Retired Marine Awarded Belated Medal of Honor

A retired Marine who fought off scores of Japanese soldiers for three days and helped secure U.S. victory in the bloody World War II battle for Okinawa received the nation’s highest military medal Tuesday.

President Clinton awarded retired Marine Gen. James Day, a Cathedral City resident, the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony nearly 53 years after the May 1945 battle for Sugar Loaf Hill on Okinawa.

Day, 19 and a corporal at the time, led a small squad in holding a position in a shell crater ahead of the front lines despite furious Japanese attacks, the medal citation said.

He fought virtually alone at times, led wounded soldiers to safety, and suffered shrapnel wounds and phosphorous burns. After the battle, more than 100 enemy soldiers, some of whom had come within a few feet of the crater, lay dead around it.