This is Pvt. Hal Ross. Enlisting at age of 18 , he was trained as a member of the 10th Mountain Division in World War II, but ended up fighting the Japanese in the jungle islands of the South Pacific with the 182nd infantry div.
During the Bougainville campaign, his unit was ordered on a mission to capture Japanese prisoners.
Ross recalls: “The lieutenant in charge of this patrol pointed to me and said, ‘tomorrow morning you’re gonna be first scout.’ “Sir, I haven’t seen any hand-to-hand combat yet.”
“You’re a little guy. You won’t be much of a target,” the lieutenant replied.
The next day, the 25 man patrol headed out into the jungle with Pvt. Ross on point. After a few hours, they couldn’t find any Japanese, so they decided to head back. “As we got closer to our lines I was still in the lead. My Thompson submachine-gun was slung over my shoulder with the barrel pointed down. I came around an outcropping of rock along the trail. A Japanese soldier was standing there with his rifle pointed right at me. He had a big grin on his face because he knew he had me,” Ross said. “He pulled the trigger and nothing happened. He had a misfire. I jerked my Thompson up and emptied my 50-round drum into him at point-blank range,” Ross said.
Because of all the shooting his lieutenant said the rest of the men in the patrol thought Ross had been ambushed by the enemy.
A couple of minutes later, the lieutenant crawled on his belly up to Ross to find out what was going on with his point man. When Ross told the young officer how close he had come to being shot, the lieutenant asked if there was anything he wanted that the dead Japanese soldier possessed. ’I want his rifle,’ I said.” Years later that 7.7 millimeter, standard Japanese infantry rifle has a place of honor on the living room wall of his Port Charlotte home. It’s a war souvenir he’ll never forget. “Over the years if I ever get down on myself, I just look at that rifle and think, ‘Hey, you’ve had a lot of good years you might not have ever had.’” #stayzero #zerofoxtrot #prizes #ww2