Hacksaw Ridge • Fun Facts • Biography • and The True Story

Fun Facts Part 1

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

When asked how many lives he saved, Desmond T. Doss said approximately 50. However, witnesses said it was closer to 100. A mutual agreement was reached at approximately 75.

According to director Mel Gibson, Desmond T. Doss's son Desmond Jr. attended the screening and was moved to tears by Andrew Garfield's accurate portrayal of his dad.

The Film won 2 Academy Awards, for Film Editing and Sound Editing.

The battlefield sequence, overseen by Mel Gibson's longtime stunt double Mic Rodgers, was staged near Sydney (Australia) on a dairy farm that was about 100 meters squared. Smoke trucks circled the perimeter to ensure that any 'scenery' that didn't look like Okinawa was effectively blocked out.

The film had a 14-year path from idea to production, according to an article in "Variety". 

The battle scenes took nineteen days to shoot.

  Private Desmond Doss walked into the bloodiest battle of World War II's Pacific theater with nothing to protect himself save for his Bible and his faith in God. A devout Seventh Day Adventist and conscientious objector, Doss had enlisted as a medic and refused to carry a rifle.

  While at the end of the movie it says Desmond saved 75 men by directly lowering them from the escarpment, he also treated around 55 more that were able to retreat without assistance after treatment during the battle. Over the course of his tour, which lasted approximately 3 weeks, he rescued nearly 300 men. 

 Dorothy Schutte was not a nurse when she met Desmond. She didn't get her nursing degree until years later, after the war, when she needed to help support their family. Desmond's injuries and disabilities from the war left him unable to have a full-time job. -Hero of Hacksaw Ridge

  The Hacksaw Ridge true story reveals that Desmond Doss married Dorothy Schutte on August 17, 1942, before going on active duty. "The reason I married him [was] because it seemed I could trust Desmond," says Dorothy. "He was a good Christian and I figured he would help me go to Heaven. That's what I told my mother. ... He appreciated me because I've never kissed any other men. He was the first one I ever kissed." Desmond first met Dorothy, a fellow Seventh-day Adventist, at church in Lynchburg, Virginia when she came through from Richmond selling Adventist books. The movie changes the timeline of their marriage (he didn't miss their wedding day because he was denied a pass and then put in a holding cell). 

 As a Seventh-day Adventist, he believed in an adherence to the Fourth Commandment, which says to keep the Sabbath day holy. This meant from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday, he devoted himself to prayer. Some of his fellow soldiers thought it was a convenient way to get out of doing any work. Desmond's captain in the medical corps, Captain Solomon Statman, threatened to court-martial him if he kept asking for a pass to go to church on Saturdays.

One aspect that Mel Gibson appealed to in making this movie was that it contained a "real" superhero without spandex.

In a letter home to his wife Dorothy, written on May 31st, 1945, he informed her that while being treated on the hospital ship Mercy, he realized he had lost his little Bible when he was wounded. It was the Bible she had given him before he shipped out. He told Dorothy that he hoped someone had found it and was holding it for him. "That was my main source of strength all during the war and in the service," Desmond said later, "and then when I lost it, I was lost." The men of Company B learned that it was missing and risked their lives to find it for Desmond, which they did.

 Desmond's life wasn't easy after the war. His wounds left him 90% disabled. He spent five and a half years in and out of VA hospitals and was discharged in August 1951. He had lost 5 ribs and one lung due to tuberculosis contracted on the island of Leyte in the Philippines and made worse on Okinawa. The military continued to treat him with antibiotics, which he believed by 1976 had made him completely deaf (possibly from giving him too high of a dose). He lived in silence for twelve and a half years, until he received a cochlear implant in 1988.

  After WWII, Desmond received a modest pension from the military, but due to his disabilities from his injuries, his wife Dorothy got her nursing degree and had to work full-time to help with their income (in the movie she is already a nurse when they meet). He cashed in his Government life insurance policy to buy four acres in Rising Fawn, Georgia, using much of the money to fix up the property. He, his wife Dorothy, and their son Desmond Jr. (who they called "Tommy" after his middle name) resided in a small log cabin that he built on the land. They grew their own fruits and vegetables to help sustain themselves and eventually farmed the land. Desmond also worked part-time as a cabinetmaker and tried various other jobs that his health would allow, including raising tropical fish, door-to-door sales, and working as a maintenance man. Later in life, Desmond's wife Dorothy developed breast cancer and passed away from injuries sustained in a car accident while Desmond was driving her to a hospital in November 1991. He married Frances Duman in 1993. They were together until his death in 2006.   

 The fighting took place on the hellish Maeda Escarpment in April 1945. The battlefield, located on top of a sheer 400-foot cliff, was fortified with a deadly network of Japanese machine gun nests and booby traps. The escarpment, nicknamed for the treacherously steep cliff, was key to winning the battle of Okinawa. The mission was thought to be near-impossible, and when Doss's battalion was ordered to retreat, the medic refused to leave his fallen comrades behind.

  Facing heavy machine gun and artillery fire, Doss repeatedly ran alone into the kill zone, carrying wounded soldiers to the edge of the cliff and singlehandedly lowering them down to safety. Each time he saved a man's life, Doss prayed out loud, "Lord, please help me get one more." By the end of the night he had rescued an estimated 75 men. (The always modest Doss reckoned he saved about 50, but his fellow soldiers gauged it closer to 100. They decided to split the difference.) 

 When Dorothy gives Desmond the Bible before leaving for basic training it is bookmarked At 1 Samuel 17. This is the Old Testament account of David and Goliath. Many parallels can be found in these two stories.  

The Biblical passage narrated by Desmond at the beginning of the film is from the Book of Isaiah, chapter 40. 

 Doss never lived to see his story on the big screen. He died in 2006, and while he spent much of his later life retelling the incredible events of that night, he was always reluctant to trust Hollywood with his story. "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," Doss's only child, Desmond Jr., tells PEOPLE. "The reason he declined is that none of them adhered to his one requirement: that it be accurate. And I find it remarkable, the level of accuracy in adhering to the principal of the story in this movie."

  When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Doss was working at a shipyard in Newport News. His position made him eligible for deferment, but despite his inherent pacifism, Doss felt a moral obligation to fight for his country. He hoped that by joining the army as a medic, he could avoid carrying a weapon, and even believed he might be allowed to rest in honor of the Sabbath on Saturdays. 

 President Harry S. Truman presented Doss with the Medal of Honor on Oct. 12, 1945. He was the first conscientious objector to receive the honor. He spent the first five years after the war recovering from his injuries, and ultimately lost a lung to tuberculosis. His injuries prevented him working full-time, and he devoted the rest of his life to working with his church.  

All this information came from People.com, History vs Hollywood, and IMDB.