Medal of Honor - Private Mikio Hasemoto - World War II

On November 29, 1943, near Cerasuolo, Italy, approximately forty German soldiers struck the left flank of a platoon from Company B, 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate). They came armed with machine guns, machine pistols, rifles and grenades. Among the American soldiers facing them was twenty-seven-year-old Private Mikio Hasemoto, an automatic rifleman from Honolulu, Hawaii.

As two enemy machine gunners advanced while firing, Hasemoto engaged them with his automatic rifle. He fired four magazines before enemy fire struck and disabled the weapon. With the German attack still coming, Hasemoto ran approximately ten yards to the rear, obtained another automatic rifle and immediately returned to the fight.

The replacement weapon jammed.

Hasemoto still did not stop.

By then, he and his squad leader had killed approximately twenty of the attacking enemy soldiers. To continue the fight, Hasemoto again exposed himself to German machine-gun fire, this time crossing the beaten ground to retrieve an M1 rifle. With the third weapon he had used during the engagement, he resumed firing alongside his squad leader.

Another ten enemy soldiers fell.

Only three members of the attacking force remained. Hasemoto and his squad leader charged them, killing one, wounding another and capturing the third. What had begun as a forty-man attack against the platoon's flank had been shattered.

Hasemoto continued fighting during the subsequent German attacks. He was killed in action near Cerasuolo on December 1, 1943, only two days after the action for which he would eventually receive the nation's highest decoration for valor.

For his actions he was initially awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. More than half a century later, an Army review examined whether racial discrimination had prevented Asian American soldiers of World War II from receiving appropriate recognition for their valor. Hasemoto's award was among those reconsidered.

On June 21, 2000, President William J. Clinton presented Medals of Honor during a White House ceremony honoring Asian American World War II soldiers whose decorations had been upgraded. Mikio Hasemoto had been dead for fifty-six years. His sister, Mitsuko Tanaka, accepted the Medal of Honor in his place.

The medal recognized an extraordinary sequence of actions compressed into a desperate infantry fight: Hasemoto confronted an enemy attack, continued fighting after his automatic rifle was destroyed, obtained another weapon when the first failed, continued after the second weapon jammed, crossed machine-gun fire for an M1 rifle, and finally charged the remnants of the attacking force with his squad leader.

Three weapons failed or were exhausted.

Mikio Hasemoto did not.

Medal of Honor Citation:

 Private Mikio Hasemoto displayed extraordinary heroism near Cerasuolo, Italy, on November 29, 1943, when a force of approximately forty German soldiers attacked the left flank of his platoon. As an automatic rifleman, he engaged two advancing machine gunners and fired four magazines before enemy fire damaged his weapon. He ran to obtain a second automatic rifle and continued firing until that weapon jammed. By then, Hasemoto and his squad leader had killed approximately twenty enemy soldiers. Hasemoto then crossed through enemy machine-gun fire to obtain an M1 rifle and returned to the engagement. Together, he and his squad leader killed ten additional enemy soldiers. With only three members of the attacking force remaining, the two Americans charged. One German was killed, another wounded and the third captured. Hasemoto subsequently continued fighting against renewed enemy attacks until he was killed by enemy fire. His actions were judged to exemplify the highest traditions of United States military service.