Shizuya Hayashi of Waialua, Hawaii, a Private in the U.S. Army, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his extraordinary actions on November 29, 1943, near Cerasuolo, Italy.
Hayashi was born to Japanese immigrant parents and was a Nisei, meaning he was a second-generation Japanese-American.
He joined the Army in March 1941 and volunteered to be a part of the all-Nisei 100th Infantry Battalion, made up of Japanese-Americans from Hawaii and the mainland.
On November 29, 1943, during a flank assault on high ground held by the enemy near Cerasuolo, Italy, Private Hayashi rose alone in the face of grenade, rifle, and machine gun fire. Firing his automatic rifle from the hip, he charged and overtook an enemy machine gun position, killing seven men in the nest and two more as they fled.
After his platoon advanced 200 yards from this point, an enemy antiaircraft gun opened fire on the men. Private Hayashi returned fire at the hostile position, killing nine of the enemy, taking four prisoners, and forcing the remainder of the force to withdraw from the hill.
He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on November 29, 1943. Hayashi was initially awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions until a 1990s review of U.S. military service records led to his award being upgraded to the Medal in 2000. He died in 2008 and is buried in Hawaii's National Cemetery of the Pacific.
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The "Big Three" Allied leaders, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin met for the first time at the Tehran Conference in Tehran, Iran, between November 28 and December 1, 1943.
During the Conference, the three leaders coordinated their military strategy against Germany and Japan and made several important decisions concerning the post-World War II era.
The most notable achievements of the Conference focused on the next phases of the war against the Axis powers in Europe and Asia.
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin engaged in discussions concerning the terms under which the British and Americans finally committed to launching Operation Overlord, an invasion of northern France, to be executed by May of 1944.
The Soviets, who had long been pushing the Allies to open a second front, agreed to launch another major offensive on the Eastern Front that would divert German troops away from the Allied campaign in northern France.
Stalin also agreed in principle that the Soviet Union would declare war against Japan following an Allied victory over Germany.
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