that by

joining the army as a medic, he could

avoid carrying a weapon, and even

believed he might be allowed to rest in

honor of the Sabbath on Saturdays. He

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quit the job immediately and then

jumped to aid his country in the war.

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CHAPTER TWO

The Military

On joining the military, Doss excelled in

all the military grilling. His major issue

with the army was the fact that he

refused to carry a weapon — let alone

kill anyone. To punish him and in other

to make him carry weapon, the Army

then intentionally assigned him to a rifle

company instead, in hopes that he’d just

leave the military. Doss reputation not

to carry a weapon earned him the widely

unflattering label of “conscientious

objector.” It was a label that Doss hated,

and instead of flat-out refusing to

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perform military service, he insisted that

he work as a medic. Doss went ahead to

appeal the Army’s decision up through

the ranks until they begrudgingly

decided to make him a medic. Doss

fellow soldiers surprised with Doss

couldn’t really understand what he was

doing in the military in the first place

since he refused to carry a weapon.

Thus, Doss was treated badly in the

military, they teased him to “man up”

and carry a rifle. The humiliation was so

much that some of his colleagues went

as far as launching their boots and

objects at him whenever he was praying

by his bunk at night. One of his

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colleagues also threatened him, saying:

“Doss, when we get into combat, I’ll

make sure you don’t come back alive.”

He was also hated for getting a pass on

the Sabbath because he objected doing

anything on that day being his holy day.

In the military, nobody wanted to be

Doss friends as he was really disliked.

Friends had each other’s backs. Without

a defense weapon, the others insisted,

Doss was useless to them. Despite all

these maltreatments, Doss dismissed

their cruel behavior and also rose above

it. He believed that his purpose was to

serve both God and his country. All he

wanted was to prove those two tasks

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weren’t mutually exclusive. Undeterred,

Doss was deployed with the 307th

Infantry, 77th Infantry Division, in the

summer of 1944.

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CHAPTER THREE
The Battle

The battle of Okinanwa was a fierce one.

Americans called it “Hacksaw Ridge.” The

war took place on May 5, 1945, a Saturday—

which was Doss’ day of Sabbath. It was a

particularly grueling onslaught with artillery

coming so fast and furious that it was

literally ripping men in half. The fighting

took place on the hellish Maeda Escarpment

in April 1945. The battlefield, located on top

of a sheer 400-foot cliff, was fortified with a

deadly network of Japanese machine gun

nests and booby traps. The escarpment,

nicknamed Hacksaw Ridge for the

treacherously steep cliff, was key to winning

the battle of Okinawa. The mission was

thought to be near-impossible, and when

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Doss's battalion was ordered to retreat, the

medic refused to leave his fallen comrades

behind. During the war, the Japanese

strategy was to wait on the American army

to approach them before opening fire on

them. This strategy worked out fine as the

American thought the Japanese army were

not on the cliff thus, they literally strolled on

the cliff till the Japanese appeared from

nowhere with heavy fire creating a

devastating amount of wounded soldiers.

But the Japanese didn’t know that the

Americans had Desmond Doss. In the

midst of this chaos, Doss stood his ground.

He held his ground at the plateau and was

discharging his duty. Amidst never-ending

gunfire and mortar shells, Doss treated the

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wounded American soldiers that others may

have left for dead. And even when his own

life was at risk, he was determined to save as

many men as he possibly could. He

repeatedly ran into the heat of battle to treat

a fallen comrade and carry him back to

safety. All this, while enemy bullets whizzed

past and mortar shells exploded around

him. Several times, while treating a

wounded soldier, Desmond was so close to

enemy lines, he could hear the whispering of

Japanese voices. Facing heavy machine gun

and artillery fire, Doss repeatedly ran alone

into the kill zone, carrying wounded soldiers

to the edge of the cliff and singlehandedly

lowering them down to safety.

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Hour after hour, as explosions rang

constantly in his ears, he tied countless

tourniquets. With blood covering him

from head to toe, Doss undeterred

crawled from one post to another

dragging wounded member of his

company to the edge of the ridge in

other to safe them by carefully lowering

them down. For more than 12 hours, he

labored under fire and saved an

incredible amount of human lives. He

did this because he knew that some

Japanese soldiers on capturing

American soldier’s likes to torture them.

Thus, based on the premise, Doss

refused to leave a single man on top of

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the ridge. Each time he saved a man's

life, Doss prayed out loud, "Lord, please

help me get one more." By the end of the

night, he had rescued an estimated 75

men. When asked how many men he

saved in the war, the ever modest Doss

said he saved about 50 men. His fellow

soldier however disagreed with him,

gauging the total number of men he

saved to 700. Not only did Doss leave

no man behind, but he also —

miraculously — escaped with his own

life and avoided any serious injury. Doss

would later claim that God had spared

his life on that fateful day.

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Two weeks later, Doss was in battle

again a few miles away from the

escarpment when a Japanese grenade

landed in a foxhole containing Doss and

some of his patients. On seeing the

grenade, Doss approached with the

intent to kick the grenade away, on

getting to where the grenade is to kick it

away, within a split second, it was

BOOM!!!..the grenade detonated. Doss

ended up with deep shrapnel lacerations

all down his legs. He treated himself for

shock and dressed his own wounds,

rather than having another medic

emerge from safety to help. Five hours

later, someone finally arrived with a

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stretcher. But when Doss saw a soldier

in need, he rolled off, surrendered his

stretcher, and started patching up his

comrade. While Doss was waiting for

more help to arrive, a sniper suddenly

shot and shattered all of the bones in his

left arm. Doss then crawled 300 yards to

the aid station without accompaniment.

He didn’t realize it then, but he’d lost his

Bible on the battlefield.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Doss Legacy

The amazing display of bravery and

heroism of Doss made him to be loved

by his fellow soldiers who once

disrespected him. His commanding

officer came to the hospital and told him

he’d earned the Medal of Honor for his

service, making him the first and only

conscientious objector to do so during

World War II. Doss Medal of Honor

was presented to him by the then US

president, President Harry Truman who

upon awarding the medal to Doss

reportedly said, “I’m proud of you. You

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really deserve this. I consider this a

greater honor than being president.”

The commanding officer also brought

Doss a gift: a slightly burned, soggy

Bible (He took along his Bible which

eventually got missing on the battle

ground). After the U.S. captured the

area from the Japanese, every able man

in the company combed through the

rubble until they found it. In response to

receiving the medal, Doss once again

highlighted his unwavering faith: “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

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to you, do ye even so to them.'” Forever

marked by the scars from the war,

Desmond Doss lived to be 87 years old.

But the true story of Hacksaw Ridge will

continue to live on, honoring the man

who saved 75 lives, all while risking his

own.

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THE END

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