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Contact Info
Home Town Loving
Last Address Visalia, CA
Date of Passing Nov 20, 2009
Location of Interment Veterans Memorial Grove Cemetery - Yountville, California
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Medal of Honor
Alejandro R. Ruiz
Private First Class, U.S. Army, 165th Infantry, 27th Infantry Division
When his unit was stopped by a skillfully camouflaged enemy pillbox, he displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty. His squad, suddenly brought under a hail of machinegun fire and a vicious grenade attack, was pinned down. Jumping to his feet, Pfc. Ruiz seized an automatic rifle and lunged through the flying grenades and rifle and automatic fire for the top of the emplacement. When an enemy soldier charged him, his rifle jammed. Undaunted, Pfc. Ruiz whirled on his assailant and clubbed him down. Then he ran back through bullets and grenades, seized more ammunition and another automatic rifle, and again made for the pillbox. Enemy fire now was concentrated on him, but he charged on, miraculously reaching the position, and in plain view he climbed to the top. Leaping from one opening to another, he sent burst after burst into the pillbox, killing 12 of the enemy and completely destroying the position. Pfc. Ruiz's heroic conduct, in the face of overwhelming odds, saved the lives of many comrades and eliminated an obstacle that long would have checked his unit's advance.
Place and date: Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, April 28, 1945
GO 60 Jun 26 1946
Other Comments:
Alejandro Renteria Ruiz was born and raised in New Mexico, the son of a Mexican immigrant who had been an officer in Pancho Villa's army. In 1944, twenty-year-old Ruiz was driving to Texas to see his girlfriend when he got into a legal scrape. He went before a judge who gave him a choice between the Army and jail. Ruiz enlisted.
After training at Fort Bliss and Fort Ord, Private First Class Ruiz shipped out with the 165th Infantry. His unit landed on Okinawa in April 1945. On April 28, his company, exhausted from a series of engagements with Japanese troops in heavily fortified positions, was moving down into a deep ravine. The Japanese let his unit pass by a well-camouflaged pillbox before opening fire and lobbing grenades. As the Americans tried to find cover while Japanese grenades rained down on them, Ruiz saw his comrades falling all around him; after just a few minutes, only he and his squad leader had escaped injury.
Knowing that he needed more firepower than his rifle could offer, Ruiz grabbed a Browning Automatic Rifle and moved toward the pillbox. As he started to climb on top of it so he could open fire, the weapon jammed. At that moment, a Japanese soldier charged him; Ruiz clubbed him down, then tossed the rifle aside and ran back through the heavy fire to where his men were pinned down. Picking up another automatic rifle and grabbing some extra cans of ammunition, he headed back toward the pillbox while the Japanese machine gunners and riflemen were all concentrating their fire on him. Making it through the storm of bullets and grenades, he once again climbed on top of the emplacement and sent several bursts of fire through the aperture, killing the twelve soldiers inside and destroying the position.
Unscathed except for a minor flesh wound in the leg, Ruiz found a place to sit down after the battle and tried to light a cigarette with shaking hands. The men he had saved told him they were going to recommend him for the Medal of Honor. Ruiz didn't think about it for the next several weeks as his unit continued the fight on Okinawa. It wasn't until May 1946, when he was back in the United States, living in the married soldiers' barracks, that he was told he was indeed to receive the medal. Ruiz's wife, mother, and sister accompanied him to the White House, where President Harry Truman made the presentation on June 12, 1946.
He spent his career in the Army. He also served in the Korean War and retired as a master sergeant in the mid-1960s.
He lived for many years in Visalia, Calif., which named a park in his honor. Most recently, he had been living at the Veterans Home in Yountville, Calif., near Napa.
His marriages to Eliza Martinez and Lilia Flores ended in divorce. Survivors include two children from his first marriage, Celia Ruiz and Alejandro Ruiz Jr., both of Berkeley; a sister; seven grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
Ryukyus Campaign (1945)/Battle of Okinawa
From Month/Year
April / 1945
To Month/Year
June / 1945
Description The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945. After a long campaign of island hopping, the Allies were approaching Japan, and planned to use Okinawa, a large island only 340 mi (550 km) away from mainland Japan, as a base for air operations on the planned invasion of Japanese mainland (coded Operation Downfall). Four divisions of the U.S. 10th Army (the 7th, 27th, 77th, and 96th) and two Marine Divisions (the 1st and 6th) fought on the island. Their invasion was supported by naval, amphibious, and tactical air forces.
The battle has been referred to as the "typhoon of steel" in English, and tetsu no ame ("rain of steel") or tetsu no bufū ("violent wind of steel") in Japanese. The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of kamikaze attacks from the Japanese defenders, and to the sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Based on Okinawan government sources, mainland Japan lost 77,166 soldiers, who were either killed or committed suicide, and the Allies suffered 14,009 deaths (with an estimated total of more than 65,000 casualties of all kinds). Simultaneously, 42,000–150,000 local civilians were killed or committed suicide, a significant proportion of the local population. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki together with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria caused Japan to surrender less than two months after the end of the fighting on Okinawa.
