GONZALES, DAVID M. - Medal of Honor Recipient
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company A, 127th
Infantry, 32d Infantry Division. Place and date: Villa Verde Trail, Luzon,
Philippine Islands, 25 April 1945. Entered service at: Pacoima, Calif.
Birth: Pacoima, Calif. G.O. No.: 115, 8 December 1945. Citation: He was
pinned down with his company. As enemy fire swept the area, making any
movement extremely hazardous, a 500-pound bomb smashed into the company's
perimeter, burying 5 men with its explosion. Pfc. Gonzales, without hesitation,
seized an entrenching tool and under a hail of fire crawled 15 yards to
his entombed comrades, where his commanding officer, who had also rushed
forward, was beginning to dig the men out. Nearing his goal, he saw the
officer struck and instantly killed by machinegun fire. Undismayed, he
set to work swiftly and surely with his hands and the entrenching tool
while enemy sniper and machinegun bullets struck all about him. He succeeded
in digging one of the men out of the pile of rock and sand. To dig faster
he stood up regardless of the greater danger from so exposing himself.
He extricated a second man, and then another. As he completed the liberation
of the third, he was hit and mortally wounded, but the comrades for whom
he so gallantly gave his life were safely evacuated. Pfc. Gonzales' valiant
and intrepid conduct exemplifies the highest tradition of the military
service.
Browse Records by Era / War / Subject |
