Donald Lobaugh received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his leadership on this day in New Guinea, when he singlehandedly knocked out a Japanese machine gun emplacement, saving 39 Americans pinned down by enemy fire. Honor and remember him!

Lobaugh was a tough kid who got into a lot of trouble when he was a kid, going to reform school when he was 16 years old for stealing a car. He was one of eight kids raised by his mother, a widow whose husband was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Lobaugh hit his stride in the Army, however.

Lobaugh’s company commander, Captain Leonard Lowry, later said “What guts that kid had, what guts. When he got part way across that space, Lobaugh raised up and tossed a grenade at the Japs. They opened up on him right away and I know he was hit by that first burst. But instead of turning back, he got up on his feet, held his rifle to his shoulder, and started to rush the Japs firing as he went. Lobaugh was hit and wounded several times but he kept on blasting at those Japs until he got that fatal burst. No, he didn’t knock out the Jap guns. But he made it so darned hot for them that they got the hell out of there and made it possible for the rest of us to fight our way out.”

Medal of Honor recipients Charles Kelly and Leonard Funk met Lobaugh’s body when it was repatriated to Pittsburgh in 1949, and his Medal of Honor is on display in the town library in Freeport, Pennsylvania.