Harold H. Moon, Jr. - Biography

Biography

Moon joined the Army from Gardena, California in August 1942, and served as a private in Company G, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. Before the landing on Leyte, Moon was a persistent troublemaker and known as the "G Company screw-up." He had been confined to the stockade yet was released back to his unit, amidst strong objection, just prior to the battle. On the night of October 21, 1944, during a Japanese counterattack at Pawig, Leyte in the Philippines, Moon held his position manning a submachine gun despite intense enemy fire and overwhelming odds. He was killed during the battle and, on November 15, 1945, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.

Moon, aged 23 at his death, was buried at Sunset Memorial Park in his birth city of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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