Desmond Doss Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Brother & Death

Desmond Doss was a United States military personal, who served as a combat medic with the 77th Infantry Division in World War II. Doss was the only conscientious objector to receive the highest US military honor “The Medal of Honor” for saving the lives of over 80–100 wounded infantrymen during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

He was a Corporal in the United States Army assigned to the Medical Department, Company B, 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division. He was the first soldier to be awarded the highest honor in the United States Armed Forces without firing a bullet in the war.

Facts About Desmond Doss

Desmond Doss Biography

Desmond Doss was born on 7 February 1919, in Lynchburg, Virginia, The United States as Desmond Thomas Doss. He was born into a poor Catholic Christian family. Desmond Doss father is William Thomas Doss, who was a carpenter, and his mother Bertha Edward Doss, who was a housewife and worker in a shoe factory.

Desmond Doss religion? He is a very strict follower of catholicism. He was raised following the doctrine and beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. As a child, an event marked his life when he saw his drunk father argue with his uncle and then take a gun.

His mother took her husband’s gun and asked Doss to take it away from his father. He ran away and promised he would never pick up a gun again. In April 1942, Doss was drafted into the United States Army but refused to carry a weapon. The only weapon he carried was a pocket Bible.

Doss’s insistence on not touching weapons irritated his fellow training corps. As he knelt by his bed to pray, his colleagues threw shoes at him. An officer threatened to have him court-martialed and even tried to discharge him from the Army.

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Desmond Doss Military Career

He was enlisted in the first responder’s corps of the US Army’s 77th Infantry Division in the battles of the Pacific, he soon earned the respect of his comrades. In combat, even at the risk of death, he refused to abandon wounded soldiers.

Meanwhile, Desmond Doss brother Harold Doss served aboard the USS Lindsey. For his constant bravery in Guam in 1944 and in the Philippines between 1944 and 1945, Doss received two Bronze Stars Medals with a “V” device, for helping wounded soldiers under fire.

In May 1945, the military unit of which Desmond Doss was a part received the capture mission on the Maeda Escarpment, a 120-meter cliff that surrounded the front of the island of Okinawa and which served as a barracks for the Japanese military.

After climbing the mountain the troop was met by intense enemy fire. Doss managed to remove more than 75 wounded marines from that region, dragging and carrying them one by one to take them to the American base, with the help of a rope.

On May 21, in a night raid, Doss was wounded in the legs by shrapnel from a grenade. Taken by a stretcher-bearer to a safe area he was once again hit in the arm. He took care of the wounds himself and for the first time made use of a rifle when he used it as a splint on his arm so he could drag himself to a field hospital.

In October 1945, Doss received the highest US military honor “The Medal of Honor” from President Harry S. Truman during a ceremony at the White House.

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After Retirement Life

In 1946, he was discharged from the Army and spent five years tending to his injuries and illnesses. He was then diagnosed with Tuberculosis, which cost him a lung and five ribs. In August 1951, he was discharged from the hospital with almost 90% disability.

Doss continued to get military treatment, but in 1976, an overdose of antibiotics rendered him entirely deaf, he became 100% disabled. In 1988, he was again able to regain his hearing after receiving a cochlear implant.

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Personal Life

On 17 August 1942, Desmond Doss married Dorothy Pauline Schutte. They had one son, Desmond Tommy Doss Jr., who was born in 1946. Dorothy Doss died in a car accident on November 17, 1991, while being taken to a hospital by Desmond.

After his first wife died, he remarried on 1 July 1993, to Frances May Duman, who wrote a book about Doss’s life in “Desmond Doss: In God’s Care” (1998), which was republished in 2005 as “Desmond Doss: Conscientious Objector – The Story of an Unlikely Hero.”

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Desmond Doss Death

Desmond Doss Died on 23 March 2006, at his home in Piedmont, Alabama, after being hospitalized for shortness of breath. He was buried on April 3, 2006, in the Chattanooga National Cemetery, Chattanooga, Tennessee, under military honors.

A horse-drawn hearse carried the flag-draped casket to his gravesite and military helicopters flew overhead to give him a last tribute. Desmond Doss cause of death is Respiratory Infection.

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