Quick Facts
Biography
John R. McKinney was a United States soldier who received the Medal of Honor in World War II during the campaign to recapture the Philippines from Japanese forces in 1945. Against superior numbers which was over 100 Japanese soldiers, McKinney was single-handedly able to secure a crucial battlefield area before reinforcements arrived. He was presented the Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony by President Harry S. Truman on January 23, 1946.
McKinney enlisted in the United States Army from Screven County, Georgia in November 1942. He served as a Sergeant in the United States Army.
Medal of Honor citation
Heroism on Luzon, Philippines
US Army Pvt. John McKinney had stood guard duty and had just gone to his tent in the early hours May 11, 1945 on the island of Luzon, Philippines. The vanguard of a Japanese attack force of over 100 soldiers slipped past the guard post. Sgt. Fukutaro Morii threw open McKinney's tent flap and slashed down with his sword, no doubt to minimize the sound of the undiscovered attack. The sword severed part of McKinney's ear. McKinney, a skilled hunter from Georgia, grabbed the rifle he slept with, bashed Morii in the chin and finished him with another blow to the head.
In the next 36 minutes, McKinney protected the flank of his company and his sleeping comrades by killing over 100 enemy soldiers according to the careful survey of the area conducted by Sgt. Al Johnson after the battle. McKinney did so through point-blank, kill-or-be-killed encounters as well as rapid-fire, accurate shots with various M1 rifles he picked up and emptied in multiple encounters with charging enemies. Early in the engagement he returned to his foxhole where he eliminated first one wave and then part of the second wave of the main attack force. Several in the second wave made it to the foxhole where McKinney first shot and then clubbed his assailants in hand-to-hand combat.
Death
McKinney died on Apr. 5,1997, and is interred at Double Heads Baptist Church in Sylvania, Georgia.
Legacy
The State of Georgia renamed a highway The John R. McKinney Medal of Honor Highway in his honor.