MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENT PFC HAROLD AGERHOLM, USMC

During the Battle of Saipan, a pre-dawn banzai attack by 3000 Japanese troops on July 7, 1944 over-runs the U.S. Army's 105th Infantry Regiment and slams into the artillery batteries of the 10th Marine Regiment. The 6 hour fight, much of it being hand-to-hand combat, ends with the destruction of the Japanese forces at a cost of 1,000 U.S. casualties. This was a last-ditch effort by the Japanese defenders as the island was secured by U.S. forces 2 days later with little resistance.

A 10th Marine Regiment 75mm pack howitzer crew in Saipan

PFC Harold Agerholm was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic actions on this date during the Battle for Siapan.

MEDAL OF HONOR CITATION