The name Desmond T Doss may not be familiar — even among World War II buffs, his story is lesser known — but the subject of the film Hacksaw Ridge undoubtedly had a story worth telling.

The bare facts are these — on 1 April 1943, Doss, a skinny shipyard worker, vegetarian and devout Seventh-day Adventist, arrived at Camp Lee in his home state of Virginia and voluntarily enlisted in the United States Army. Doss’s religious conviction made him an unlikely recruit. He refused to hold a weapon, much less engage in active fighting, and he would not participate in training or manoeuvres on Saturdays — the day his church keeps as the Sabbath. Yet these same beliefs were also what compelled Doss to join the war effort as a combat medic. 

As the war in the Pacific reached its deadliest phase in the spring of 1945, Doss and the rest of his unit were on the Japanese island of Okinawa, about to take part in the capture of the heavily fortified Maeda Escarpment, nicknamed Hacksaw Ridge due to the shape of its 400ft cliff edge. Amid fierce fighting and heavy bombardment (all captured with visceral power in the film), Doss’s unit was ordered to retreat. However, Doss chose to stay behind, returning to the battlefield again and again to find wounded soldiers and bring them to safety.

In October 1945, when Doss was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Harry Truman, the citation credited him with saving the lives of 75 men. Thus, Doss became the first non-combatant in US military history to receive such a commendation and one of only three since.

Given such extraordinary circumstances, the story of Doss’s training, struggles with the military machine and eventual acceptance from his fellow soldiers, would have made for a compelling movie in itself. In the Mel Gibson directed Hacksaw Ridge, however, all this is only a first act.

With a story so vivid — and true — why has the life of Desmond Doss taken so long to reach the screen? Partly the delay is down to Doss himself. As Bill Mechanic, producer of Hacksaw Ridge, explains, “Desmond never wanted to sell his life rights, he didn’t want to popularise himself, feeling that would be a contradiction to who he was.” This humility certainly wasn’t based on a lack of interest from Hollywood, as Doss’s only child, Desmond Jr, told People magazine. “I grew up in a house where there was an endless stream of people coming through the door wanting to make a movie, write a book, etc,” he said. “The reason he declined is that none of them adhered to his one requirement — that it be accurate.”

According to the accounts of both World War II veterans and current military personnel, Hacksaw Ridge admirably meets this requirement for accuracy and in the end Doss did give permission. A few years before he passed away in 2006, he gave his blessing to documentary maker Terry Benedict, who set in motion the project which would eventually become a feature film. In it, he is brilliantly essayed by Andrew Garfield — a part for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

Yet Doss’s years of relative obscurity have had a further, unexpected benefit. Though the Battle of Okinawa was fought more than 70 years ago, perhaps this story has never been as relevant as it is right now. With the devastating war in Syria in its sixth year, global powers are attempting a new kind of international intervention.

Can it ever be possible to oppose violence without perpetuating it? Desmond Doss’s model of “conscientious cooperation” — his phrase — provides one strikingly poignant answer.

the independent