The division’s Pacific campaign was one of the more demanding in the theater. After training in the United States and deploying to the Pacific in 1944, it participated in the Guam operation, the Leyte landings in the Philippines, and the Okinawa assault. Each of these was a major combat operation; the division went into Okinawa having already fought two serious campaigns.
The 307th Infantry Regiment, Doss’s regiment, was one of the division’s three infantry regiments. The 1st Battalion of the 307th, Doss’s battalion, was the unit tasked with the initial assault on the Maeda Escarpment in late April 1945. Company B of the 1st Battalion was the specific company to which Doss was assigned.
Company B’s experience at the escarpment was thus the experience of a unit that had already been through significant combat on Guam and Leyte. The soldiers were not new to the realities of Pacific warfare. The terrain at Okinawa was different from what they had fought on either previous island, but the general character of Japanese defensive tactics was familiar.
Doss’s position within this unit evolved considerably between his arrival in 1942 and the fighting at Okinawa in 1945. In training, he had been a source of friction — a soldier whose religious requirements created administrative problems and whose physical presence created social tension. On Guam and Leyte, he had established a reputation for showing up under fire. By Okinawa, he was a known quantity in Company B: the medic who came when you needed him.
Captain Jack Glover’s evolution from officer seeking Doss’s discharge to soldier crediting Doss with saving his life is the most frequently cited example of this shift, but it was not unique. Multiple accounts describe a similar pattern: officers and soldiers who initially viewed Doss as a problem became, through shared combat experience, men who relied on him and respected him.