![]() This earlier-model weapon had a cocking lever on the side that you can see during some scenes in the movie if you look closely. The feed system consisted of a thirty-round detachable box magazine. Initially, the M3 was not popular it had some mechanical faults and did not look like a reliable weapon to the soldiers using them, especially when compared to the more elegant Thompson, but the M3 eventually won their respect with its advantages and effectiveness in action. Many, however, did find their way to regular frontline troops in mid 1944. It was not a general-issue weapon to infantrymen normally it was meant to be the crew weapon on a tank due to its compactness, firepower, and maneuverability in confined spaces like in a tank, or for officers, both non-commissioned and commissioned, and special units. It came into use late in the war, supplanting the venerable Thompson submachine gun ("Tommy Gun"). It received its name because it resembles the common garage tool. ACP submachine gun, known as the "Grease Gun" or "Greaser". The weapon Sergeant Howell (Vince Vaughn) is using is an M3. General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. His name became a symbol throughout the 77th Infantry Division for outstanding gallantry far above and beyond the call of duty. Through his outstanding bravery and unflinching determination in the face of desperately dangerous conditions Private First Class Doss saved the lives of many soldiers. With magnificent fortitude he bound a rifle stock to his shattered arm as a splint and then crawled 300 yards over rough terrain to the aid station. Awaiting the litter bearers' return, he was again struck, this time suffering a compound fracture of one arm. The trio was caught in an enemy tank attack and Private First Class Doss, seeing a more critically wounded man nearby, crawled off the litter and directed the bearers to give their first attention to the other man. Rather than call another aid man from cover, he cared for his own injuries and waited five hours before litter bearers reached him and started carrying him to cover. On 21 May, in a night attack on high ground near Shuri, he remained in exposed territory while the rest of his company took cover, fearlessly risking the chance that he would be mistaken for an infiltrating Japanese and giving aid to the injured until he was himself seriously wounded in the legs by the explosion of a grenade. Later that day, when an American was severely wounded by fire from a cave, Private First Class Doss crawled to him where he had fallen 25 feet from the enemy position, rendered aid, and carried him 100 yards to safety while continually exposed to enemy fire. He applied bandages, moved his patient to a spot that offered protection from small arms fire and, while artillery and mortar shells fell close by, painstakingly administered plasma. ![]() On 5 May, he unhesitatingly braved enemy shelling and small arms fire to assist an artillery officer. On 2 May, he exposed himself to heavy rifle and mortar fire in rescuing a wounded man 200 yards forward of the lines on the same escarpment and two days later he treated four men who had been cut down while assaulting a strongly defended cave, advancing through a shower of grenades to within eight yards of enemy forces in a cave's mouth, where he dressed his comrades' wounds before making four separate trips under fire to evacuate them to safety. Private First Class Doss refused to seek cover and remained in the fire-swept area with the many stricken, carrying them one-by-one to the edge of the escarpment and there lowering them on a rope-supported litter down the face of a cliff to friendly hands. Private First Class Doss was a company aid man when the 1st Battalion assaulted a jagged escarpment 400 feet high As our troops gained the summit, a heavy concentration of artillery, mortar and machinegun fire crashed into them, inflicting approximately 75 casualties and driving the others back. The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Private First Class Desmond Thomas Doss, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty from April 29 -, while serving with the Medical Detachment, 307th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division, in action at Urasoe Mura, Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands. ![]() Desmond Doss Medal of Honor citation, verbatim.
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