The Hunter Who Held the Line at Dingalan Bay

How a 24-year-old Georgia woodsman stood alone against 100 attackers—and saved 190 men in 36 minutes.

5:47 A.M. — A Saber in the Dark

At 5:47 on the morning of May 11th, 1945, Private First Class John R. McKini woke to a Japanese saber splitting the air toward his skull.

The blade missed killing him by half an inch.

It carved a shallow groove across his scalp—a hot, burning line—and before the attacker could complete the finishing swing, instinct took over.

McKini didn’t think.
He didn’t process.
He didn’t understand anything except that he was alive for one more heartbeat.

He moved.

His hands found the rifle lying across his chest.
Not gently.
Not purposefully.
Like a reflex born in pine forests 8,000 miles away.

He swung it like a club.

The walnut stock slammed into the attacker’s face with the crack of breaking bone.
The man folded without a sound.

Before McKini’s mind caught up to reality, his body was already chambering a round and firing at a second attacker who burst from the left.

The Garand roared.

The jungle exploded in sound.

And suddenly the night around Dingalan Bay awakened with the shadows of 100 charging Japanese soldiers—rushing the weakest point of Company A’s perimeter.

McKini was on his feet.

Alone.

Armed with nothing but one M1 Garand
—8 rounds per clip, 56 rounds on his belt—
and the skills his father had taught him hunting squirrels and turkeys in the deep Georgia woods.

Skills meant for food.
Skills meant for survival.
Skills meant for small targets moving too fast for sights.

This morning, those skills would decide the lives of 190 men.

The Machine Gun Falls — And the Line With It

Company A of the 123rd Infantry Regiment had dug in around a coastal outpost at Dingalan Bay.
Three men—including McKini—manned an M1919A4 machine gun through the night.

Twenty minutes earlier, their shift had ended.

Twenty minutes.

That margin separated routine from disaster.

The initial Japanese rush hit the gun position like a hammer.
One man fell wounded.
Another dragged him back toward safety.

The machine gun was alone.

So was McKini.

Ten Japanese infantrymen sprinted the final yards, grabbed the machine gun, and began to rotate it 180 degrees—turning America’s strongest defensive weapon against the Americans themselves.

McKini jumped into the emplacement.

Space: 6 feet wide.
4 feet deep.
Sandbags. Palm logs. Blood. Shell casings.

Distance to enemy: three feet.

He fired seven shots in eight seconds.

Seven men dropped.

Three remained.

The Garand became a club again.

One skull shattered.
One throat crushed.
One chest caved in under a rifle butt.

When the last man fell, the machine gun lay twisted and broken beneath the bodies.

McKini had killed ten men in under two minutes.

And the main assault hadn’t even begun.

Alone Against a Hundred

The jungle moved.

Branches broke.
Feet sprinted.
Voices shouted in Japanese.

The enemy had watched what happened at the machine gun position.

They knew the gap in the perimeter.

They knew the line could be rolled from the flank.

They knew one thing:

Kill McKini, and Company A collapses.

He slid behind a fallen dipterocarp tree—four feet thick, solid cover against rifle fire.

He checked his ammunition.

1 chambered.
7 full clips.
56 rounds.

He was facing between 80 and 100 soldiers.

The math was suicidal.

He made it irrelevant.

The First Wave

At 5:53 a.m., fifteen Japanese soldiers emerged in a skirmish line—moving correctly, cautiously, with spacing and cover.

Experienced men.

Not the frenzied rush of the opening assault.

McKini waited until 40 yards.

Boom.

Center mass.
Drop.

He shifted to the next.

Boom.

Drop.

The remaining soldiers hit the dirt.
Return fire cracked overhead.
Grenades exploded around the tree in clusters of four.

He crawled 10 yards north through a shallow depression and vanished like a fox slipping between roots.

Every movement bought seconds.
Every second bought survival.

Grenades, Mortars, and the Second Wave

Knee mortars thumped deeper in the jungle.

Shells screamed overhead.

The first landed 30 yards away.
Second at 25.
Third walked in for the kill.

McKini sprinted 20 yards and dove behind a palm tree.

The next mortar round obliterated the position where he’d crouched seconds before.

More movement—eight men advancing in disciplined intervals.

He aimed.
Compensated.
Fired.

Georgia instinct blended with Marine training.

Five of the eight fell before they reached cover.

The others retreated.

It was only 6:00 a.m.

This cycle repeated six more times.

McKini moved between the fallen tree, the depression, the rocks, the termite mound—never more than two minutes in one spot.

He reloaded every eight rounds.
Eject. Ping. Insert.
Four seconds per reload.

The Japanese could only watch their coordinated attacks—doctrinally correct, numerically overwhelming—disintegrate under the hands of one man who shot faster, moved smarter, and refused to die.

The Termite Mound — Last Stand

At 6:14 a.m., McKini reached a five-foot-tall termite mound with 360-degree cover.

He had expended six clips—48 rounds—but had scavenged 120 more from a nearby supply dump.

Weight: +8 pounds.
Odds: unchanged.
Resolve: unbroken.

Three Japanese soldiers sprinted through open ground.

He dropped two at 40 and 35 yards.

The third reached a rock 15 yards away and pulled the pin on a grenade.

McKini fired.

The round hit center mass—the grenade fell from the soldier’s hand and detonated three seconds later, killing him instantly.

A moment of silence followed, broken only by returning American voices.

Reinforcements.

At 6:23 a.m., eight men from Company A reached the termite mound.

They found McKini breathing hard, blood on his forehead, but standing.

He had four clips left—32 rounds—and intended to use them.

He didn’t need to.

Assault Broken

At 6:31 a.m., after 36 minutes of direct combat, the Japanese force broke and retreated into the jungle.

Full daylight revealed the cost.

Around the destroyed machine-gun position: 38 dead Japanese soldiers.
Near the knee mortar: 2 more.

Confirmed kills: 40.
Actual kills: likely higher.
American casualties: 3 killed, 7 wounded.

A single rifleman had saved 50–70 American lives directly
—and prevented the collapse of the entire defensive perimeter, which protected 190 men.

A Georgia hunter had held the line against 100 attackers.

A Medal, A President, A Quiet Life

John R. McKini was promoted to sergeant and recommended for the Medal of Honor.

On January 23rd, 1946, President Harry S. Truman placed the medal around his neck.

McKini said he planned to return home and hunt.

He meant it.

One month later, he was back in Screven County, walking the same pine trails where he’d learned to shoot moving targets without sights.

He never married.
He avoided ceremonies.
He didn’t want fame.

He kept hunting.
He kept fishing.
He kept quiet.

When asked about the battle, he simply said:

“I did what was necessary. The rest I’d rather forget.”

Legacy in Stone, Steel, and Soil

In 1995, Georgia named State Route 21 in his honor.

At the dedication he said:

“Courage isn’t the absence of fear.
It’s acting while afraid.”

He died in 1997 at age 76.

At his funeral, veterans from the 33rd Infantry Division stood shoulder to shoulder.

His M1 Garand—the rifle that fired 40 rounds in 36 minutes, the rifle that clubbed three men to death, the rifle that saved 190 Marines—was placed on his casket before burial.

At Fort Benning, McKini’s battle became a case study:

Rapid semi-automatic fire beats superior numbers

Constant position shifts disrupt targeting

Aggressive individual action prevents collapse

Childhood instinct becomes battlefield advantage

A hunter from Georgia had brought hunting logic into the jungle.

The principles never changed:

Stillness hides.
Movement exposes.
Speed beats precision at close range.
Fire suppresses.
Relocation survives.
Aggression overwhelms planning.

On May 11th, 1945, those principles saved an entire company.

McKini stood alone.

He did not yield.

The price was 40 enemy dead
and a shallow scar across his skull
where a saber should have ended the story before it began.