{{short description|United States Army soldier}} '''David Rubitsky''', (January 29, 1917 – June 28, 2013<ref name=QCT>{{cite news |url=https://qctimes.com/promo/front/controversial-war-hero-dies-in-east-moline/article_6b372c9e-6991-5918-b43b-772f3b30779e.html |title=Controversial war hero dies in East Moline |last=Ickes |first=Barb |date=July 2, 2013 |newspaper=Quad-City Times}}</ref>) was an American veteran of World War II who claimed he was denied the Medal of Honor because he is Jewish.<ref name=NYT1>{{cite news |title=Veteran Denied a Medal Sadly Vows to Fight On |author=Dirk Johnson |newspaper=The New York Times |date=December 17, 1989 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/17/us/veteran-denied-a-medal-sadly-vows-to-fight-on.html}}</ref><ref name=Time>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,959045,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090308001140/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,959045,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 8, 2009 |title=Heroes: An Overdue Honor |magazine=Time |date=November 20, 1989}}</ref> In 1987, the United States Army began a 23-month investigation and concluded that there was "incontestable evidence" that he had not done what he had claimed.<ref name=NYT1/>
==World War II== Rubitsky fought in the New Guinea campaign as a communications sergeant in Company E, Second Battalion, 128th Regiment, 32nd Infantry Division.<ref name=NYT2>{{cite news |title=Medal of Honor Elude (''sic'') Jewish Veteran |author=Richard Halloran |newspaper=The New York Times |date=December 15, 1989 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/15/us/medal-of-honor-elude-jewish-veteran.html?pagewanted=1?pagewanted=1}}</ref><ref name=NYT3>{{cite news |title=Did Bigotry Block a Medal That Valor in Battle Earned? |author=William E. Schmidt |newspaper=The New York Times |date=November 5, 1989 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/05/us/did-bigotry-block-a-medal-that-valor-in-battle-earned.html}}</ref> According to Rubitsky, on December 1–2, 1942 during the Battle of Buna, he singlehandedly defended a bunker with a ".30-cal. machine gun, a .45-cal. pistol, a rifle and grenades."<ref name=Time/> Allegedly, he beat off the Japanese after a 21-hour battle in which he killed 500 to 600 of the enemy,<ref name=NYT2/> including wounded men he later shot or bayoneted.<ref name=NYT4/>
Afterward, his company commander, Captain Joseph M. Stehling, surveyed the site and recommended Rubitsky for the Medal of Honor.<ref name=NYT2/> Stehling's superior, battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Herbert A. Smith, passed the recommendation along to Colonel John W. Mott, the division's chief of staff who was temporarily in command of three regiments, including Rubitsky's unit.<ref name=NYT3/> According to Smith, Mott stated, "You mean a Jew for the Congressional Medal of Honor?", then "just laughed and walked away."<ref name=Time/><ref name=NYT2/> By the reckoning of the Jewish War Veterans of America, only two were awarded to Jews during World War II.<ref name=NYT2/> Rubitsky did not receive a lesser award either.<ref name=NYT1/>
After the war, Rubitsky joined the merchant marine. More than 30 years later, he settled down in Milton, Wisconsin.<ref name=NYT1/>
==Investigation== During a 1986 reunion of the 128th Regiment, Rubitsky's former commanders discovered he had not been awarded the Medal of Honor.<ref name=NYT3/> The Anti-Defamation League,<ref name=Time/> Stehling (by then a retired brigadier general), Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl,<ref name=NYT3/><ref name=Dispatch>{{cite news |title=WWII G.I. Awaits His Medal Of Honor |author=Julie Aicher |newspaper=The Dispatch |date=November 11, 1989 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1734&dat=19891111&id=NcAcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FlIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5559,1503399}}</ref> Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, Senator Paul Simon of Illinois,<ref name=NYT3/> and others eventually took up his cause. At the request of Representative Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the Army launched an investigation.<ref name=LATimes>{{cite news |title=Jewish WW II Veteran Loses Battle for Medal of Honor |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=December 16, 1989 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-12-16-mn-274-story.html}}</ref>
Retired Major General Herbert Smith provided a statement of his recollections, supporting Rubitsky. Rubitsky also obtained an old photograph taken from the body of a Japanese officer during the war; the inscription in Japanese on the back purports to have been written by a Colonel Yamamoto, who supposedly planned to commit suicide for his part in an attack in which "600 fine Japanese soldiers died because of a solitary American soldier."<ref name=NYT3/><ref name=Dispatch/> While United States Secret Service counterfeiting experts could find no reason to believe it was a fake,<ref name=NYT2/> military investigators concluded from the "handwriting and choice of words"<ref name=NYT1/> that the message had not been written by a Japanese. The investigators also found it difficult to believe that a single soldier, with the arms at hand, could have inflicted casualties on such a scale; the largest officially accepted number of soldiers killed by a single American is 75 by Marine Douglas T. Jacobson on Iwo Jima on February 26, 1945.<ref name=NYT2/>
In December 1989, the Army announced it would not recommend that the award be made because there was "insufficient evidence to substantiate either that the event reported by Mr. Rubitsky occurred or that the Medal of Honor was recommended on his behalf within the stipulated period."<ref name=LATimes/> Lieutenant Colonel Terence Adkins, head of the military awards branch, reported that American and Japanese records "all agree that the Japanese were in defense and that no major attack took place. Japanese records showed, he said, that fewer than 500 soldiers were effective at the time because their ranks had been depleted by malaria and dysentery."<ref name=NYT4>{{cite news |title=Army Cites Strong Evidence in Barring Medal |author=Richard Halloran |newspaper=The New York Times |date=December 16, 1989 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/16/us/army-cites-strong-evidence-in-barring-medal.html?pagewanted=2}}</ref> Most of Rubitsky's supporters accepted the decision. However, Joseph Stehling responded by stating, "The Army can say what it wants, but let me say this: The stench of those decaying bodies that day in the jungle stayed with me for years."<ref name=NYT4/>
The government of Papua New Guinea commissioned an unnamed "noted historian", who concluded that Rubitsky was telling the truth.<ref name=PNG>{{cite web |url=http://www.pngembassy.org/history_story1.html |title='The David Rubitsky Story' |publisher=Embassy of Papua New Guinea to the Americas |accessdate=May 21, 2010}}</ref> As a result, he was made an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire.<ref name=PNG/>
==Death== Rubitsky died on June 28, 2013, at the age of 96 in East Moline, Illinois.<ref name=QCT/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rubitsky, David}} Category:1917 births Category:2013 deaths Category:21st-century American Jews Category:Jewish American military personnel Category:United States Army personnel of World War II Category:Honorary members of the Order of the British Empire Category:People from Milton, Wisconsin Category:Place of birth missing Category:United States Army soldiers Category:United States Merchant Mariners