Marine Medal of Honor winner dies at 92

Marine Corps Capt. Arthur J. Jackson, who received the Medal of Honor for killing 50 Japanese soldiers and silencing a dozen enemy pillboxes during the World War II battle of Peleliu, died Wednesday in Boise, Idaho. He was 92.

The Congressional Medal of Honor Society announced the death but did not disclose a cause.

Jackson, then 19, was with the 1st Marine Division in the western Pacific when a wave of U.S. forces landed on Japanese-controlled Peleliu on Sept. 15, 1944, with the intent of overtaking it within days. Instead, they met a heavily fortified Japanese force of about 11,000 troops that inflicted heavy casualties and kept the battle raging for two months before U.S. forces prevailed. U.S. troops endured one of the highest rates of death and injury in the Pacific theater, with at least 2,300 killed and 8,400 wounded.

Jackson’s unit was ordered to clear the southern end of the island, but on Sept. 18, the Marines were stalled by a storm of enemy gunfire from a large Japanese bunker. He was told to move ahead alone and clear it.

Loaded up with grenades, he charged the pillbox, raking it with automatic fire while discharging white phosphorus grenades and other explosives. He was credited with killing all 35 occupants. Continuing on alone, he repeated the maneuver at 11 smaller pillboxes that held 15 Japanese soldiers.

He was wounded both at Peleliu and the following year at Okinawa, receiving two Purple Hearts. In October 1945, after receiving the Medal of Honor, he was feted in a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan.