At 5:47 on the morning of May 11th, 1945, Private First Class John R. McKini woke to a Japanese saber striking his skull. The blade carved a shallow groove across his scalp before the enemy soldier could complete the swing. McKini was 24 years old, 5′ 7 in tall, 130 lb. He had grown up hunting squirrels and turkeys in the pine forests of Screven County, Georgia, where his father taught him to shoot moving targets without using sights.

 Now 8,000 mi from home on the Luzon coast, 100 Japanese soldiers were attacking his position in the pre-dawn darkness. And McKini had exactly one functional weapon, an M1 Garand rifle weighing 9.5 lbs with an 8 round onblock clip. The attack came at Dingolan Bay in Tayabas Province, where company A of the 123rd Infantry Regiment had established a perimeter defense around a coastal outpost.

 McKini and two other men had been manning a light M1919A4 machine gun through the night. They had completed their watch rotation 20 minutes earlier. McKini was resting on the ground three paces from the gun imp placement when the Japanese assault began. The temperature was 78° F. A waning moon provided 70% illumination through scattered cloud cover.

 The jungle canopy filtered the moonlight into patterns of shadow that made movement difficult to detect. The Japanese soldier with the saber had crawled within striking distance during the final hour before dawn. McKini felt the blade before he saw the man. The impact was glancing enough to stun but not incapacitate.

McKinn’s hands moved before his mind fully registered what was happening. He grabbed his rifle. The M1 Garand had been lying across his chest. He swung it like a club. The stock connected with the Japanese soldier’s face. The man dropped. McKini worked the rifle’s action and shot a second attacker who was charging from his left.

 The Garan’s report cracked through the jungle. The sound triggered movement all around the perimeter. More Japanese soldiers emerged from the treeine. One of McKin’s companions at the machine gun had been wounded in the initial assault. The third man grabbed the injured soldier and pulled him back towards safer positions 40 yards behind the imp placement. This left McKini alone.

10 Japanese infantry men rushed the machine gun position. They had rehearsed this maneuver. Three men provided covering fire while seven others sprinted the final 15 yds to the gun. They reached it before McKini could intervene. They grabbed the weapon and began rotating it 180° to fire into the American perimeter.

 McKini jumped into the imp placement. The space measured approximately 6 ft wide by 4t deep, reinforced with sandbags and palm logs. The 10 Japanese soldiers were clustered around the machine gun. McKini shot the first man at a distance of 3 ft. He worked the Garan’s action and shot a second man. The rifle’s semi-automatic mechanism allowed rapid successive shots.

 He fired seven times in less than 8 seconds. Seven Japanese soldiers fell. The remaining three turned toward McKini. He had no time to shoot. The Garand in his hands became a club again. He swung the rifle butt into the nearest soldier’s head. The man collapsed. McKini reversed the swing and struck a second soldier in the throat. The third soldier lunged at him with a bayonet.

McKini parried with the rifle and then drove the butt into the man’s chest. All three fell. The machine gun was now inoperative. The struggle had damaged the feed mechanism. Spent shell casings and blood covered the imp placement floor. McKini climbed out and moved back toward the perimeter.

 He had killed 10 men in less than 2 minutes, but the main assault was just beginning. More Japanese soldiers were advancing through the jungle. McKini could hear them moving through the undergrowth, breaking branches, shouting orders. The attack was concentrated on his section of the perimeter. The Japanese commanders had identified the machine gun as the strongest defensive position.

Eliminating it would create a gap in the American line. McKini took cover behind a fallen diparp tree 20 yard from the destroyed imp placement. The tree trunk measured 4 ft in diameter. It provided solid cover from rifle fire, but not from grenades or mortar shells. McKini checked his rifle.

 The Garand held eight rounds in its onblock clip. He had fired seven rounds during the imp placement fight. One round remained chambered. He ejected the partial clip and inserted a fresh one. The clip made a distinctive metallic ping as it seated. McKini had seven more clips in the pouches on his belt, 56 rounds total.

 The Japanese attacking his position numbered somewhere between 80 and 100 men. The mathematics were not favorable. The next wave of attackers emerged from the jungle at 5:53 a.m. McKini counted 15 men advancing in a loose skirmish line. They were moving cautiously, using available cover, stopping behind trees to observe before continuing forward.

This was different from the initial rush on the machine gun. These soldiers were experienced. They had assessed the situation and adapted their tactics. McKini waited until the nearest soldier was 40 yards away. Then he fired. The shot hit center mass. The Japanese soldier dropped. McKini shifted his aim to a second soldier 35 yds out.

 He fired another hit. The remaining attackers went to ground. They had located Mckin’s position based on his muzzle flash. Japanese grenades began landing around the fallen tree. McKini counted four explosions in rapid succession. The grenades were type 97 fragmentation models with a 4.5 second fuse. The explosions kicked up dirt and wood splinters.

 None landed close enough to cause injury, but they forced McKini to keep his head down. While he was suppressed, the Japanese soldiers advanced. McKini could hear them moving closer. He rose up and fired three quick shots. Two hits, one miss. He dropped back behind the tree as return fire snapped overhead. Bullets struck the tree trunk with solid impacts.

 The dipter carp wood was dense enough to stop 7.7 mm Arisaka rounds at this range. McKini relocated, staying in one position, invited mortar fire. He crawled north along the fallen tree for 10 yards, then moved back toward the perimeter through a depression in the ground. The depression was shallow, maybe 18 in deep, but it provided concealment from ground level observation.

 McKini reached a cluster of large rocks that the company had been using as a supply dump. Ammunition crates were stacked behind the rocks. McKini grabbed two bandeliers of30-06 ammunition and slung them over his shoulders. Each bandelier held 60 rounds in six round stripper clips. He now had 176 rounds available. The weight of the ammunition added 8 lb to his loadout.

 At 5:58 a.m., Japanese knee mortar shells began impacting the area. The mortars were type 89 grenade discharges with an effective range of 175 yds. The Japanese crews had moved into positions that allowed them to fire over the tree line into the American perimeter. The first shell landed 30 yard from Mckin’s position.

 The second shell landed 25 yd away. The Japanese mortar teams were walking their fire toward him. McKini moved again. He sprinted 20 yd east and dove behind a palm tree. The third mortar shell hit where he had been positioned 3 seconds earlier. More Japanese soldiers were advancing. McKini spotted movement at the treeine 60 yard out. He counted eight men.

 They were spread out, maintaining 10yard intervals between each man. This was proper infantry assault doctrine. McKini aimed at the lead soldier. He controlled his breathing. The Garand’s sights were zeroed for 300 yards, but McKini had spent years shooting at moving targets in Georgia forests. He understood trajectory compensation instinctively.

He led the target slightly and fired. The soldier fell. McKini worked through the rest of the assault line methodically. Shot, shift, aim, shot, shift, aim. The Garin’s semi-automatic action allowed him to maintain a steady rate of fire. Five of the eight Japanese soldiers fell before they reached cover. The remaining three withdrew into the jungle.

 The pattern repeated six more times over the next 30 minutes. Japanese soldiers would advance in small groups. McKini would engage them at range. Some groups withdrew, others pressed forward. McKini kept moving between positions, never staying in one spot longer than 2 minutes. He reloaded the Garand constantly.

 The rifle’s on block clip system allowed for rapid magazine changes. McKini would fire his eight rounds, eject the empty clip, and insert a fresh one in less than 4 seconds. This was faster than the boltaction rifles the Japanese snipers were using. It gave McKini a rate of fire advantage that compensated for being outnumbered. At 6:14 a.m.

, McKini was behind a termite mound 30 yard from his original position. The mound stood 5 ft tall and provided excellent cover. McKini had expended six clips, 48 rounds. He had secured more ammunition from the supply dump, but the bandeliers were now scattered across three different positions. If he needed to retreat further, he would lose access to that ammunition.

 McKini decided to hold this position. The termite mound offered 360° observation. He could see the entire approach from the jungle to the perimeter. Three Japanese soldiers appeared at 45 yds. They were moving fast, sprinting through the open ground between the treeine and McKin’s position. This was a different tactic, speed instead of stealth.

 McKini shot the first man at 40 yards, the second man at 35 yd. The third man reached a large rock 15 yards from McKinn’s position before McKini could shoot him. The Japanese soldier had a grenade. He pulled the pin and prepared to throw. McKini fired. The bullet struck the soldier in the chest. The man fell backwards.

 The grenade dropped from his hand. It detonated 3 seconds later, killing him instantly and cratering the ground around the rock. McKini heard voices behind him, American voices. Reinforcements were arriving from the company headquarters 200 yd back. A squad of eight men reached McKin’s position at 6:23 a.m. They had been sent forward when the machine gun position went silent.

 The squad leader wanted to know if McKini was injured. McKini said he was functional. The squad leader deployed his men in a defensive ark around the termite mound and sent a runner back to headquarters to report the situation. The Japanese assault broke at 6:31 a.m. The attacking force had sustained catastrophic casualties. The survivors withdrew into the jungle toward the Sierra Madre Mountains.

 The American squad pursued for 100 yards, then returned to secure the perimeter. McKini remained at the termite mound. He still had four clips of ammunition in his pouches, 32 rounds. He reloaded the Garand with a fresh clip and waited for orders. At 700 a.m., with full daylight revealing the battlefield, a patrol counted the bodies.

 38 dead Japanese soldiers were found around the destroyed machine gun imp placement. Two more were found beside a type 89 knee mortar 45 yd distant from the imp placement. The total confirmed count was 40. The patrol also found evidence that wounded Japanese soldiers had been carried away during the withdrawal. The actual casualty count was likely higher, but only confirmed bodies were recorded in the afteraction report.

 Company A had lost three men killed and seven wounded during the assault. The Japanese had concentrated their attack on Mckin’s section of the perimeter. If that section had collapsed, the entire company defense would have been compromised. The company consisted of 127 men at the time of the attack. The Japanese breakthrough would have allowed them to roll up the American positions from the flank.

 Company casualties in that scenario would have been catastrophic. The battalion commander estimated that Mckin’s actions had saved between 50 and 70 American lives directly and prevented the collapse of the entire defensive perimeter, which would have endangered the remaining 190 men in the adjacent positions. McKini was promoted to sergeant and recommended for the Medal of Honor.

 The recommendations cited his extraordinary fighting ability during the 36-minute engagement from 5:47 a.m. to 6:23 a.m. The citation noted that McKini had killed 40 enemy soldiers through a combination of rifle fire at ranges from point blank to 60 yards and hand-to-hand combat using his rifle as a club. The action demonstrated the effectiveness of individual marksmanship and rapid fire discipline against numerically superior forces.

 The Medal of Honor was presented to Sergeant McKini by President Harry Truman on January 23rd, 1946 at the White House. McKini was 25 years old. The ceremony was brief. Truman asked McKini what he planned to do after the army. McKini said he intended to return to Screven County and resume hunting and fishing. Truman told him that America needed men like him.

 McKini thanked the president and returned to Georgia 3 weeks later. McKini never married. He spent the next 51 years in Scran County, living much as he had before the war. He hunted deer and turkey in the same pine forests where his father had taught him to shoot. He fished the Savannah River and its tributaries.

 He avoided public appearances and declined most invitations to veterans reunions and military ceremonies. When reporters occasionally found him and asked about May 11th, 1945, McKini would say only that he did what was necessary and that he wanted to forget the war. In 1995, veterans from the 33rd Infantry Division organized a 50th anniversary reunion.

 They had difficulty locating McKini. He had no telephone. He did not respond to letters. Eventually, a veteran who had served with company A drove to Screven County and located Mckini through local hunters who knew him. McKini agreed to attend the reunion. He met with the men he had served with 50 years earlier. They asked him about the fight at Dingolan Bay.

 McKini said he did not remember all the details. He remembered the saber striking his head. He remembered the machine gun being captured. He remembered shooting and reloading and moving between positions. The rest was fragmented. The veterans told McKini that he had saved their lives. McKini said he was glad they had survived. The state of Georgia designated State Route 21 through Screven County as the John R.

 McKini Medal of Honor Highway in 1995. McKini attended the dedication ceremony. He spoke for 3 minutes. He thanked the state for the honor. He said he hoped young people would remember that courage was not the absence of fear but the ability to act despite fear. He said the men who died at Dingolan Bay deserved to be remembered more than the men who survived.

John R. McKini died on April 5th, 1997 in Screven County, Georgia. He was 76 years old. He was buried with full military honors at Hillrest Memorial Park. Veterans from the 33rd Infantry Division attended the funeral. The chaplain read from the Medal of Honor citation. The honor guard fired three volleys. A bugler played taps.

McKin’s M1 Garand rifle was placed on his casket before it was lowered into the ground. The rifle that had fired 40 rounds in 36 minutes on May 11th, 1945. The rifle that had clubbed three Japanese soldiers to death when ammunition and time ran out. The rifle that a Georgia hunter had used to save 190 men he barely knew in a jungle 8,000 miles from home.

 The rifle that proved an individual soldier with proper training and sufficient will could change the outcome of a battle against overwhelming odds. McKin’s actions at Dingolan Bay became a case study in small unit tactics at Fort Benning’s Infantry School. The engagement demonstrated the value of rapid semi-automatic fire, the importance of position changes under fire, and the effectiveness of aggressive individual action when defensive positions are compromised.

 The lesson emphasized to generations of infantry officers was simple. When the situation is desperate and help is not coming, a single soldier with a rifle and the will to use it can hold a position against forces 10 times his number. Not through heroism as traditionally understood, not through fearlessness or superhuman ability, but through the application of fundamental skills learned in childhood forests.

shooting squirrels that moved too fast for careful aim. Shooting turkeys that appeared and vanished in seconds. Learning to trust instinct over deliberation. Learning to reload faster than thought. Learning that survival in close quarters required hitting the target before the target hit you. McKini had brought those skills from Georgia pine forests to Luzon jungles.

The principles remained the same. Movement drew attention. Stillness provided advantage. Speed beak precision at close range. Rapid fire suppressed enemy action long enough to create opportunity. Position changes prevented enemy targeting solutions. Aggression disrupted enemy planning. On May 11th, 1945, those principles saved 190 American lives.

 The Japanese assault on Dingalan Bay was repelled. Company A held its position. The 123rd Infantry Regiment maintained its defensive perimeter. The 33rd Infantry Division continued its operations on Luzon. The campaign proceeded as planned. The war moved forward, and in the pre-dawn darkness of that May morning, a Georgia hunter with an M1 Garand had stood alone against 100 attackers, and refused to yield ground that 190 men depended on him to hold.

He held it. The price was 40 Japanese dead and a shallow scar across his scalp from a saber that should have killed him but failed.