I was sent the obituary below by a friend (domo Wiley). I was previously aware of Mr. Miyamura's incredible feats as a soldier in the US Army, and had read about him over the years in a number of media releases but hadn't heard that he'd passed. May he rest in peace.
One error I believe I caught in the article, however. I'm fairly certain he was not drafted into the Army. He signed up, originally with the famed 100th/442nd RCT in WWII.
Wiki below the WP piece for some more info on the man and his life.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/30/hiroshi-miyamura-medal-of-honor-dead/Hiroshi Miyamura, Medal of Honor recipient from Korean War, dies at 97
He was the first living Japanese American, and the second overall, to receive the country’s highest award for valor
Image without a caption
By Harrison Smith
November 30, 2022 at 9:06 p.m. EST
Hiroshi Miyamura was a U.S. Army corporal when he helped save the lives of his machine-gun squad during the Korean War in 1951. (Amanda Mccoy/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/AP)
Hiroshi Miyamura, a U.S. Army squad leader who wielded a bayonet and machine gun to help his men escape an overwhelming enemy assault during the Korean War, then endured two years as a prisoner of war before learning that he had received the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest award for valor, died Nov. 29 in Phoenix. He was 97.
Along with retired Army Col. Ralph Puckett, 95, Mr. Miyamura was one of only two remaining Medal of Honor recipients from the Korean War. His death was announced by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, which did not cite a cause.
A nisei, or son of Japanese immigrants, Mr. Miyamura was born and raised in New Mexico, where he said that in the years after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he sought to prove that he was a loyal American by entering prizefights and joining the ROTC. He was drafted into the Army near the close of World War II, joined occupying forces in Italy and returned to active duty in 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea and the United States sponsored what was initially described as a “police action,” under the auspices of the United Nations.
“I thought we were just going there with billy clubs to do a little police work,” Mr. Miyamura told The Washington Post in 1995. Instead, he found himself in an “all-out war” that led to the deaths of more than 36,000 American service members.
Mr. Miyamura, who ultimately attained the rank of staff sergeant, received the Medal of Honor in 1953. (Congressional Medal of Honor Society)
On the night of April 24, 1951, then-Cpl. Miyamura was startled to see masses of Chinese troops creeping toward his machine-gun squad, illuminated by a trip flare on a scorched hillside near the border between North and South Korea. He fixed his bayonet and charged forward, killing about 10 enemy soldiers in hand-to-hand combat before returning to his men and administering first aid to the wounded, according to his Medal of Honor citation.
Taking charge of the machine gun, Cpl. Miyamura fired at waves of approaching soldiers until he was nearly out of ammunition. After ordering his men to withdraw, he remained behind to provide cover and dismantle the gun, preventing it from being taken into enemy hands, and scrambled to reach another U.S. emplacement. Along the way, he said, he shot and bayoneted a Chinese soldier who dropped a live grenade, sending shrapnel flying into his legs.
Bloodied but still mobile, he arrived at the next American position and helped direct the defenses. Once again, he found himself on the verge of annihilation and ordered his remaining men to fall back while he remained to cover them.
“He killed more than 50 of the enemy before his ammunition was depleted and he was severely wounded,” the Medal of Honor citation said. “He maintained his magnificent stand despite his painful wounds, continuing to repel the attack until his position was overrun. When last seen he was fighting ferociously against an overwhelming number of enemy soldiers.”
Mr. Miyamura said that he passed out from exhaustion and blood loss, and woke up a prisoner of war.
“Don’t worry,” a Chinese officer told him, “we have a lenient policy.”
Over the next five weeks, he was forced to march 300 miles to a POW camp near the Chinese border. He later told the Los Angeles Times that he survived the trek while eating bug-infested rations — small bags of millet and barley — and dandelions and grass that he tore from the ground. At times, he hallucinated that he was back at the all-night diner that his father owned in Gallup, N.M., eating pancakes at the counter.
Conditions at the POW camp were not much better. Some prisoners died of dysentery, and by the time he was freed in August 1953, 28 months after he was captured, he weighed less than 100 pounds. (He stood 5-foot-10.)
When he was taken back to a U.S. military installation in Korea, he worried that he might be court-martialed for his company’s losses on the battlefield. Instead, he was told that he had been promoted — he ultimately attained the rank of staff sergeant — and learned that he had been awarded the Medal of Honor. The award was previously kept secret out of concern for his safety in captivity.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented Mr. Miyamura with the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony. (Department of Defense)
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented him with the medal in a White House ceremony that October, Mr. Miyamura became the first living Japanese American to receive the honor, and only the second overall. The first, Sadao Munemori, was awarded the medal posthumously after sacrificing his life in 1945 to save fellow soldiers in Italy.
Mr. Miyamura received a hero’s welcome back home in Gallup, where a high school and highway interchange were later named in his honor. But on the whole, he said, he felt that he and his fellow service members were overlooked. Many Americans seemed not to remember “the Forgotten War,” as the conflict in Korea is sometimes known.
“Very few people are aware of the Japanese Americans who fought in the Korean War, and it’s a shame because there were so many people who accomplished so much,” he said at a 1997 event in Burbank, Calif., dedicated to nisei veterans. “You just never hear of them.”
“Then again,” he added, “that’s part of our heritage. We’re not supposed to be braggarts.”
The fourth of seven children, Mr. Miyamura was born in Gallup — at the time, he said, the city was a small but rowdy community of cowboys, Native Americans and immigrant newcomers — on Oct. 6, 1925. His parents had moved there two years earlier, joining an aunt who ran a boarding house for miners. His father bought a 24-hour diner, the OK Cafe, where according to the Los Angeles Times the family lived in the basement, and his mother died when he was 11.
Mr. Miyamura adopted the nickname Hershey when a teacher struggled to pronounce Hiroshi. But he said that he faced little discrimination in Gallup, where there were about two dozen other Japanese families, even as Japanese Americans faced widespread persecution during World War II.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in 1942, clearing the way for the internment of 120,000 people of Japanese descent on the West Coast, Mr. Miyamura began to see trains filled with Japanese American families headed for internment camps. (His own family lived outside the “military zones” where forced relocations occurred.)
After graduating from high school, he joined the 100th Infantry Battalion of the 442nd Regiment, a highly decorated unit composed almost entirely of nisei. He later served in the Army Reserve and, during the Korean War, in the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Infantry Regiment. For a time, his unit was stationed on the Japanese island of Kyushu, where his father had grown up.
His wife of 66 years, the former Tsuruko “Terry” Tsuchimori, died in 2014. Survivors include three children, Pat and Mike Miyamura and Kelly Hildahl. Additional information on survivors was not immediately available.
Mr. Miyamura in 2014, at a Veterans Day ceremony in Albuquerque. (Susan Montoya Bryan/AP)
Mr. Miyamura delivered mail in Gallup and ran a filling station and repair shop for three decades. He also struggled with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, saying that he tried to forget about his combat experiences before finding that it helped to talk about the war, including in conversations with fellow veterans and in lectures to students.
“There are so many Americans that do not know what the medal represents, or what any soldier or service woman or man does for this country,” he said in a video interview for the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. “I believe one of these days — I hope one of these days — they will learn of the sacrifices that a lot of the men and women have made for this country.”
Mr. Miyamura was the first living Japanese American to receive the Medal of Honor. (Congressional Medal of Honor Society)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshi_H._MiyamuraHiroshi H. Miyamura
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hiroshi H. Miyamura
SSgt Hiroshi Myamura.jpg
Miyamura as a Staff Sergeant
Nickname(s) Hershey
Born October 6, 1925
Gallup, New Mexico, U.S.
Died November 29, 2022 (aged 97)
Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.
Allegiance United States
Service/branch United States Army
Years of service 1945–1953
Rank Staff Sergeant
Unit
100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Infantry Regiment
2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment
Battles/wars
World War II
Korean War
Awards
Medal of Honor
Meritorious Service Medal
Purple Heart
Other work Automobile mechanic and service station owner
Hiroshi Hershey Miyamura (October 6, 1925 – November 29, 2022) was a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the United States military's highest award for valor, for his actions during the Korean War. He was one of the last two surviving Medal of Honor recipients of the Korean War, along with Ralph Puckett Jr.[1][2] While he was held as a prisoner of war, the award was classified as top secret.
Contents
1 Early life
2 Military service
2.1 World War II
2.2 Korean War
3 Awards and decorations
3.1 Medal of Honor
3.2 Commendations
4 Personal life and death
5 Namesakes
6 See also
7 Further reading
8 References
9 External links
Early life
Hiroshi Miyamura[3] was born in Gallup, New Mexico, to Yaichi Miyamura (June 3, 1888 – December 23, 1965) and Tori Matsukawa (December 10, 1896 – August 20, 1936), Japanese immigrant parents, making him a Nisei, a second-generation Japanese American.[4] His parents had moved there in 1923 and bought a 24-hour diner.[2] He was the fourth of nine children. His mother died when he was 11. He got the nickname "Hershey" because one of his teachers could not pronounce his first name correctly.[2]
Military service
World War II
When the United States entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the relocation and internment of Japanese Americans due to fears that some would turn out to be traitors. However, for communities outside the sensitive coastal "military zone", this was not mandatory, and local authorities could not decide what they wanted to do. In Gallup, the Japanese-American residents were left alone.[2]
Miyamura joined the United States Army in January 1945.[5] He volunteered to be part of the all-Nisei 100th Infantry Battalion,[6] 442nd Infantry Regiment, where he trained as a machine gunner.[7] This army unit was mostly made up of Japanese-Americans from Hawaii and the mainland.[8] He was discharged from the army shortly after Japan surrendered. He later enlisted in the United States Army Reserve.
Korean War
Miyamura was recalled to active duty following the start of the Korean War, arriving in North Korea in November 1950.[2] He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on April 24–25, 1951, south of the Imjin River[9] near Taejon-ni (Daejeon-ni) in Yeoncheon County,[10] while serving as a corporal in the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. During a night attack by the Chinese, he saw that his squad could not hold much longer, so he ordered his men to retreat. He remained behind to cover their withdrawal, killing an estimated minimum of fifty invading Chinese forces.
Miyamura was captured immediately after the actions that led to his award. As he and other prisoners of war (POWs) were marched away, he helped his wounded friend Joe Annello keep moving, but the North Koreans threatened to shoot him if he did not leave Annello behind. Straggling POWs were routinely killed. Miyamura refused, but Annello himself convinced Miyamura to put him down. Annello survived the war and later visited Miyamura in Gallup. The POWs were forced to march 300 miles (480 km) over five weeks with little food.[2]
Miyamura's was the first Medal of Honor to be classified Top Secret. As Brigadier General Ralph Osborne explained to Miyamura and a group of reporters upon notifying them of his medal, "If the Reds knew what he had done to a good number of their soldiers just before he was taken prisoner, they might have taken revenge on this young man. He might not have come back."
Miyamura was held for 28 months. Following his release on August 20, 1953, he was informed that he had been awarded the Medal of Honor and promoted to sergeant. He was repatriated to the United States and honorably discharged from the military shortly thereafter. His medal was presented to him by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in October 1953 at the White House.[11]
Awards and decorations
Medal of Honor
Moh army mil.jpg
Hiroshi H. Miyamura
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army, Company H, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division
Place and date: Near Taejon-ni, Korea, April 24, and April 25, 1951
Entered service at: Gallup, N. Mex. Birth: Gallup, New Mexico
G.O. No.: 85, November 4, 1953.
Citation:
Cpl. Miyamura, a member of Company H, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. On the night of 24 April, Company H was occupying a defensive position when the enemy fanatically attacked threatening to overrun the position. Cpl. Miyamura, a machinegun squad leader, aware of the imminent danger to his men unhesitatingly jumped from his shelter wielding his bayonet in close hand-to-hand combat killing approximately 10 of the enemy. Returning to his position, he administered first aid to the wounded and directed their evacuation. As another savage assault hit the line, he manned his machinegun and delivered withering fire until his ammunition was expended. He ordered the squad to withdraw while he stayed behind to render the gun inoperative. He then bayoneted his way through infiltrated enemy soldiers to a second gun emplacement and assisted in its operation. When the intensity of the attack necessitated the withdrawal of the company Cpl. Miyamura ordered his men to fall back while he remained to cover their movement. He killed more than 50 of the enemy before his ammunition was depleted and he was severely wounded. He maintained his magnificent stand despite his painful wounds, continuing to repel the attack until his position was overrun. When last seen he was fighting ferociously against an overwhelming number of enemy soldiers. Cpl. Miyamura's indomitable heroism and consummate devotion to duty reflect the utmost glory on himself and uphold the illustrious traditions on the military service.[1]
President Dwight D. Eisenhower congratulates SSG Miyamura after having awarded him the Medal of Honor on October 27, 1953.
Commendations
Miyamura has been awarded the following:[12]
Blank.JPG Blank.JPG Blank.JPG Combat Infantry Badge.svg
Blank.JPG Blank.JPG
A light blue ribbon with five white five pointed stars
Right breast Left breast
Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation Combat Infantryman Badge
Medal of Honor Meritorious Service Medal Purple Heart
Prisoner of War Medal World War II Victory Medal National Defense Service Medal
Korean Service Medal United Nations Korea Medal Korean War Service Medal
Personal life and death
Miyamura, with his wife and granddaughter at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, 2010
Miyamura at the promotion ceremony of his granddaughter in 2019
Miyamura married Tsuruko "Terry" Tsuchimori (August 13, 1925 – December 10, 2014). He had three children and four grandchildren. One grandchild, Marisa, is an officer in the United States Air Force. He has resided in Gallup, New Mexico, since his discharge from the army, where he established a career as an automobile mechanic and service station owner.[2] Miyamura remained active in supporting fellow veterans including work with the Wounded Warrior Project. Miyamura was a Lifetime Member of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1. On Memorial Day 2018, his story was portrayed during the National Memorial Day Concert on the West Lawn of the US Capitol in Washington, D.C.
In recognition of Miyamura's activities involving youth in his community, he received the 2014 Director's Community Leadership Award from the Albuquerque division of the FBI.[13]
As the 2014 Nisei Week Grand Marshal, Miyamura led the Grand Parade on August 10, 2014.[14][15]
In November 2022, it was announced that Miyamura joined the National Board of the State Funeral for War Veterans organization, which is dedicated to "convince Congress to pass legislation to grant a State Funeral for the last Medal of Honor recipients from the Korean and Vietnam Wars, as a final salute to all the men and women who served."[16]
Miyamura died in Phoenix, Arizona, on November 29, 2022, at the age of 97.[17]
Namesakes
In his hometown, Gallup, New Mexico, an area is named Miyamura in his honor,[18] as are Hiroshi H. Miyamura High School[19] and the Miyamura Overpass, an interchange on I-40.[20][21]
See also
Battle of Yultong
List of Korean War Medal of Honor recipients
Medal of Honor (TV series) - Miyamura is featured in season 1 episode 4
Further reading
Okamoto, Vincent H. (2012). Forged in fire : the saga of Hershey and Joe (First ed.). Los Angeles: Nikkei Writers Guild. ISBN 978-0982142189.
References
"Medal of Honor Recipients, Korean War". US Army Center of Military History. Archived from the original on March 10, 2009. Retrieved December 24, 2012.
Mozingo, Joe (July 3, 2017). "Hiroshi Miyamura and his hometown had a lot in common. They believed in America". Los Angeles Times.
"Hiroshi Hershey Miyamura". U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940–1947. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
Japanese American Veterans Association, "The Nisei Legend of the Korean War"; retrieved 2012-12-24.
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), WWII Army Enlistment Record #39868194 (Miyamura, Hiroshi); retrieved 2012-12-24.
Go for Broke National Education Center, "About Us, Veterans Honor Guard" Archived 2012-10-28 at the Wayback Machine; retrieved 2012-12-24.
Lange, Katie (May 14, 2017). "Korean War POW Earns Medal of Honor for Saving His Unit". DoDLive. Department of Defense. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
"100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry" at Global Security.org; retrieved 2012-12-24.
"Miyamura, Hiroshi" (Vimeo). vimeo.com. Medal of Honor Foundation. 15 August 2013. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
"대한민국 지켜낸 영웅들의 공로 기억합니다" (in Korean). 28 July 2014. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
Eric S. Bartelt (24 April 2001). "Secret Hero Recounts his Unforgettable Korean War". American Forces Press Service. US Department of Defence. Retrieved 24 December 2012.
"Military Hall of Honor - SSG Hiroshi H. Miyamura". militaryhallofhonor.com. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
"Albuquerque". FBI. Retrieved 25 December 2018.
"INTRODUCING THE 2014 NISEI WEEK GRAND MARSHAL AND PARADE MARSHAL". Rafu Shimpo. August 7, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
"Celebrating Past and Future at Nisei Week – Little Tokyo Festivities Include a Parade, Ramen Festival and Traditional Dancing". LADTNEWS. August 12, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
"State Funeral for War Veterans Announces 3rd Medal of Honor Recipient Joining Board of Directors: Hiroshi H. Miyamura". Fox 40 News. EIN Presswire. Nov 10, 2022. Retrieved 18 November 2022.
"Medal of Honor Recipients Announce Passing of Medal of Honor Recipient Hiroshi "Hershey" Miyamura". Congressional Medal of Honor Society. November 29, 2022. Retrieved November 29, 2022.
City of Gallup Growth Management Master Plan, "IV. Land Use Element" (August 2009), p. IV-23 [PDF 23 of 60]; retrieved 2012-12-24.
Gallup-McKinley County Schools, "High Schools" Archived 2012-02-06 at the Wayback Machine; Hiroshi H. Miyamura High School website; retrieved 2012-12-24.
New Mexico Department of Transportation, Initial Evaluation of Alternatives, Allison Road Corridor and Interstate 40 Interchange Study, NMDOT Project Number SP-GA-5459(201)/SP-GA-5459(202), CN C7G801/C7G802 September 2010; "Table 4-6: I-40 Total Crashes by Mile Post," p. 4-32 [PDF 51 of 210]; retrieved 2012-12-24.
City of Gallup, p. IV-45 [PDF 45 of 60]; retrieved 2012-12-24.
External links
Media related to Hiroshi H. Miyamura at Wikimedia Commons
"Home of Heroes profile". Archived from the original on July 13, 2016. Retrieved October 5, 2010.
"Hiroshi Miyamura and his hometown had a lot in common. They believed in America". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 4, 2017.
