Donald J. Ruhl
Encyclopedia
Donald Jack Ruhl was a United States Marine and a posthumous recipient of the United States military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor. Ruhl, a private first class
, received the award for falling on a grenade
to protect fellow Marines during the Battle of Iwo Jima
.
, on July 2, 1923. Educated in the grammar schools of Columbus, he graduated from high school in Joliet, Montana
, in 1942.
From 1937 to about May 1942, the blue-eyed, brown-haired youth worked as a general farm hand on a 400 acres (1.6 km²) farm in Joilet. His wages were $15 a week, room and board and, as the farm had no mechanical labor, he worked hard for his pay. In the spring of 1942, shortly before his graduation, he went to work for the Independent Refining Company of Laurel, Montana
, as a laboratory assistant for $32 a week. His only relaxation was found in hunting small game with his 12-gauge shotgun.
, and went on active duty the same day. He was transferred to the recruit depot in San Diego
, California, and during his training fired a score of 224 with the service rifle to qualify as a sharpshooter. Ruhl also made the grade as a "combat swimmer". For sport the 5'11, 147-pound farmer boxed in the recruit matches and also participated in baseball, basketball, and swimming.
Upon completion of boot camp
in November, Ruhl was transferred to Company B, Parachute Training School, San Diego. Promoted to private first class
on December 19, 1942, at the conclusion of the five-week course, the qualified parachutist joined Company C, 3rd Parachute Battalion of the 3rd Marine Division at Camp Elliott, San Diego.
Ruhl went overseas on board the on March 12, 1943, as a 60-millimeter mortar
crewman. Enroute to New Caledonia
, which was to be a training base for the Parachute Marines, he crossed the equator
on March 17, and was duly initiated into the realm of King Neptune
.
After six months of training at New Caledonia, his unit sailed for Guadalcanal
on board the in September 1943. In October, the unit which was now Company L, 3rd Parachute Battalion, 1st Marine Parachute Regiment, I Marine Amphibious Corps, boarded ship and moved on to the newly-won Vella Lavella
island in the Southern Solomons
. About two and one half months later, Ruhl was again aboard ship. This time it was an LCI (Landing Craft Infantry), and the destination was Bougainville Island
.
Ruhl left the United States once more on September 19, 1944, aboard the . It arrived at Hilo, Hawaii, five days later. He started on his last series of ship rides when he left Hilo on the in January 1945. After stops at Honolulu, Maui
, and Eniwetok, he arrived at Saipan
in February. There he changed over to the . That ship carried the Marines to the shores of Iwo Jima
.
at Iwo was February 19, 1945. On that day, Ruhl accompanied by Leuitenant John Keith Wells were sent to check out a hump of grass. After they passed a barrel of a machine gun swiveled out of it to another group of Marines trying to take it out. After a few casualties a Marine managed to drop an incindeary grenade down a hole in the roof. Wells saw smoke coming from a door and suddenly the door swung open. Through the smoke all they could see were little green sneakers running through the smoke Wells and Ruhl fired on the Japanese with rifle and submachine gun fire. "One man was still crawling," says Wells more than sixty years later Ruhl ran up and finished off the Japanese soldier. "He just layed him out for inspection." Wells remembers. After that Ruhl dug up in a tank trap. Early the next morning, he left the safety of his tank trap and moved out under a tremendous volume of mortar and machine gun
fire to rescue a wounded Marine lying in an exposed position about forty yards forward of the front lines.
Half carrying and half pulling the wounded man, Ruhl removed him to a position out of reach of enemy rifles. Calling for an assistant and a stretcher, he again braved the heavy fire to carry the casualty 300 yards (274.3 m) back to an aid station on the beach. Returning to his outfit, he volunteered to investigate an apparently abandoned Japanese gun emplacement seventy-five yards forward of the right flank. Subsequently, he stayed in the gun emplacement through the night thus preventing the enemy from again taking possession of the valuable weapon.
The next morning, D-Day plus two, Company E, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines pushed forward in the assault against the vast network of fortifications surrounding the base of Mt. Suribachi. During the advance, Ruhl accompanied by Sgt. Harry Hanson, ran up to a trench line, not knowing that there were live enemys in the trench almost "Bonked heads with them" remembers Wells. Ruhl only was able two get of two shots of with his Garand. Suddenly an explosive charge was tossed out of the trench and landed at Hanson's feet. Calling a warning to Hanson, Ruhl instantly dove on the explosives and absorbed the full charge of the explosion with his body. His action not only saved Hanson but also prevented the explosion fragments from wounding other nearby Marines. Rather than using his position on the edge of the bunker to easily drop down into a more protected spot, he sacrificed his life to save his fellow Marines.
Two days later, Company E raised the first American flag on the top of Mount Surbachi
.
The Medal of Honor was posthumously awarded to Ruhl and presented to his parents on January 12, 1947, at Greybull, Wyoming
, where they made their home. The ceremonies were conducted by the veterans' organization of Greybull.
Ruhl was initially buried in the 5th Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima, but was later reinterred in Donald J. Ruhl Memorial Cemetery in Greybull, Wyoming.
takes pride in presenting the MEDAL OF HONOR posthumously to
PRIVATE FIRST CLASS DONALD J. RUHL
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RESERVE
for service as set forth in the following CITATION:
/S/ HARRY S. TRUMAN
Private First Class
Private First Class is a military rank held by junior enlisted persons.- Singapore :The rank of Private First Class in the Singapore Armed Forces lies between the ranks of Private and Lance-Corporal . It is usually held by conscript soldiers midway through their national service term...
, received the award for falling on a grenade
Falling on a grenade
Falling on a grenade refers to the deliberate act of using one's body to cover a live time-fused hand grenade, absorbing the explosion and fragmentation in an effort to save the lives of others nearby...
to protect fellow Marines during the Battle of Iwo Jima
Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima , or Operation Detachment, was a major battle in which the United States fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Empire of Japan. The U.S...
.
Early years
Ruhl was born in Columbus, MontanaColumbus, Montana
Columbus is a town in and the county seat of Stillwater County, Montana, United States. The population was 1,748 at the 2000 census.-History:The community originated as a stagecoach station on the Yellowstone River....
, on July 2, 1923. Educated in the grammar schools of Columbus, he graduated from high school in Joliet, Montana
Joliet, Montana
Joliet is a town in Carbon County, Montana, United States. It is part of the Billings, Montana Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 575 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Joliet is located at .-Notable residents:...
, in 1942.
From 1937 to about May 1942, the blue-eyed, brown-haired youth worked as a general farm hand on a 400 acres (1.6 km²) farm in Joilet. His wages were $15 a week, room and board and, as the farm had no mechanical labor, he worked hard for his pay. In the spring of 1942, shortly before his graduation, he went to work for the Independent Refining Company of Laurel, Montana
Laurel, Montana
Laurel is a city in Yellowstone County, Montana, United States. It is part of the Billings, Montana Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is located in the Yellowstone Valley, as an east-west terminal division point of the Burlington-Northern Railroad.. The population was 6,781 at the 2010 census.Both...
, as a laboratory assistant for $32 a week. His only relaxation was found in hunting small game with his 12-gauge shotgun.
Marine Corps training
He enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve on September 12, 1942 in Butte, MontanaButte, Montana
Butte is a city in Montana and the county seat of Silver Bow County, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. As of the 2010 census, Butte's population was 34,200...
, and went on active duty the same day. He was transferred to the recruit depot in San Diego
Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego
Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego is a United States Marine Corps military installation in San Diego, California. It lies between San Diego Bay and Interstate 5, adjacent to San Diego International Airport and the former Naval Training Center San Diego...
, California, and during his training fired a score of 224 with the service rifle to qualify as a sharpshooter. Ruhl also made the grade as a "combat swimmer". For sport the 5'11, 147-pound farmer boxed in the recruit matches and also participated in baseball, basketball, and swimming.
Upon completion of boot camp
Recruit training
Recruit training, more commonly known as Basic Training and colloquially called Boot Camp, is the initial indoctrination and instruction given to new military personnel, enlisted and officer...
in November, Ruhl was transferred to Company B, Parachute Training School, San Diego. Promoted to private first class
Private First Class
Private First Class is a military rank held by junior enlisted persons.- Singapore :The rank of Private First Class in the Singapore Armed Forces lies between the ranks of Private and Lance-Corporal . It is usually held by conscript soldiers midway through their national service term...
on December 19, 1942, at the conclusion of the five-week course, the qualified parachutist joined Company C, 3rd Parachute Battalion of the 3rd Marine Division at Camp Elliott, San Diego.
Ruhl went overseas on board the on March 12, 1943, as a 60-millimeter mortar
Mortar (weapon)
A mortar is an indirect fire weapon that fires explosive projectiles known as bombs at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It is typically muzzle-loading and has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber....
crewman. Enroute to New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
, which was to be a training base for the Parachute Marines, he crossed the equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....
on March 17, and was duly initiated into the realm of King Neptune
Line-crossing ceremony
The ceremony of Crossing the Line is an initiation rite in the Royal Navy, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, and other navies that commemorates a sailor's first crossing of the Equator. Originally, the tradition was created as a test for seasoned sailors to ensure their new shipmates...
.
After six months of training at New Caledonia, his unit sailed for Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal is a tropical island in the South-Western Pacific. The largest island in the Solomons, it was discovered by the Spanish expedition of Alvaro de Mendaña in 1568...
on board the in September 1943. In October, the unit which was now Company L, 3rd Parachute Battalion, 1st Marine Parachute Regiment, I Marine Amphibious Corps, boarded ship and moved on to the newly-won Vella Lavella
Vella Lavella
Vella Lavella is an island in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. It lies to the west of New Georgia, but is considered one of the New Georgia Group...
island in the Southern Solomons
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
. About two and one half months later, Ruhl was again aboard ship. This time it was an LCI (Landing Craft Infantry), and the destination was Bougainville Island
Bougainville Island
Bougainville Island is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. This region is also known as Bougainville Province or the North Solomons. The population of the province is 175,160 , which includes the adjacent island of Buka and assorted outlying islands...
.
World War II combat
The 3rd Parachute Battalion saw its first combat there at Bougainville and then in January returned to Guadalcanal from whence they sailed for the United States aboard the . Arriving in San Diego on February 14, 1944, Ruhl was transferred to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines of the fledgling 5th Marine Division when the Parachute units were disbanded on February 21, 1944.Ruhl left the United States once more on September 19, 1944, aboard the . It arrived at Hilo, Hawaii, five days later. He started on his last series of ship rides when he left Hilo on the in January 1945. After stops at Honolulu, Maui
Maui
The island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is part of the state of Hawaii and is the largest of Maui County's four islands, bigger than Lānai, Kahoolawe, and Molokai. In 2010, Maui had a population of 144,444,...
, and Eniwetok, he arrived at Saipan
Saipan
Saipan is the largest island of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , a chain of 15 tropical islands belonging to the Marianas archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean with a total area of . The 2000 census population was 62,392...
in February. There he changed over to the . That ship carried the Marines to the shores of Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima, officially , is an island of the Japanese Volcano Islands chain, which lie south of the Ogasawara Islands and together with them form the Ogasawara Archipelago. The island is located south of mainland Tokyo and administered as part of Ogasawara, one of eight villages of Tokyo...
.
Medal of Honor action on Iwo Jima
D-DayD-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
at Iwo was February 19, 1945. On that day, Ruhl accompanied by Leuitenant John Keith Wells were sent to check out a hump of grass. After they passed a barrel of a machine gun swiveled out of it to another group of Marines trying to take it out. After a few casualties a Marine managed to drop an incindeary grenade down a hole in the roof. Wells saw smoke coming from a door and suddenly the door swung open. Through the smoke all they could see were little green sneakers running through the smoke Wells and Ruhl fired on the Japanese with rifle and submachine gun fire. "One man was still crawling," says Wells more than sixty years later Ruhl ran up and finished off the Japanese soldier. "He just layed him out for inspection." Wells remembers. After that Ruhl dug up in a tank trap. Early the next morning, he left the safety of his tank trap and moved out under a tremendous volume of mortar and machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
fire to rescue a wounded Marine lying in an exposed position about forty yards forward of the front lines.
Half carrying and half pulling the wounded man, Ruhl removed him to a position out of reach of enemy rifles. Calling for an assistant and a stretcher, he again braved the heavy fire to carry the casualty 300 yards (274.3 m) back to an aid station on the beach. Returning to his outfit, he volunteered to investigate an apparently abandoned Japanese gun emplacement seventy-five yards forward of the right flank. Subsequently, he stayed in the gun emplacement through the night thus preventing the enemy from again taking possession of the valuable weapon.
The next morning, D-Day plus two, Company E, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines pushed forward in the assault against the vast network of fortifications surrounding the base of Mt. Suribachi. During the advance, Ruhl accompanied by Sgt. Harry Hanson, ran up to a trench line, not knowing that there were live enemys in the trench almost "Bonked heads with them" remembers Wells. Ruhl only was able two get of two shots of with his Garand. Suddenly an explosive charge was tossed out of the trench and landed at Hanson's feet. Calling a warning to Hanson, Ruhl instantly dove on the explosives and absorbed the full charge of the explosion with his body. His action not only saved Hanson but also prevented the explosion fragments from wounding other nearby Marines. Rather than using his position on the edge of the bunker to easily drop down into a more protected spot, he sacrificed his life to save his fellow Marines.
Two days later, Company E raised the first American flag on the top of Mount Surbachi
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is a historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.The photograph was extremely...
.
The Medal of Honor was posthumously awarded to Ruhl and presented to his parents on January 12, 1947, at Greybull, Wyoming
Greybull, Wyoming
Greybull is a town in Big Horn County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 1,815 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Greybull is located at ....
, where they made their home. The ceremonies were conducted by the veterans' organization of Greybull.
Ruhl was initially buried in the 5th Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima, but was later reinterred in Donald J. Ruhl Memorial Cemetery in Greybull, Wyoming.
Medal of Honor citation
The President of the United StatesPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
takes pride in presenting the MEDAL OF HONOR posthumously to
PRIVATE FIRST CLASS DONALD J. RUHL
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RESERVE
for service as set forth in the following CITATION:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a RiflemanRiflemanAlthough ultimately originating with the 16th century handgunners and the 17th century musketeers and streltsy, the term rifleman originated from the 18th century. It would later become the term for the archetypal common soldier.-History:...
in an Assault Platoon of Company E, Twenty-eight Marines, Fifth Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese Forces on Iwo Jima, Volcano IslandsVolcano IslandsThe Volcano Islands is a group of three Japanese islands south of the Bonin Islands that belong to the municipality of Ogasawara...
, from 19 to February 21, 1945. Quick to press the advantage after eight Japanese had been driven from a blockhouse on D-Day, Private First Class Ruhl singlehandedly attacked the group, killing one of the enemy with his bayonet and another by rifle fire in his determined attempt to annihilate the escaping troops. Cool and undaunted as the fury of hostile resistance steadily increased throughout the night, he voluntarily left the shelter of his tank trap early in the morning of D-Day plus 1 and moved out under tremendous volume of mortar and machine-gun fire to rescue a wounded Marine lying in and exposed position approximately forty yards forward of the line. Half pulling and half carrying the wounded man, he removed him to a defoliated position, called for an assistant and a stretcher and, again running the gauntlet of hostile fire, carried the casualty to an Aid Station some three hundred yards distant on the beach. Returning to his platoon, he continued his valiant efforts, volunteering to investigate an apparently abandoned Japanese gun emplacement seventy-five yards forward of the flank during consolidation of the front lines, and subsequently occupying the position through the night to prevent the enemy form repossessing the valuable weapon. Pushing forward in the assault against the vast network of fortifications surrounding Mt. Suribachi the following morning, he crawled with his platoon guide to the top of a Japanese bunker to bring fire to bear on enemy troops located on the far side of the bunker, suddenly a hostile grenade landed between the two Marines. Instantly Private First Class Ruhl called a warning to his fellow Marine and dived on the deadly missile, absorbing the full impact of the shattering explosion in his own body and protecting all within range from the danger of flying fragments although he might easily have dropped from his position on the edge of the bunker to the ground below. An indomitable fighter, Private First Class Ruhl rendered heroic service toward to defeat of a ruthless enemy, and his valor, initiative and unfaltering spirit of self-sacrifice in the face of almost certain death sustained and enhanced the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.
/S/ HARRY S. TRUMAN
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
See also
- List of Medal of Honor recipients for World War II
- List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Battle of Iwo Jima