First Word

You have heard of Sargent York and Audie Murphy, but how many have heard of Sargent David Rubitsky? Probably very few. But you should have. His feats would make York or Murphy blush in comparison.

Sargent David Rubitsky

It was December of 1942. American G.I.s were slugging it out with the Japs for control of New Guinea. The campaign could have gone either way. The American Army would attack and the Japs would counterattack. Attack. Counterattack. Back and forth. The battered American forces were in desperate need of something to turn the tide in their direction. Unknown to them, this something was about to arrive. Enter Sargent David Rubitsky.

Ruby was tasked to lay communications wire to connect his battalion command post to a recently taken enemy outpost in a New Guinea swamp. All was going as planned until the small detachment learned that a Japanese regiment, consisting of 5,000 soldiers, was marching straight for them. A quick decision was made. A handful of men could not withstand such overwhelming force. It would be suicide. The soldiers did the only reasonable thing they could do: they all fled. All except Ruby.

Alone in the bunker with a .30 cal. machine gun (with 3000 rounds), a Browning automatic rifle (600 rounds), an M1 Garand, a pistol and 35 grenades, Ruby drew a line in the sand. Explaining his state of mind after the battle, Ruby stoically commented, “I got tired of hearing Jews don’t fight.”

And how he fought. For over 20 hours Ruby fended off wave after wave of Jap infantry assaults, fire from artillery, mortar rounds and machine guns. You name it, it was thrown at Ruby. When the dust settled, the American Army (i.e. David Rubitsky) was still standing tall. The Japs had had enough and bid a hasty retreat. Around his bunker lay the bodies of over 600 hundred dead Imperial soldiers.

But Ruby’s war was not yet over. Not by a long shot. The New Guinea battle only showed Ruby on the defense. When Ruby and MacArthur landed in the Philippines, it was time to turn the tables on the Japs. After being strafed by twelve different machine gun positions, Ruby once again went into action. Without any help from the rest of his unit (who were probably cowering in the undergrowth) he systematically attacked and destroyed every one of the nests, killing at least 200 Japs in the process.

For more on Ruby’s exploits read the moving account by Joseph Farah.

Ruby in Perspective

Ruby’s achievement is fantastic from many different angles. But let us consider just one of them.

In World War II, an average of 25,000 bullets were fired for each soldier killed. Rubitsky’s kill ratio was vastly superior. By doing some simple math we add 3000 .30 cal rounds, 600 BAR rounds and, say, 300 M1 and 100 .45 rounds to give us 4000 total rounds. Let’s assume that Ruby used every single round (as anybody who has single-handedly fought an entire Japanese regiment can tell you, you can go through a lot of ammunition.) Of the 600 kills, let’s say that Ruby got 150 with his grenades, 40 with his bayonet and 10 with his bare hands. This leaves 400. Dividing the 4000 rounds by 400 kills gives us a round per kill ratio of 10:1. Ruby’s ratio is 2500 times better than the average GI. No slouch with a gun was he.

What is even more amazing is that Ruby’s round per kill ratio vastly improved with time. For at the Philippine engagement, the previous 10:1 ratio would entail that Ruby was carrying 2000 rounds of ammo. This would obviously be way too heavy, even for a hardened warrior like Ruby. So let’s say that he was carrying 400 rounds on him. (This still would be quite heavy, but surely somebody with Ruby’s prowess could handle it). With 400 rounds and 200 kills, this brings his round per kill ratio down to 2:1. Every other time Ruby pulled the trigger a Jap bit the dust. This does not include the wounded. And mind you that he was shooting on the run (and reloading) while hundreds of Japs were returning fire from fortified positions. This 2:1 ratio is 12,500 times better than the average G.I. Such skill in battle is unparalleled in the history of modern warfare.

Despite his twice proved heroism, Ruby was not given a Congressional Medal of Honor. He is still waiting.

If he ever does receive his due, there are rumors that Hollywood will produce a movie in his honor. A few titles have been bandied about. “Ruby’s Ridge,” “The Magnificent One,” “Ruby Does New Guinea,” “The Rubinator,” “600 Body Bags or Bust,” and “Requiem for a Jap Regiment.”

More Heroes

1. Ruby was not the only unsung hero of American wars. There was Captain Bennie Salomon. Salomon was a dentist who had been recently promoted to surgeon of Battalion II of the 27th Infantry Division. His outfit was ordered to hold a beach in Saipan. His medic’s tent was set up just 50 yards behind the front lines when 5000 Japs attacked. All hell broke loose.

“Within ten minutes of the beginning of the attack, his aid station was overwhelmed with over thirty wounded. Salomon was working steadily on the most serious cases inside the tent when Japanese soldiers began to enter. Ben shot the first one who had bayoneted a wounded American lying on a stretcher. Two more charged through the tent entrance. Ben clubbed them both with a rifle, then shot one and bayoneted the other. Four more began to crawl under the sides of the tent. He shot one, bayoneted one, stabbed another with a knife, and head butted the fourth.”

But Bennie was just warming up. After ordering a retreat, he took over a machine gun and mowed down 98 Japs. When he was found, his body was littered with 76 bullet holes. Bennie was dead, but the battalion was saved.

2. Then there was Corporal Tibor “Ted” Rubin. Tibor’s story is even more amazing. Born in Hungary in 1929, he was deported to Germany’s Mauthausen concentration camp when he was thirteen. (Hungary did not begin deporting Jews to German concentration camps until mid-May, 1944, but Rubin was sent away in late 1942 or early 1943. Unlucky, I guess.) He survived the gas chambers and immigrated to the US in 1948. He joined the army during the Korean conflict and became a war hero.

In one battle he, alone, fought thousands of Chinese infantry and allowed the remaining troops to escape. “Nobody wanted to take over, but somebody had to. We didn’t have anything else left to fight with,” Rubin said. In another engagement, “Rubin single-handedly defended a hill for 24 hours thereby allowing his company to withdraw.”

In yet another battle, his comrade, Leonard Hamm, lay fallen. It was Rubin who fought to go back for him when the first sergeant issued orders to leave him behind. “But we didn’t know if he was dead,” Rubin said. “All I could think about was that somebody back home was waiting for him to return.” Rubin was pinned down by snipers and forced to low-crawl for several hundred yards when rescuing Hamm, whose body was so loaded with shrapnel that he could hardly lift a limb. “Rubin not only saved my life by carrying me to safety; he kept the North Korean snipers off our butts,” said Hamm.

A Happy Ending

Unlike Rubitsky, Salomon’s and Rubin’s tales ended happily. Both were eventually given their well earned Congressional Metals of Honor thanks to the Jewish War Veterans Act of 2001 (sponsored by Senator Joe Lieberman and Rep. Robert Wexler). Salomon, of course, received his posthumously. But Rubin was there to receive his medal from the Commander-in-Chief himself, George W. Bush.

Reflecting on his achievements, Rubin said in an interview, “I want the goyim to know that there were Jews over there, that there was a little greenhorn, a little shmuck from Hungary, who fought for their beloved country.”

Well at least this goy now knows the story. And I intend to pass it on. So thank you, Rubin. And thanks to Ruby and Bennie also. There have been few heroes like you. May we always remember your tales and hold them up as examples of what Jewish soldiers are capable of.