The Heroic Story of Our Lost Hero "U.S. Army Private Martin O. May of Phillipsburg, New Jersey...
The second phase of the Okinawa Campaign consisted of the objectives of Ie Shima, a small island northwest of Okinawa, and Motobu Peninsula. With Rear Admiral Lawrence F. Reifsnider in command of the attack group, the U.S. Army’s 77th Division landed at Ie Shima on April16, 1945.
The army troops, believing the Japanese had already abandoned the airfield, instead encountered 3,000 enemy soldiers. The Japanese previously constructed networks of underground tunnels as they had at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, causing the 77th Division delays in taking the island. Ie Shima was finally secured on April 21, 1945.
U.S. Army Private Martin O. May of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions on April 19, 1945.
May joined the Army in November 1942, and by April 19, 1945 he was serving as a private first class in the 307th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division. On that day and the next two days, at Iegusuku-Yama on Ie Shima in the Ryuku Islands, he manned his machine gun despite intense Japanese fire.
He repeatedly refused to withdraw, even after being seriously wounded, and held his ground until being killed. For those actions, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in January 1946.
May, aged 23 at his death, was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
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