Hiroshi "Hershey" Miyamura Medal of Honor recipient

Duty Honor Country

Active member
Medal of Honor Citation

"When the intensity of the attack nessitated the withdrawl of the company Cpl. Miyamura ordered his men to fall back while he remained there to cover thier movement...When last seen, he was fighting ferociously against an overwelming number of enemy soliders...He killed more than 50 of the enemy before his ammunition was depleted and he was severly wounded. He added 10 to that number in close hand to hand combat"

Hershey

"They started hitting my position. the gunner on the heavy machine gun wanted another position. That's when I got madder than hell and I told him to get out, and that is when I went to the gun. I didn't think about what the others were doing. I just had to get to that gun. And I started firing"

Machine Gun Jams

"I had an M-1, a carbine and a pistol, so I was using what ever I could, and throwing grenades, 2 cases of hand grenades until I got rid of them...Once I got started, I lost all sense of time and everything else. I didn't know what the other squad members were doing at all. It was just as if I was in the war by myself."

Retreats off the hill

"What woke me up [to the fact he was surrounded] was our WP bombs falling around my position. I figure they must think I am off. So I thought I'd better get off.

Wounded by enemy grenade. In the moring becomes a POW. Since he was officially MIA, his Medal of Honor was top secret for fear that if he was alive, he would be killed for his actions. A year later, he was finally reported as a POW. Captured in APR 51, he was released in AUG 53 after the Panmunjon Agreement.

"It was hard to imagine we were a actually crossing over to our side...We were all in a state of shock. It did not really hit you until we shed our clothes, they deloused us, ans we took a shower and all, got clean cloths and tried to lie down on a cot. And then it finally hit you that you are finally back. But I do remember the one sight I saw - the American flag flying over the camp, the tents. It was one of the most beatiful sights. I remember looking at it for a long time. Crossing over [the bridge], that's about the only thing I can remember looking at."

The Medal of Honor. Hershey remembers being told by a non com to report to the Camp's brigader general. He thought he was going to be courtmartialed for failing to control his men on that night on the hill.

"All I can remember is that when he told me I'd won the Medal of Honor for the action of the night of 24th and the morning of april 25th, all I could say was 'what?"
 
April 24-25, 1951 somewhere North of the 38th Parallel.

There be quotes about his POW experience. If requested, I will take the time to post the good ones.
 
Back
Top