NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯
@japan_nobunaga
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Nov 10
In August 1953, as American prisoners of war came home from Korea, a U.S. Army general stood a thin young soldier of Japanese descent in front of the reporters' microphones and told him something the Army had kept secret.
He had been awarded the Medal of Honor while he was still a prisoner.
They had hidden it on purpose. If his captors had found out, Brig. Gen. Ralph Osborne said, "they might have taken revenge on this young man. He might not have come back."
Hiroshi Miyamura was born in Gallup, New Mexico, in 1925, to parents who had come from Japan. His fourth-grade teacher could not pronounce Hiroshi, so everyone called him Hershey.
In World War II, while more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were held in camps, he trained with the Japanese American soldiers of the 442nd. The war in Europe ended while he was still on his way.
Then came Korea.
On the night of April 24, 1951, Cpl. Miyamura was leading a machine gun squad of the 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, when a massive enemy assault hit his position.
He jumped out of his hole with his bayonet and killed about ten of the enemy in hand-to-hand fighting. He went back and gave first aid to his wounded men and got them out. When the next wave came, he fired his machine gun until the ammunition was gone, sent his squad back, stayed to wreck the gun, and fought his way to a second one. When the whole company had to pull back, he ordered his men out and stayed behind to cover them. His citation says he killed more than 50 of the enemy before he was badly wounded. Then he was captured.
He spent nearly 28 months as a prisoner.
When the general finally told him about the medal, he later remembered, all he could say was: "What, for doing my duty?"
On September 9, 1953, Gallup brought him home. The mayor declared Hiroshi Miyamura Day. Schools and stores closed. Four F-86 jets flew over the town. A banner read, "Welcome Home, Hershey."
The town had taken up a collection for him: $3,850. The largest gift was $300 from the Rotary Club. The smallest was 50 cents, out of one little boy's piggy bank.
On October 27, 1953, in the rain at the White House, President Eisenhower placed the Medal of Honor around his neck.
He went home, ran a service station in Gallup, and lived to 97. His granddaughter became an officer in the U.S. Air Force.
"I just thought I was doing my job," he said.
I am Japanese. His parents left Japan for a small town in New Mexico.
Their son gave everything for America, and a little boy in New Mexico gave him 50 cents out of his piggy bank.
Nov 10, 2026