On April 21, 1945, 1st Lt Daniel Inouye of the famous 442nd RCT, was leading an assault on a heavily-defended ridge near San Terenzo, Italy.
During the assault, 3 German MG opened fire, pinning down his men and wounding him in the stomach.
Ignoring his wound, he proceeded to attack and destroy the first 2 MG positions with hand grenades and his Thompson until he passed out from blood loss.
After a few minutes, Inouye woke up and crawled towards another bunker, coming within 10 yards of it.
As he raised himself up and cocked his arm to throw his last grenade, a German soldier inside the bunker fired a rifle grenade, which struck his right elbow, nearly severing most of his arm and leaving his primed grenade reflexively clenched in his fist.
Out of fear that his severed fist would involuntarily relax and drop the grenade, Inouye pried the live grenade from his useless right hand and transferred it to his left.
As the enemy soldier aimed his rifle at him, Inouye tossed the grenade into the bunker and destroyed it. He stumbled to his feet and continued forward, silencing the last German resistance with a one-handed burst from his Thompson before being wounded in the leg and tumbling unconscious to the bottom of the ridge.
He awoke to see the worried men of his platoon hovering over him. His only comment before being carried away was to order them back to their positions, saying "Nobody called off the war!"
He survived his injuries and stayed in the Army till 1947.
For his actions, he was initially awarded the DSC but later upgraded to the MOH in 2000.
SIDE NOTE: While leading a prior attack, a round struck him in the chest directly above his heart, but the bullet was stopped by the two silver dollars he happened to have stacked in his shirt pocket. He continued to carry the coins throughout the war as good luck charms, until he lost them shortly before the battle in which he lost his arm.
#ww2 #zerofoxtrot #stayzero #holdthis