World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseKaoru Moto was born in Makawao, Maui, US Territory of Hawaii to Japanese immigrant parents. He enlisted in the US Army in Mar 1941 and later volunteered to be part of the 100th Infantry Battalion which was consisted of Japanese-Americans. On 7 Jul 1944, while acting as a scout for his platoon, he came upon a German machine gun position near Castellina Marittima in the Toscana region of Italy. He killed the gunner of the first position and captured the assistance gunner after a brief fire fight. He then observed the Germans settings up another machine gun position. Moving forward alone once again, he forced this second German crew to withdraw, but during the process he was wounded by rifle fire. Spotting yet a third machine gun position, he wounded two of the three Germans by gunfire, pushed forward, and eventually forced all three to surrender. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for the day's action. In 1990, the award was upgraded to the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration of the United States. He passed away in 1992 and was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. In Jun 2000, his surviving family received the award from President Bill Clinton in a ceremony at the White House in Washington DC, United States.

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