World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseFrank Harry Ono was born in Delta, Colorado, United States in 1923 to Japanese immigrant father Harry Ono and Irish-American mother Eva Ono (née Thomas). He enlisted in the United States Army in Sep 1943 and volunteered to join the 442nd Regimental Combat Team consisted of Japanese-Americans. On 4 Jul 1944, near Castellina Marittima in the Toscana region of Italy, Private First Class Ono advanced ahead of his unit and wiped out a German machine gun position single-handedly with his automatic rifle and then continued on and killed a sniper. After he lost his automatic rifle after it was struck by enemy fire, he used hand grenades to force back the Germans trying to converge on his position. Taking a wounded fellow soldier's rifle, he killed two more Germans and then administered first aid to two wounded men, one of them being his platoon leader. When the platoon was ordered to withdraw, he volunteered to stay behind to guard the platoon's rear. For his actions during this day, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross medal. He survived the war and passed away in 1980. He was buried at the Highland Cemetery, North Judson, Indiana, United States. In 1990, his Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded to the Medal of Honor, the highest American military award. The award was presented by US President Bill Clinton in Jun 2000 at the White House in Washington DC, United States to his widow Ann Ono.

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