Okinawa in the spring of 1945 was a place of ridges, rain, and relentless resistance, and Hen Hill was one of the keys in that landscape. The rise sat along the Naha–Shuri–Yonaburu defensive line, giving Japanese forces a commanding view of the valleys where American troops had to advance. For nearly two weeks, battalions had attacked that ground, only to be driven back by machine guns, mortars, and rifles dug into caves and trenches. The slopes were torn by shell fire and scarred by failed assaults. Beyond the Call is the Monday feature of Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine. On May thirty first, when Clarence Craft’s platoon received orders to probe the hill once more, everyone understood that this position had already cost many lives.
Clarence Byrle Craft began life far from Okinawa’s ridges, in San Bernardino, California, where he was born in 1921. He came of age during the Great Depression, a time when work was scarce and families learned to stretch every dollar and every ounce of patience. Like many of his generation, he watched the world drift toward war and felt the pull of obligation when the United States fully entered the conflict. In 1944 he joined the Army from Santa Ana, trading civilian clothes for a uniform and the routines of peace for the demanding patterns of military life. It was a big change, but he adapted. Training took him from basic skills to the disciplined habits of an infantryman.
In camp and on training grounds, Craft learned to shoot, to move under fire, and to work as part of a squad and platoon. Long marches toughened his body, while endless drills sharpened his reactions and his trust in the men beside him. He was assigned to Company G, 2nd Battalion, 382nd Infantry Regiment of the 96th Infantry Division, a division already marked by hard fighting in the Pacific. The life of an enlisted rifleman offered little glamour and a lot of repetition, but Craft approached it with quiet seriousness. That steady temperament made him the kind of man others wanted in their foxhole. When the division sailed toward Okinawa, he carried his rifle, his training, and the unspoken understanding that the hardest days were still ahead.
Pinned between the crest above and the company below, Craft grasped the cruel geometry of the hill in an instant. Staying where he was meant slow destruction for him and for any wounded who could not move. Falling back would leave Hen Hill intact and set up yet another costly assault later. In that narrow band between orders and survival, he chose a path almost no one would expect. He rose to his feet in full view of the enemy, shouldered his rifle, and began climbing straight toward the strongest fire. It was an extraordinary decision. It was also the beginning of a deliberate, step by step assault.
Reaching the crest, Craft suddenly stood silhouetted against the sky, a lone figure on ground that had resisted repeated attacks by much larger forces. From that exposed vantage point he could see into the maze of trenches and dugouts that formed the heart of the Japanese position. Instead of slipping out of sight, he turned the crest into a firing point. Comrades below began passing grenades up to him in a steady chain, each one rising from hand to hand until it reached his grip. He yanked the pins and hurled them down into trenches and dug-in positions on both sides of the hill, walking the explosions along the enemy line. It was a dangerous rhythm. It was also devastatingly effective.
Once the immediate crest was disrupted, Craft moved off the skyline and dropped into the enemy trench system itself. Straddling a trench at close range, he fired down its length, cutting down defenders and throwing the survivors into confusion and panic. He then pushed along the trench toward a heavy machine gun that had been tearing into his company’s approach routes. That weapon still commanded a deadly field of fire, and as long as it remained in action any broader advance would be shredded. Using what cover he could, he closed the distance, bringing rifle and grenade to bear at close range until the gun and its crew were destroyed. With that, one of the most dangerous pieces on the hill was gone. The balance shifted.
The fight was not over. As American soldiers began reaching the crest behind him, many of the remaining defenders pulled back into a cave that formed a natural strongpoint and refuge. From there they could attempt a last stand or strike again at any troops trying to consolidate the gain. A satchel charge was brought forward to seal the cave, but the first effort failed when the charge did not detonate. Under fire and in the cramped trench, Craft retrieved the failed charge, brought it back, relit the fuse, and hurled it into the cave entrance a second time before diving away. This time the explosion sealed the opening and buried the defenders inside. In the course of this single attack he personally killed at least twenty five enemy soldiers and shattered the hilltop defense, turning a narrow foothold into a permanent gain.
The official Medal of Honor citation would later describe this as a remarkable one man attack, and that simple phrase carries a lot of weight. It means that where squads and platoons had been stopped, one rifleman chose to keep going and did the work of many. When the citation notes that he advanced in full view of the enemy, it points to those moments on the open slope and the crest where he willingly exposed himself to enemy fire in order to see and strike the positions that were holding up his unit. When it describes his assault along the trench and his destruction of the heavy machine gun, it is translating the chaos of close-quarters fighting into a few measured lines. Words like conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity under fire are formal phrases. On Hen Hill they meant taking repeated, calculated risks in places where a single mistake would almost certainly have been fatal.
Craft’s actions mattered far beyond the small patch of ground he crossed that day. Tactically, his assault opened the crest and reverse slope of Hen Hill to American troops who had been pinned below for days. Once the key positions were destroyed, the hill no longer dominated the surrounding approaches, and units could push through without facing the same withering fire from above. Operationally, the fall of Hen Hill weakened the enemy’s larger defensive system in that sector, helping to erode the line that had slowed the American advance. There was also a powerful effect on morale. For soldiers who had watched attack after attack fail, seeing one of their own succeed against such odds showed that the line could be broken. It proved that determination and initiative could change the course of a stubborn fight.
Clarence Craft’s story did not end with that citation or with the victory on Okinawa. He continued his military career, rising to the rank of sergeant first class and later serving in the Korean War, this time as a seasoned noncommissioned officer guiding younger soldiers through their own hard lessons. After leaving the Army, he eventually made his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a quiet setting far from the slopes of Hen Hill. In civilian life he chose another form of service, volunteering thousands of hours over the course of a decade at a Veterans Administration medical center. He spent time with patients, helped them navigate their challenges, and offered the steady presence of someone who understood both war and recovery. It was a different kind of courage.
When Clarence Byrle Craft died in 2002, he was laid to rest in Fayetteville National Cemetery, among others who had worn the nation’s uniform. His name lives on not only in the Medal of Honor roll, but also in his community, where a post office bears his name and keeps his story in view of people going about their daily lives. Visitors who see his grave marker or pass that building may not know every detail of Hen Hill, but they carry a small piece of his legacy forward. Remembering him means seeing both the young rifleman who charged a fortified ridge alone and the older veteran who gave his time to help others. It means understanding that heroism can appear in a single violent hour and in years of quiet, faithful service.