- 2 days ago
Why Private John McKinney fought 100 Japanese soldiers alone during WW2 — and killed 41 of them in just 36 minutes. This World War 2 story reveals how one Georgia farm boy's hunting skills turned him into the Pacific's deadliest one-man army.
May 11, 1945. Private John McKinney, Company A, 123rd Infantry Regiment, was resting in his tent near Dingalan Bay, Luzon. A Japanese sergeant slashed open the tent flap and cut off part of McKinney's ear with a sword. McKinney grabbed his M1 rifle and killed the attacker with the rifle butt. Then he saw them — approximately 100 Japanese soldiers pouring through the perimeter. Every instinct said run. Every rule said wait for backup.
McKinney did neither.
What this sharecropper's son from Georgia discovered that morning wasn't about military training. It was about survival instincts honed from a lifetime of hunting in ways that contradicted everything the Army taught. Armed with only his M1 rifle, McKinney fought wave after wave of enemy soldiers. Some he shot at point-blank range. Others he killed with his rifle butt in hand-to-hand combat.
When reinforcements finally arrived, they couldn't believe what they found. The body count around M
May 11, 1945. Private John McKinney, Company A, 123rd Infantry Regiment, was resting in his tent near Dingalan Bay, Luzon. A Japanese sergeant slashed open the tent flap and cut off part of McKinney's ear with a sword. McKinney grabbed his M1 rifle and killed the attacker with the rifle butt. Then he saw them — approximately 100 Japanese soldiers pouring through the perimeter. Every instinct said run. Every rule said wait for backup.
McKinney did neither.
What this sharecropper's son from Georgia discovered that morning wasn't about military training. It was about survival instincts honed from a lifetime of hunting in ways that contradicted everything the Army taught. Armed with only his M1 rifle, McKinney fought wave after wave of enemy soldiers. Some he shot at point-blank range. Others he killed with his rifle butt in hand-to-hand combat.
When reinforcements finally arrived, they couldn't believe what they found. The body count around M
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LearningTranscript
00:00At 4.47 on the morning of May 11, 1945, Private John McKinney lay in his tent near Dingelon Bay,
00:07Luzon,
00:07unaware that approximately 100 Japanese soldiers were creeping through the jungle toward his position.
00:1324 years old, two and a half years in the Army, a sharecropper's son from Georgia with a third-grade
00:20education.
00:21By May 1945, the Philippine campaign had already cost the United States over 60,000 casualties.
00:28Japanese forces on Luzon refused to surrender.
00:32They launched night attacks, dawn raids, suicide charges against American perimeters.
00:38Company A of the 123rd Infantry Regiment, 33rd Infantry Division, had established an outpost near Dingelon Bay in Tayabas province.
00:47The position guarded a crucial supply route.
00:50Three Americans manned a light machine gun on the perimeter.
00:53McKinney had just finished a long shift at that gun.
00:56He walked a few paces to his tent, laid down with his M1 rifle beside him.
01:01The jungle was quiet.
01:03The Japanese knew this outpost existed.
01:05They had been watching it for days, counting the Americans, timing the guard rotations, planning their assault.
01:12The attack force moved through the darkness.
01:15Over 100 soldiers from remnants of Japanese units still fighting on Luzon.
01:20They carried rifles, grenades, knee mortars, and swords.
01:24Their objective was simple.
01:26Overrun the American position.
01:28Kill everyone.
01:29Capture the supplies.
01:31The vanguard slipped past the outer guard post undetected.
01:35Sergeant Fukutaro Morii led the advance element.
01:38His orders were to eliminate the first Americans silently.
01:41No gunfire.
01:43Swords and bayonets only.
01:44By the time the main force attacked, the perimeter would already be compromised.
01:50Morii reached McKinney's tent.
01:51He could hear the American breathing inside.
01:54One quick strike would end this man's life before he could raise an alarm.
01:58McKinney had grown up hunting in the Georgia woods.
02:01His father was a sharecropper in Screvan County.
02:04The family had nothing.
02:06John learned to shoot before he learned to read.
02:08By the time he was 12, he could hit a squirrel at 50 yards with a .22 rifle.
02:12He trapped rabbits, shot deer.
02:15Fishing and hunting put food on the family table when the crops failed.
02:19He enlisted at Fort McPherson in November 1942.
02:23The army discovered he could barely read or write.
02:26They also discovered he was one of the best marksmen they had ever seen.
02:30His qualification scores were exceptional.
02:33Drill sergeants noticed he moved through the woods differently than other soldiers.
02:37Quieter.
02:38More aware.
02:39He had spent his entire life in environments where a single mistake meant going hungry.
02:45The 33rd Infantry Division shipped to the Pacific in 1943.
02:49McKinney fought through New Guinea.
02:51Survived the jungle.
02:52Survived the Japanese.
02:54Survived malaria and dysentery.
02:57And everything else the Pacific Theater threw at American soldiers.
03:00By May 1945, he was a veteran.
03:03Quiet.
03:04Kept to himself.
03:06Did his duty.
03:06Never complained.
03:08His fellow soldiers knew two things about John McKinney.
03:11He was the best shot in the company.
03:13And he slept with his rifle.
03:15That rifle was about to save his life.
03:18If you want to see how McKinney survived what happened next, please hit that like button.
03:23It helps us share these forgotten stories with more people.
03:26And please subscribe if you haven't already.
03:28Back to McKinney.
03:29Sergeant Morey threw open the tent flap at 4.51.
03:33The sword came down in a diagonal slash aimed at McKinney's neck.
03:37In the darkness, Morey misjudged the distance.
03:41The blade caught McKinney on the side of the head instead.
03:44It severed part of his right ear.
03:46Blood sprayed across the tent canvas.
03:48McKinney's eyes opened to searing pain and the silhouette of a man standing over him with a raised sword.
03:54He had less than one second to react.
03:57Morey was already bringing the blade down for a second strike.
04:00This one would not miss.
04:03McKinney's hand found his rifle in the darkness.
04:05He did not aim.
04:07He did not think.
04:0824 years of survival instinct took over.
04:11He swung the M1 like a club.
04:14The rifle butt caught Morey under the chin with enough force to shatter bone.
04:18The Japanese sergeant staggered.
04:21McKinney swung again.
04:22The second blow crushed Morey's skull.
04:25Outside the tent, McKinney could hear them.
04:28Footsteps.
04:29Dozens of footsteps.
04:31Moving fast through the camp.
04:33The main assault had begun.
04:35He was bleeding badly from his ear.
04:37His head was ringing from the sword strike.
04:40And somewhere in the darkness, nearly 100 Japanese soldiers were coming to kill everyone he knew.
04:46McKinney grabbed his rifle and stepped out of the tent.
04:49What he saw made his blood run cold.
04:54The machine gun position was 30 yards from his tent.
04:58Three Americans had been manning it when he went to rest.
05:01Now he could see muzzle flashes in the darkness.
05:04Screaming.
05:05The distinctive crack of Arisaka rifles mixing with the heavier reports of M1 Garands.
05:10Japanese soldiers were pouring through the perimeter from the northeast.
05:15They moved in waves.
05:16The first wave had already reached the machine gun emplacement.
05:20McKinney could see figures struggling in the darkness around the gun pit.
05:24His mind processed the tactical situation in seconds.
05:27The machine gun was the key to the entire position.
05:30It covered the main approach to the American camp.
05:33If the Japanese captured it and turned it around, they could rake the entire perimeter with fire.
05:39Every American in Company A would die.
05:42McKinney ran toward the gun.
05:44The two soldiers who had replaced him at the machine gun were fighting for their lives.
05:48Private James Hendricks had taken a bayonet wound to the shoulder in the first seconds of the attack.
05:54The third man, seeing Hendricks go down, made a decision.
05:57He grabbed his wounded comrade and dragged him toward the rear of the perimeter.
06:02It was the right call.
06:04Hendricks would have bled out if left behind.
06:06But it meant the machine gun was now undefended.
06:09Ten Japanese infantrymen reached the emplacement before McKinney could get there.
06:13They swarmed over the sandbag wall.
06:16One of them immediately began trying to turn the gun around.
06:19The others provided security.
06:21Rifles pointed outward, watching for any American counterattack.
06:25McKinney did not slow down.
06:27He did not take cover.
06:28He did not wait for backup.
06:30He sprinted directly at ten enemy soldiers who had just captured the most important weapon in the entire outpost.
06:37The Japanese saw him coming.
06:39A single American, bleeding from a head wound, charging straight at them in the pre-dawn darkness.
06:45Two of them raised their rifles.
06:47McKinney was faster.
06:48He shot the first man at 15 yards.
06:51The M1's report echoed across the camp.
06:53He shot the second man at 10 yards.
06:56By the time he reached the sandbag wall, he had fired four rounds.
07:00Four Japanese soldiers were down.
07:03He leaped into the emplacement.
07:05The space inside was roughly eight feet by six feet.
07:09Six enemy soldiers were still alive in that confined area.
07:12Some were trying to swing their rifles around.
07:15Others reached for bayonets.
07:18One was still fumbling with the machine gun's traversing mechanism.
07:21McKinney landed among them and kept firing.
07:24Point-blank range.
07:26The M1 Garand held eight rounds in its internal magazine.
07:30He had already fired four.
07:32He put the next three rounds into three more Japanese soldiers at distances measured in inches rather than yards.
07:40One round left.
07:41The eighth man was directly in front of him, bayonet raised for a thrust at McKinney's chest.
07:47McKinney fired his last round.
07:50The soldier dropped.
07:51The M1 Garand's bolt locked back on an empty magazine with its distinctive metallic ping.
07:58Three Japanese soldiers were still alive in the gun pit.
08:02They had heard that sound.
08:03They knew what it meant.
08:05McKinney reversed his grip on the rifle before the empty clip had finished ejecting.
08:10He swung the weapon like an axe.
08:12The walnut stock connected with the first soldier's temple.
08:15The man collapsed.
08:17McKinney swung again.
08:18The second soldier tried to block with his forearm.
08:22The rifle butt shattered bone and continued into his skull.
08:26The third soldier lunged with a bayonet.
08:29McKinney sidestepped and brought the rifle down on the back of the man's neck.
08:33The vertebrae cracked audibly.
08:36Ten Japanese soldiers had captured the machine gun.
08:39Thirty seconds later, all ten were dead.
08:42McKinney grabbed for the machine gun.
08:44His hands found the receiver.
08:46Something was wrong.
08:48During the struggle, the weapon had been damaged.
08:51The bolt was jammed.
08:53The feed tray was bent.
08:54He cycled the charging handle twice.
08:57Nothing.
08:58The gun would not fire.
08:59The most important weapon in the perimeter was now useless.
09:04McKinney looked up from the broken machine gun.
09:06Dawn was starting to lighten the eastern horizon.
09:09And in that gray light, he could see them.
09:11More Japanese soldiers.
09:13Many more.
09:15They were regrouping at the edge of the jungle, preparing for the next wave.
09:19He had an M1 rifle with an empty magazine.
09:22He had just killed ten men in hand-to-hand combat.
09:26His ear was still bleeding.
09:27And the main assault had not even started yet.
09:31McKinney reached down and pulled a bandolier of ammunition from one of the dead Japanese soldiers.
09:36American .30 caliber rounds.
09:39The man had probably taken them from a previous engagement.
09:43McKinney loaded a fresh clip into his rifle.
09:45Somewhere in the darkness, a Japanese officer was shouting orders.
09:50McKinney could not understand the words, but he understood the tone.
09:53They were coming, again.
09:56He settled into the gun pit among the bodies of the men he had just killed, rested his rifle on
10:02the sandbag wall, and waited.
10:05The second wave emerged from the jungle, sixty yards away.
10:09McKinney counted at least twenty soldiers in the first line, more behind them.
10:13They came at a run, rifles with fixed bayonets extended, screaming as they charged.
10:20McKinney put his front sight on the lead soldier and squeezed the trigger.
10:26The M1 Garand was designed for rapid, semi-automatic fire.
10:30A trained soldier could put eight aimed rounds downrange in under ten seconds.
10:35McKinney was not a trained soldier.
10:37He was a hunter from Georgia who had been shooting since childhood.
10:40He was faster.
10:42The first Japanese soldier dropped at sixty yards.
10:45McKinney shifted his aim.
10:47The second man fell.
10:48Then the third.
10:49The M1 kicked against his shoulder with each shot.
10:53Brass casings ejected to his right.
10:55He did not think about what he was doing.
10:57His body remembered thousands of hours in the Georgia woods.
11:01Lead the target.
11:02Squeeze the trigger.
11:03Acquire the next target.
11:05Repeat.
11:05The clip ejected with a ping.
11:08McKinney slammed in a fresh one from the bandolier.
11:10The charging wave had covered twenty yards during his reload.
11:14Forty yards now.
11:15He started firing again.
11:17The Japanese soldiers in the second wave had expected to find a captured machine gun position.
11:22They had expected their comrades to be turning that gun on the sleeping Americans.
11:26Instead, they found one man with a rifle cutting them down with mechanical precision.
11:32Eight rounds.
11:33Reload.
11:34Eight rounds.
11:35Reload.
11:36Some of the attackers made it to within fifteen yards of the gun pit before McKinney dropped them.
11:41Others tried to veer left or right, seeking cover.
11:44He tracked them and fired.
11:46A soldier who moved was easier to hit than a soldier who stood still.
11:50McKinney had learned that hunting deer.
11:52The second wave broke.
11:54The survivors scattered back toward the jungle.
11:57McKinney counted the bodies in front of his position.
12:00Eleven more.
12:01Twenty-one total since the attack began.
12:03He did not have time to feel relief.
12:05Japanese officers were already reorganizing.
12:08He could hear them shouting beyond the tree line.
12:11And now he heard something else.
12:13A hollow thump from somewhere in the jungle.
12:15Then another.
12:17Knee mortars.
12:18The first round exploded ten yards to his left.
12:21Dirt and shrapnel sprayed across the gun pit.
12:24McKinney flattened himself against the sandbags.
12:27The second round hit closer.
12:29The third landed directly on the parapet, showering him with debris.
12:33The Japanese had learned from the first two waves.
12:36They were not going to charge blindly into his rifle fire again.
12:39They would soften the position with mortars first.
12:42Kill him, or force him to keep his head down.
12:45Then send in the infantry.
12:47McKinney understood the tactical problem immediately.
12:50If he stayed in the gun pit, the mortars would eventually find him.
12:54The Japanese gunners were adjusting their aim with each shot.
12:57Getting closer.
12:59But if he moved, he would lose the only fortified position in this section of the perimeter.
13:04A grenade landed three feet away from him.
13:06McKinney grabbed it and threw it back over the sandbags.
13:09It exploded in midair.
13:11The blast wave knocked him sideways.
13:13His ears were ringing now.
13:15Blood from his severed ear had soaked through the makeshift bandage he had pressed against the wound.
13:20Another mortar round hit the sandbags directly.
13:23The wall partially collapsed.
13:25McKinney was now half exposed to the jungle.
13:28He made his decision.
13:29Staying meant death.
13:31He grabbed two bandoliers of ammunition from the dead soldiers around him, slung them over his shoulder, and ran.
13:37The Japanese saw him moving.
13:39Rifle fire cracked from the tree line.
13:41Bullets snapped past his head.
13:43McKinney sprinted 15 yards to a shallow depression in the ground.
13:47Not a proper foxhole.
13:49Just a slight dip in the terrain.
13:50He threw himself into it and rolled onto his back.
13:54Rounds kicked up dirt inches from his face.
13:56He crawled to the edge of the depression.
13:58Found a firing position.
14:00The Japanese infantry was moving again.
14:02They thought he was running.
14:04They thought he was retreating.
14:05Two squads emerged from the jungle at a fast walk, rifles ready, moving toward the abandoned gun pit.
14:12McKinney let them get to 30 yards.
14:14Then, he opened fire.
14:15The attackers had bunched together while crossing the open ground.
14:19A mistake.
14:20McKinney's first shot dropped the point man.
14:22His second hit the soldier directly behind.
14:25The group scattered, but there was no cover between the jungle and McKinney's new position.
14:29He picked them off as they ran.
14:31Eight rounds.
14:33Reload.
14:33The survivors reached the gun pit and found only bodies.
14:37Their comrades from the first wave.
14:39They had expected to find the American there.
14:41Instead, they found him shooting at them from a completely different angle.
14:45Three more fell before they could locate his muzzle flash.
14:49McKinney changed position again.
14:50He moved 10 yards to his right while the Japanese tried to reorganize.
14:55Found another depression.
14:56Started firing from the new location.
14:58He was doing what he had done in the Georgia woods.
15:01Never stay in one place.
15:03Never let your target predict where the next shot will come from.
15:06A deer that hears one gunshot will freeze.
15:09A deer that hears two from different locations will run in circles.
15:13The Japanese were running in circles.
15:15Dawn light was spreading across the sky.
15:18McKinney had been fighting for 18 minutes.
15:20His ammunition was running low.
15:22His ear was still bleeding.
15:23And he could see movement in the jungle that suggested the enemy was massing for another major push.
15:29He needed more ammunition.
15:30And he knew exactly where to find it.
15:34The dead Japanese soldiers around the gun pit carried ammunition.
15:38Not just the .30 caliber rounds he had already scavenged.
15:42Some of them had Arisaka rifles with full pouches.
15:45Others had grenades clipped to their belts.
15:48McKinney needed to get back there.
15:51He waited for a lull in the mortar fire.
15:53Counted to three.
15:54Then sprinted across the open ground toward the gun pit.
15:58Rifle fire erupted from the tree line.
16:01McKinney ran in a zigzag pattern.
16:04A bullet tugged at his sleeve.
16:06Another cracked past his ear.
16:08He dove the last five feet and landed among the bodies he had created 20 minutes earlier.
16:13The smell hit him immediately.
16:17Blood and cordite and something else.
16:20The copper tang of death.
16:24McKinney ignored it.
16:26He had butchered hogs on the farm.
16:28Had gutted deer in the Georgia heat.
16:31The smell of death was familiar.
16:33He moved quickly through the bodies.
16:36He grabbed every bandolier he could find.
16:38Every loose clip.
16:40He found four American ammunition pouches on men who had probably taken them as trophies.
16:4564 more rounds.
16:47He stuffed the clips into his pockets and belt.
16:50A Japanese soldier appeared over the sandbag wall.
16:54He must have crawled forward while McKinney was gathering ammunition.
16:58The man's rifle was already coming up.
17:01McKinney shot him through the chest at two feet.
17:04He grabbed the dead man's grenades.
17:07Three of them.
17:08Japanese Type 97 fragmentation grenades.
17:11He had never used one before, but he had seen them.
17:15Knew how they worked.
17:17Pull the pin.
17:18Strike the cap against something hard.
17:21Count to four.
17:22Throw.
17:24Movement in his peripheral vision.
17:26More soldiers approaching from the left.
17:29McKinney armed a grenade, counted, and threw it over the sandbags.
17:34The explosion was followed by screaming.
17:37He armed the second grenade, threw it toward the tree line where muzzle flashes were concentrated.
17:42More screaming.
17:44He was out of the gun pit before the third grenade left his hand.
17:48Running again.
17:49A new position.
17:50Keep moving.
17:52The sky was light enough now to see clearly.
17:55McKinney found a shell crater 15 yards from his previous depression.
17:59Dropped into it.
18:00The crater was three feet deep, enough cover to protect him from direct fire.
18:04He could see the entire approach from the jungle to the perimeter.
18:08Bodies littered the ground between his position and the trees.
18:12He counted quickly.
18:1328.
18:14Maybe 30.
18:15Some were still moving.
18:17Wounded men trying to crawl back toward their lines.
18:20McKinney let them go.
18:22A wounded man required two healthy soldiers to carry him.
18:25Every casualty he created multiplied the enemy's problems.
18:29The mortar fire had stopped.
18:31McKinney understood why.
18:33The Japanese had lost visual contact with him.
18:36Their mortar crews could not adjust fire on a target they could not see.
18:39He had 15, maybe 20 minutes before they repositioned observers.
18:44He used the time to reload every empty clip he carried.
18:48His fingers worked automatically.
18:50Press the rounds into the clip.
18:52Feel for the spring tension.
18:54Eight rounds per clip.
18:55He had scavenged enough ammunition for approximately 10 reloads.
18:59Eighty rounds.
19:00Eighty rounds against however many Japanese soldiers were still in that jungle.
19:05The attack had lasted 23 minutes.
19:08McKinney had killed or wounded at least 30 enemy soldiers.
19:11But he knew the math was not in his favor.
19:14The Japanese had started with roughly 100 men.
19:17Even if half of them were down, that left 50.
19:20And he was still alone.
19:22Where was the rest of Company A?
19:24The answer was complicated.
19:25The Japanese attack had hit multiple points along the perimeter simultaneously.
19:30McKinney's position was on the northeast flank.
19:33Other soldiers were fighting their own battles on the south and west sides of the camp.
19:37The Company commander was trying to organize a coherent defense.
19:41But in the darkness and chaos of a night attack, coordination was almost impossible.
19:46McKinney did not know any of this.
19:48He knew only that no one had come to help him.
19:51No reinforcements.
19:52No supporting fire.
19:54Just him, his rifle, and the bodies piling up in front of his position.
19:59The Japanese regrouped at the edge of the jungle.
20:02McKinney could see them through the trees.
20:03Soldiers checking weapons, NCOs moving among the ranks,
20:08and officers studying the American perimeter through binoculars.
20:11They had expected to overrun this outpost in five minutes.
20:14They had lost nearly a third of their force to one man in 23 minutes.
20:18And they still had not broken through.
20:21The officer lowered his binoculars.
20:24McKinney saw him gesture toward a specific section of the perimeter.
20:27Not the gun pit.
20:28Not the craters where McKinney had been fighting.
20:31The officer was pointing at the supply tents.
20:33A different approach.
20:35A new axis of attack designed to bypass the killing ground McKinney had created.
20:40McKinney read the enemy's intention instantly.
20:43They were going to swing around his flank.
20:45Hit the camp from a direction he could not cover.
20:48And there was nothing he could do to stop them from his current position.
20:52He had a choice.
20:53Stay in his crater where he had cover and clear fields of fire.
20:57Or move to intercept an attack he might not reach in time.
21:02McKinney climbed out of the crater and started running toward the supply tents.
21:07The supply tents were 40 yards from his crater.
21:10McKinney covered the distance in 8 seconds.
21:12He threw himself behind a stack of ammunition crates just as the first Japanese soldiers emerged from the jungle on
21:18the southern approach.
21:18They had not expected him to be there.
21:21The lead element consisted of 12 soldiers moving in a tactical column.
21:25They were heading for the gap between two tents.
21:28Once through that gap, they would be inside the American perimeter with clear shots at soldiers fighting on other sections
21:34of the line.
21:35McKinney opened fire from behind the crates.
21:37The first three men in the column went down before the others could react.
21:41The fourth and fifth tried to return fire but could not locate him in the shadows between the tents.
21:46McKinney shot them both.
21:48The remaining seven scattered.
21:50Some ran back toward the jungle.
21:52Others dove for cover behind fallen logs and shallow depressions.
21:56McKinney tracked the ones who went to ground.
21:58They were pinned.
21:59Unable to advance.
22:00Unable to retreat without exposing themselves.
22:03He shifted his aim to the tree line.
22:05More soldiers were emerging.
22:07The Japanese commander had committed his reserve force to this flanking attack.
22:1120 more men.
22:12Maybe 25.
22:14They saw their comrades pinned down and hesitated at the edge of the jungle.
22:18That hesitation cost them.
22:20McKinney fired into the clustered soldiers.
22:238 rounds.
22:24Reload.
22:248 rounds.
22:26Bodies dropped among the trees.
22:28The survivors pulled back into deeper cover.
22:3026 minutes into the attack.
22:33McKinney had now killed or wounded at least 35 enemy soldiers.
22:36The Japanese had tried three different approaches.
22:39Frontal assault on the machine gun.
22:41Mortar bombardment followed by infantry.
22:44Flanking maneuver toward the supply area.
22:46All three had failed.
22:47The Japanese commander faced a problem he had never encountered.
22:51His intelligence had indicated this outpost was defended by a small American force with limited heavy weapons.
22:56Standard doctrine called for overwhelming night attacks against such positions.
23:01Speed and numbers would compensate for any defensive advantages.
23:04But one man had disrupted everything.
23:08The commander did not know it was one man.
23:10His soldiers reported heavy fire from multiple positions.
23:14They had seen muzzle flashes from the gun pit, then from a depression 30 yards away, then from behind the
23:19supply crates.
23:20It appeared the Americans had established interlocking fields of fire with several riflemen supporting each other.
23:26This assessment was wrong.
23:28But it shaped Japanese tactics for the next phase of the battle.
23:32The mortar crews repositioned to the southwest.
23:35They began dropping rounds on the supply area.
23:38McKinney heard the first impacts and moved immediately.
23:41He had learned.
23:42Static positions attracted mortar fire.
23:45Movement meant survival.
23:46He ran north along the inside of the perimeter.
23:49Found a foxhole that had been abandoned when its occupant went to reinforce the southern defense.
23:54Dropped into it.
23:55The hole was deeper than his previous positions.
23:58Four feet down with a firing step that let him see over the lip.
24:02The Japanese infantry attacked again.
24:04This time from two directions simultaneously.
24:07One group from the south.
24:09Another from the original northeastern approach.
24:11They were trying to split his fire.
24:13Force him to choose which attack to engage.
24:16McKinney engaged both.
24:18He fired four rounds at the southern group.
24:20Dropped two men.
24:22Swung his rifle northeast.
24:24Fired four rounds at that group.
24:26Dropped two more.
24:27The M1 pinged empty.
24:29He reloaded in under three seconds.
24:31Fired at the southern group again.
24:33The attack stalled.
24:35Neither group could advance into the withering rifle fire.
24:38But neither group retreated either.
24:40They went to ground and started returning fire.
24:42Bullets cracked over McKinney's head.
24:45Rounds thudded into the dirt around the foxhole.
24:48He was now taking fire from two directions.
24:50His ammunition was running low.
24:52And the Japanese were learning.
24:54They had figured out that the fire was coming from a single location.
24:58One rifleman.
24:59Not a squad.
25:00Not interlocking positions.
25:02Just one man who moved fast and shot accurately.
25:06This knowledge changed everything.
25:08The Japanese soldiers stopped attacking in waves.
25:12They began advancing individually.
25:14One man would move while others provided covering fire.
25:18Then another man would move.
25:20Leapfrogging forward.
25:22Closing the distance yard by yard.
25:24It was a tactic designed to overwhelm a single defender.
25:28Even the best marksman could not track multiple targets moving at different times from different directions.
25:34Eventually, someone would get close enough.
25:37McKinney recognized what they were doing.
25:39He had hunted animals that used similar tactics.
25:42A pack of coyotes would spread out and approach prey from multiple angles.
25:47The prey could only watch one threat at a time.
25:50The others would close in.
25:51He was the prey now.
25:5331 minutes.
25:55The Japanese had closed to within 20 yards on the southern approach.
25:5915 yards on the northeast.
26:01McKinney had fewer than 30 rounds remaining.
26:03The foxhole that had protected him was about to become his grave.
26:09McKinney did not wait for them to reach him.
26:11He burst out of the foxhole and charged directly at the nearest group of Japanese soldiers.
26:16Five men were crouched behind a fallen palm tree 15 yards to the northeast.
26:21They had been waiting for their comrades to close from the other side.
26:24They did not expect their target to attack.
26:27McKinney shot the first man while still running.
26:29Shot the second as he reached the log.
26:31The third soldier rose to meet him with a bayonet thrust.
26:35McKinney sidestepped and slammed his rifle butt into the man's face.
26:38Bone crunched.
26:40The soldier went down.
26:41The fourth man swung his rifle like a club.
26:44McKinney ducked under the blow and drove the steel butt plate of his M1 into the soldier's throat.
26:49The fifth man tried to run.
26:52McKinney shot him in the back at three yards.
26:54He kept moving.
26:56Could not stop.
26:57Stopping meant death.
26:59The southern group had seen him leave the foxhole.
27:01They were sprinting toward his position.
27:04McKinney turned and fired.
27:06Two men dropped.
27:07The others kept coming.
27:08He fired again.
27:10Another man fell.
27:11The M1 pinged empty.
27:13Three Japanese soldiers reached him before he could reload.
27:16The first one tackled him around the waist.
27:19McKinney went down hard.
27:21His rifle flew from his hands.
27:23The second soldier stomped on his wounded ear.
27:26Pain exploded through his skull.
27:28The third raised the bayonet for a killing thrust.
27:31McKinney grabbed the ankle of the man standing on his head and twisted.
27:34The soldier lost his balance and fell.
27:37McKinney rolled, throwing off the man who had tackled him.
27:40The bayonet thrust missed his chest by inches and buried itself in the dirt.
27:45He scrambled to his knees, found his rifle,
27:48swung it in a wide arc that caught one soldier across the temple.
27:52The man collapsed.
27:53McKinney reversed the swing and drove the butt plate into another soldier's ribs.
27:57He felt bones break under the impact.
28:00The third soldier had pulled his bayonet from the ground.
28:03He lunged.
28:04McKinney blocked the thrust with his rifle barrel.
28:07The blade slid along the wooden steel, gouging a furrow in the stock.
28:12McKinney stepped inside the man's reach and head-butted him.
28:15The soldier staggered.
28:16McKinney hit him twice more with the rifle butt.
28:18He stopped moving.
28:20Thirty-three minutes since the attack began.
28:23McKinney was breathing hard.
28:25His hands were slick with blood.
28:27Some of it was his own.
28:28His ear was a mass of torn flesh and dried gore.
28:32His uniform was ripped in a dozen places.
28:34He had bruises and cuts he did not remember receiving.
28:38But he was still alive.
28:40He looked around the battlefield.
28:42Bodies everywhere.
28:44Japanese soldiers who had come to kill Americans and found something they had not expected.
28:49More bodies than he could count in the gray morning light.
28:52Movement to his right.
28:53Two more soldiers emerging from the jungle.
28:56McKinney raised his rifle and realized it was empty.
28:59He had not reloaded after the hand-to-hand fighting.
29:02The two soldiers saw him standing among the bodies of their comrades.
29:06They hesitated.
29:08McKinney charged them.
29:09He covered ten yards before they could react.
29:12The first soldier tried to bring his rifle up.
29:14Too slow.
29:15McKinney's rifle butt caught him under the chin.
29:18The second soldier turned to run.
29:20McKinney chased him down in three strides and clubbed him from behind.
29:25Thirty-four minutes.
29:26The mortar position.
29:28McKinney remembered seeing muzzle flashes from the southwest.
29:31The knee mortars had been pounding his positions throughout the battle.
29:35Taking out those crews would eliminate the indirect fire threat.
29:38He found a loaded rifle among the dead.
29:40An M1 with a full clip.
29:43Picked it up.
29:44Dropped his damaged weapon.
29:46Started moving toward the mortar position.
29:48The mortar crews saw him coming.
29:50Two men.
29:51They had been adjusting their weapon for another fire mission.
29:54Now they scrambled to defend themselves.
29:57One reached for a rifle.
29:58The other tried to arm a grenade.
30:01McKinney shot them both from 45 yards.
30:03Thirty-five minutes.
30:05He stood in the morning light, scanning the jungle for more targets.
30:09His chest heaved.
30:10His vision was blurring from exhaustion and blood loss.
30:13Every muscle in his body screamed for rest.
30:17The jungle was quiet.
30:19No more soldiers emerging from the trees.
30:22No more mortar rounds.
30:24No more rifle fire from concealed positions.
30:26Just the moans of wounded men and the buzzing of flies already gathering on the dead.
30:33McKinney walked back toward the American perimeter.
30:36He was halfway there when he saw figures moving toward him.
30:39American uniforms.
30:41Soldiers from Company A who had finally fought through to his section of the line.
30:46They stopped when they saw him.
30:47Covered in blood.
30:49Carrying a rifle that was not his own.
30:51Surrounded by bodies.
30:53McKinney lowered his weapon.
30:55The reinforcements stared at the carnage around him.
30:58At the shattered machine gun position.
31:00At the scattered corpses stretching from the jungle to the perimeter.
31:04Thirty-six minutes after Sergeant Fukutaro Mori had slashed open his tent,
31:09Private John McKinney was still standing.
31:11Still breathing.
31:13Still in complete control of the area.
31:16The battle was over.
31:17But no one yet understood what had actually happened.
31:22The soldiers who reached McKinney that morning were from 2nd Platoon.
31:26They had been fighting on the western edge of the perimeter when the Japanese attack hit.
31:31It took them 36 minutes to push through to McKinney's position.
31:35What they found defied comprehension.
31:39Bodies lay scattered across an area roughly 100 yards long and 60 yards wide.
31:46Japanese soldiers slumped over sandbags.
31:49Crumpled in shell craters.
31:51Sprawled among the supply crates.
31:53Piled on top of each other near the damaged machine gun emplacement.
31:56The platoon sergeant ordered a count.
32:00His men moved through the battlefield, checking bodies, marking positions.
32:04The count took 20 minutes.
32:07When they finished, the sergeant did not believe the number.
32:11He ordered them to count again.
32:13Thirty-eight dead Japanese soldiers lay in the immediate vicinity of the machine gun position.
32:20Two more bodies were found near the mortar emplacement, 45 yards away.
32:25Forty confirmed kills in a space that one man had defended for 36 minutes.
32:31The sergeant found McKinney sitting on an ammunition crate.
32:35The private was pressing a blood-soaked bandage against what remained of his right ear.
32:40His uniform was torn and stained.
32:43His rifle stock was cracked from repeated impacts against human skulls.
32:48He looked like a man who had walked through hell.
32:52The sergeant asked what had happened.
32:54McKinney gave a brief account.
32:56The tent.
32:57The sword.
32:58The machine gun.
33:00The waves of attackers.
33:02He spoke in short sentences.
33:04No embellishment.
33:06No drama.
33:07Just facts.
33:09The sergeant did not believe him.
33:11No single soldier could kill 40 men in 36 minutes.
33:16It was impossible.
33:17There must have been other defenders.
33:20Other riflemen supporting McKinney's position.
33:22The private was confused from blood loss and combat stress.
33:27But the other soldiers in Company A had been accounted for.
33:30The two men who originally manned the machine gun with McKinney had evacuated to the rear with wounds.
33:36Everyone else had been fighting on different sections of the perimeter.
33:40The ballistic evidence supported McKinney's account.
33:43Spent M1 casings littered the ground at exactly the positions he described.
33:47The trajectory of wounds on the Japanese bodies matched the firing angles from those positions.
33:54One man.
33:5540 kills.
33:5736 minutes.
33:58Company A's commanding officer forwarded a report to battalion headquarters.
34:03Battalion forwarded it to regiment.
34:06Regiment forwarded it to division.
34:08At each level, officers read the account and assumed it was exaggerated.
34:13Combat reports often inflated enemy casualties.
34:17Soldiers under stress made mistakes.
34:19The numbers had to be wrong.
34:21The 33rd Infantry Division sent an intelligence team to verify the report.
34:26They interviewed McKinney.
34:28Interviewed witnesses.
34:29Examined the battlefield.
34:31Counted the bodies again.
34:32Some accounts suggested the actual number of Japanese dead exceeded 100.
34:37But only 40 could be directly attributed to McKinney's actions with certainty.
34:42The investigators reached an unavoidable conclusion.
34:45The report was accurate.
34:46Private John McKinney had single-handedly repelled an attack by approximately 100 Japanese soldiers.
34:53He had killed 40 of them.
34:55He had saved his company from potential annihilation.
34:58The recommendation for the Medal of Honor went forward in June 1945.
35:02The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government.
35:08Fewer than 3,500 have been awarded since the Civil War.
35:12The criteria are specific.
35:15The recipient must have distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity
35:20at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.
35:24McKinney's actions exceeded those criteria by any reasonable measure.
35:28The recommendation moved through channels.
35:31War Department reviewers examined the evidence.
35:34They found the same thing the division investigators had found.
35:37The story was true.
35:39Every detail was supported by witness testimony and physical evidence.
35:44On January 23, 1946, Private John McKinney stood in the White House.
35:50President Harry Truman placed the Medal of Honor around his neck.
35:54The citation described his actions in formal military language.
35:59Extreme gallantry.
36:01Unsurpassed intrepidity.
36:03Single-handedly thwarting an assault that threatened to annihilate his company.
36:08McKinney did not give speeches.
36:09He did not seek publicity.
36:12When reporters asked about the battle,
36:14he gave the same brief answers he had given the sergeant that morning on Luzon.
36:18The tent, the sword, the machine gun, the waves of attackers.
36:24The press called him the Pacific's Audie Murphy.
36:27Murphy had received his Medal of Honor for single-handedly holding off German forces in France.
36:33McKinney had done something similar against Japanese forces in the Philippines.
36:38Both men had faced overwhelming odds.
36:41Both had refused to retreat.
36:42Both had emerged victorious through a combination of skill, courage, and something that defied easy explanation.
36:51But while Murphy became a movie star after the war, McKinney went home to Georgia.
36:56He was 25 years old.
36:58He had a Medal of Honor, a third-grade education, and a partially severed ear that would never fully heal.
37:04The war was over.
37:06The killing was done.
37:08John McKinney had to figure out how to be a normal person again.
37:13John McKinney returned to Scrubbin County, Georgia, in 1946.
37:17He went back to the only life he knew, farming, hunting, fishing in the same creeks where he had learned
37:23to shoot as a boy.
37:25He rarely spoke about the war.
37:27Neighbors knew he had received the Medal of Honor.
37:29They had seen the newspaper articles.
37:32But McKinney never brought it up, never displayed the medal, never attended reunions or gave interviews.
37:38When people asked about Luzon, he would say a few words and then change the subject.
37:43The nightmares were a different matter.
37:45His family knew about those.
37:47The sounds he made in his sleep.
37:49The way he would wake suddenly, reaching for a rifle that was not there.
37:54The war had followed him home in ways that no medal could address.
37:57Post-traumatic stress disorder was not a recognized diagnosis in 1946.
38:03Soldiers who struggled with combat memories were told to forget about it, move on, be grateful they survived.
38:09McKinney did what most veterans of his generation did.
38:12He buried the memories and kept working.
38:15He married, raised a family, worked various jobs around Screven County.
38:20The years passed.
38:22Korea came and went.
38:24Vietnam came and went.
38:25New wars created new heroes and new veterans with their own buried memories.
38:30McKinney remained in Georgia, quietly living, quietly aging.
38:35The Medal of Honor sat in a drawer somewhere.
38:38He had earned the nation's highest military decoration, and most of his neighbors had no idea.
38:43In 1965, author Forrest Bryant Johnson began researching McKinney's story.
38:49Johnson was a veteran himself.
38:51He understood what McKinney had experienced.
38:53He spent years tracking down witnesses, examining military records, and piecing together the details of those 36 minutes on Luzon.
39:02The research was difficult.
39:04McKinney did not want to talk.
39:06Many of the witnesses had died.
39:08Military records were scattered across multiple archives.
39:11But Johnson persisted.
39:14He believed the story deserved to be told.
39:16His book, Phantom Warrior, was published in 2007.
39:20It documented McKinney's childhood in Georgia, his service in the Pacific, and the battle that earned him the Medal of
39:26Honor.
39:27The book brought renewed attention to a hero most Americans had never heard of.
39:31McKinney did not live to see the book published.
39:34He died on April 5, 1997, in Sylvania, Georgia.
39:38He was 76 years old.
39:40The sharecropper's son, who had killed 40 Japanese soldiers with a rifle and his bare hands, passed away quietly, surrounded
39:48by family.
39:48He was buried in Screvan County, not far from the land where he had learned to hunt.
39:5420 years after his death, Georgia honored him again.
39:57In 2017, the state legislature voted to rename a section of highway in Screvan County.
40:03It became the John R. McKinney Medal of Honor Highway.
40:07A ceremony was held.
40:09Veterans attended.
40:10The McKinney family accepted the honor on behalf of a man who had never sought recognition for what he did.
40:16The highway sign stands today.
40:19Drivers pass it without knowing the story behind the name.
40:22They do not know about the tent and the sword.
40:25They do not know about the machine gun and the 36 minutes.
40:29They do not know that the quiet farmer who once lived nearby had saved an entire company through an act
40:35of violence and courage that still defies belief.
40:3940 men in 36 minutes.
40:42One rifle.
40:43One soldier.
40:44One morning in the Philippines that should have ended in massacre, but ended in something else entirely.
40:51Private John McKinney never asked to be a hero.
40:54He was a farm boy who joined the army because there was a war.
40:57He did what he had to do to survive and to protect the men sleeping around him.
41:03Then he went home and tried to live a normal life.
41:06That is the story.
41:08That is the legacy.
41:10That is John McKinney.
41:11If this story moved you the way it moved us, do me a favor.
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41:23We are rescuing forgotten stories from dusty archives every single day.
41:28Stories about farm boys and privates who save lives with rifles and bare hands.
41:32Real people, real heroism.
41:35Drop a comment right now and tell us where you are watching from.
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41:50Tell us your location.
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41:57And thank you for making sure John McKinney does not disappear into silence.
42:00These men deserve to be remembered.
42:02And you are helping make that happen.
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