His Medal of Honor became top secret, he didn’t even know about it.
October 6, 1925: Hiroshi “Hershey” Miyamura was born in Gallup, New Mexico.
Hiroshi Miyamura was born on October 6, 1925, in Gallup, New Mexico, the son of Japanese immigrants. An elementary school teacher struggled with his name, and Hiroshi became “Hershey.” He never saw himself as anything other than American.
During World War II, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated. The Miyamura family lived outside the Western Exclusion Zone and was spared.
Hiroshi joined the Army in January 1945 and was assigned to the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team. By then the war in Europe was winding down, and with Germany’s surrender in May, he never saw combat. He went home to Gallup, worked as an auto mechanic, and stayed in the Army Reserve.
The Night at the Imjin
When the Korean War began, he was recalled to active duty. On the night of April 24, 1951, Corporal Miyamura was a machine gun squad leader near the Imjin River, facing a Chinese assault that his squad had no hope of stopping.
When it became clear they could not hold, he ordered his men to withdraw and stayed behind to cover them. He is credited with killing an estimated 50 or more enemy soldiers. His citation says that when last seen, he was “fighting ferociously against an overwhelming number of enemy soldiers.”
Wounded by grenade shrapnel after a hand-to-hand fight, he was taken prisoner when a voice in English ordered him to get up.
Twenty-Eight Months
He was held for 28 months. The prisoners were forced to march some 300 miles with little food. Hundreds of his fellow prisoners died in captivity, and Miyamura himself was tortured.
For more than a year, his family did not know whether he was alive. Meanwhile, he feared that if he ever returned home, he would face a court-martial for losing his men, not knowing that many had reached American lines because of him.
His citation had been written assuming he was dead. When the government learned he had been captured, it classified the Medal of Honor as top secret. The citation was dated December 21, 1951 and filed in the Army’s vault.
The Secret Was Safe
The reason was simple: they wanted to protect him. As an Army general later explained, if the enemy knew what Miyamura had done to their soldiers, they might have taken revenge. “He might not have come back.”
In August 1953, he was released. A general told him he had been awarded the Medal of Honor.
He was surprised because he thought he was getting court-martialed. Instead, he was promoted to sergeant, and in October 1953, President Eisenhower presented the medal to him at the White House.