Corporal Melvin Mayfield and the Four Caves of Luzon
Follow Corporal Melvin Mayfield from his small-town beginnings in West Virginia and Ohio to a fire-swept ridge in the mountains of Luzon, where a lone climb against four cave positions under converging Japanese fire became the last Medal of Honor action of World War II before the guns fell silent. This episode of Beyond the Call from Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine, developed by Trackpads dot com, walks the ground with Mayfield as he moves from shell hole to shell hole to relieve pinned-down Filipino companies, returns to the fight even after his weapon is destroyed and his hand is wounded, and methodically breaks the enemy strongpoint that has stopped the entire advance. Along the way, we explore how terrain, small-unit initiative, and the partnership between American and Filipino forces shaped the battle, and then follow Mayfield home to a quiet postwar life running a sawmill in Ohio, where the memory of that single, desperate day on a Luzon ridge stood in contrast to decades of hard work, family, and community.
