Unexpected Bravery: US Navy LT John Finn, Our Nation's First Medal of Honor Recipient in WWII

Welcome back everyone.  On today’s episode of Duty & Valor, you’ll hear the story of a man who enlisted in the US Navy at the age of 17 and achieved the highest enlisted rank in just nine years.  A man who sensed danger and jumped into action to fight back against an enemy attack.  A man who manned a machine gun out in the open for over two hours, while sustaining dozens of wounds.  This is the story of US Medal of Honor recipient US Navy Lt. John Finn. 

Early Life

John William Finn was born on July 24th, 1909 in Compton, CA.  He dropped out of school before he finished 7th grade and he enlisted in the US Navy at the age of 17.  He completed recruit training in San Diego before attending General Aviation Utilities Training at Naval Station Great Lakes.  At first he worked in aircraft repair before working as an aviation ordnanceman.  He was beyond a competent seaman and after only nine years in the Navy, he was promoted to Chief Petty Officer, the highest enlisted rank at the time.

Pearl Harbor Attack

By December of 1941, John was stationed at Naval Air Station Kaneohe Bay on Oahu, about 15 miles from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  There John was the Chief Aviation Ordnanceman and was leading a group of twenty men who were tasked with maintaining the weapons systems of the PBY Catalina flying boats of the VP-11 Patrol Squadron.      

Just before 08:00 on the morning of December 7th, 1941, John was still in bed talking to his wife Alice about who was going to make their morning coffees when, through his window, he saw an airplane flying where it shouldn’t be.  It was flying low and when he looked closer, he noticed that it wasn’t a plane assigned to the station, as it was a single engine aircraft.  Then moments later just as his neighbor, Eddie Sullivan, knocked on his door to tell John he was wanted at the station, he spotted a second plane.  

What John and the others were seeing was the first wave of Japanese aircraft that had commenced their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and surrounding military targets.  John and Eddie heard the sound of machine gun fire as they jumped into John’s Ford and raced the one mile to the station.  John said that on that one mile journey, he “broke every speed law that was ever set.”  It was as they were nearing the hangar they were driving to when a Japanese plane roared by them and they spotted the large red circle signifying that the aircraft belonged to the Empire of Japan.  Seeing this the men knew this wasn’t an exercise and it was the real thing and the day of infamy had arrived.  

John stopped his car and raced across 50 yards of open ground to a hangar just as a Japanese aircraft opened up on the hangar with its machine guns.  When he finally made it there he saw that his men were firing back with the machine guns mounted on the planes that were still on the ground, even though some of those planes were hit and in flames.  Other men had improvised mounts and were using guns removed from some of the other planes.   In his account of the events that day, John said that over the months prior, he had been telling his superiors that they did not have gun mounts and they wouldn’t be able to make a strong defense in the event of an attack.  His concern was ignored and they had to improvise a defense.  

Two of his men were engaging the attacking aircraft with .30 and .50 caliber machine guns.  John approached the man manning the .50 caliber gun, the squadron's painter, and said “Alex, let me take that gun.”  John knew he had more machine gun experience and he didn’t like where it was placed.  The men had placed the guns in a position that offered them some protection by the hangar, but limited their visibility of the incoming planes.  John found a moveable training tripod and moved the machine gun 25 yards to an open area on a parking ramp. 

As soon as he set up position out in the open, John opened fire on the incoming aircraft.  He faced the low flying aircraft and could see the pilot’s faces as he fired on them over the next two hours.  John faced wave after wave of attacking enemy aircraft and he had to endure a torrent of bullets and bombs blasting around him but he remained at his gun. 

Over that two hour period he sustained over twenty injuries, mostly shrapnel wounds, and was hit in his left arm and he lost all use of it.  He struggled to walk as his left foot was fractured when it was hit by an enemy round.  When it appeared that the attack might finally be over, his men saw him covered in blood and in bad shape so they implored John to go receive medical care.  He refused and continued to do so until he received a direct order to go get treatment.  

Later that same evening John returned to the hangar, even though he was in a lot of pain and struggling to walk.  He led his men as they rearmed the remaining airworthy aircraft in preparation of another attack, and it wasn’t until the next day when he received the proper medical care and was hospitalized. 

For his selfless acts that day, then Chief Petty Officer John Finn earned the first Medal of Honor of World War II, and on September 14th, 1942 John was on the deck of the USS Enterprise as the medal was bestowed upon him by Admiral Chester Nimitz. 

He would later receive a commission in the Navy and retired at the rank of Lieutenant, after 30 years of service. 

After the war, John and his wife Alice moved to a 90 acre ranch near Pine Valley, CA. where they fostered five Native American children.  

John lived until the age of 100 when he died on the 27th of May, 2010.  He is buried alongside Alice who had passed away in 1998.  They lay in rest at the St. Carmel Cemetery in San Diego County.   

Lt Finn's story reminds us of the enormous sacrifices made by those in uniform, the brave men and women who are prepared to give everything in service of their country. He was the embodiment of the Navy's core values: Honor, Courage, and Commitment.

Outro

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Links to the sources for today's show can be found in the show notes, as well as at dutyandvalor.com.  And please join us next week where we’ll tell you the story of another true American hero.