In June 1944, Captain Benjamin Salomon was a 29-year-old US Army dentist attached to US forces invading the Pacific island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands. When assault troops stormed the beaches, he remained behind, but after a battalion combat surgeon was injured, Salomon volunteered to go ashore and take his place.
In early July, Salomon was treating wounded men in an aid station when the Japanese ordered the largest banzai charge of the war. In the dead of night, thousands of Japanese charged into the American lines, overrunning two Army battalions and pouring into rear areas. Salomon used a rifle to fend off several attackers and ordered the other medical personnel to evacuate the wounded while he covered their withdrawal with a .30-caliber machine gun. Far behind him, US Marines rallied, holding their ground and killing all of the 4,000 attacking Japanese. Salomon was found days later near the aid station, his body punctured by dozens of gunshot and bayonet wounds and surrounded by 98 dead Japanese. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously, for his heroics.
