In February 1941, Donald Rudolph volunteered with the 6th Infantry Division—known as “the Sight-Seeing Sixth” because it had marched to several battles in World War I only to find the fighting over before it arrived. Rudolph thought he had enlisted for a year, but Pearl Harbor made it indefinite. The 6th trained in Yuma, Arizona, for desert fighting in North Africa. Then orders changed, and the division began training for jungle fighting in the Pacific.
Rudolph’s unit saw action in New Guinea. Then came the Philippines. By this time a technical sergeant, Rudolph had seen so much combat on the island of Luzon in late 1944 that he was taken off the front lines. But while tending the wounded, he saw several GIs from his unit and returned to the front lines, without waiting for orders, to be with his men.

On February 3, 1945, he took over the unit after the platoon leader was evacuated. Two days later, the unit was raked by fire from enemy troops dug into well-fortified positions in an area that wasn’t thought to be strongly defended. Kneeling down to administer first aid to one of his men, Technical Sergeant Rudolph noticed that some of the heaviest enemy fire was coming from a nearby culvert. He crawled to it and with his rifle and grenades killed three Japanese soldiers hidden there.

Then he began to work his way toward a line of enemy pillboxes that had another company pinned down. He ripped an opening in the tin roof of the first one and dropped in a grenade, killing the Japanese gunners inside. Advancing on the second pillbox, he knocked a hole in its roof with a discarded Japanese pickax, then tossed in a grenade and fired in several rifle rounds, killing the enemy inside.

In quick succession, Rudolph attacked and neutralized six more enemy pillboxes. His men, now able to advance, soon came under attack by a Japanese tank. Rudolph worked his way to the tank, climbed onto it, and dropped a white phosphorus grenade through the turret, killing the crew inside.

This action cleared the way for an advance that culminated in a decisive victory. A few weeks later, an enemy artillery shell hit the unit’s position in Luzon. Rudolph was wounded in the back by shrapnel, and a piece struck him from the side, entering his nose and lodging under his eye. After being hospitalized for several weeks and released, he was informed that he had been recommended for a medal and was being taken out of hazardous duty. He served as a military policeman for a few weeks, then discovered that it was the Medal of Honor he was being given. President Harry Truman awarded it to him on August 23, 1945, in the East Room of the White House.