On Feb. 2, 1945, near a Japanese-held ridge north of Loi-Kang in central Burma, 1st Lt. Jack Llewellyn Knight led his cavalrymen into one of the most ferocious small-unit engagements of the China-Burma-India theater. An enemy grenade blinded him mid-assault. The 27-year-old Texan rallied his remaining men, crawled toward the enemy on his hands and knees and pressed the attack until a bullet struck him down.
Knight was the only U.S. ground combat soldier to receive the Medal of Honor in the CBI theater during World War II. He was also the only soldier from an Army Special Operations legacy unit to earn it in the entire war, according to the Army Special Operations Command History Office.
Three Knight Brothers in the 124th Cavalry
Jack Llewellyn Knight was born May 29, 1917, in the farm town of Garner in Parker County, Texas, the oldest child of Roy Knight Sr. and Martha Holder Knight. He graduated from Garner High School and nearby Weatherford Junior College in 1938.
In October 1940, Knight and two of his brothers, Curtis and Lloyd, enlisted together in Troop F of the 124th Cavalry Regiment, Texas National Guard, at Mineral Wells. The 124th was federalized in November 1940, initially stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso before being reassigned to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border from Fort Brown in Brownsville and Fort Ringgold at Rio Grande City.
Knight rose from private to sergeant before attending Cavalry Officer Candidates School at Fort Riley, Kan., earning his commission as a second lieutenant in 1943. He was promoted to first lieutenant later that year and completed the Officer Advanced Course in 1944 before being given command of F Troop, 2nd Squadron, 124th Cavalry. His brother Curtis served under him as first sergeant.
Maj. Thomas J. Newton, their previous commanding officer, described the three Knight brothers in a wartime interview preserved online. Newton said Curtis did not attend OCS because he had recently married, while Lloyd went on to become a tank destroyer officer.
Of the three, Newton said, “I never was certain which was the best soldier.”
The MARS Task Force and the Burma Road
The 124th was the last horse cavalry regiment in the Army. In May 1944, the regiment moved to Fort Riley, turned in its horses and shipped out for India aboard the USS General Henry W. Butner. The cavalrymen arrived in Bombay on Aug. 26, 1944, and retrained for jungle warfare with mules at the Ramgarh Training Center.
The 124th became part of the 5332nd Brigade (Provisional), known as the MARS Task Force, a long-range penetration unit of nearly 7,000 soldiers and 3,000 mules built to succeed Merrill’s Marauders. It included organic pack artillery, mobile medical units and scouts from OSS Detachment 101’s Kachin tribesmen.
Its mission was to cut the Burma Road and open the overland supply route to China. The 124th departed Camp Landis on Dec. 16, 1944, marching single file over steep ridges and through swift rivers for weeks, relying on air-dropped supplies.
On Jan. 17, 1945, the MARS Task Force surprised elements of the Japanese army near the Burma Road. The Japanese had roughly 11,500 troops in the area, including their entire 56th Division, according to the official Army history of the CBI. The 124th engaged the enemy on Jan. 19 and fought for 17 straight days.
The Battle of Knight’s Hill
On the morning of Feb. 2, Knight received orders from his squadron commander, Maj. George B. Jordan, to attack a Japanese-held ridge north of Loi-Kang. Seizing the position would allow the 124th to block enemy forces retreating along the Burma Road.
Knight’s troop stepped off at 6:20 a.m. and covered 1,500 yards through the Hosi Valley jungle before climbing a 250-foot slope. Knight killed two Japanese soldiers with his carbine during the advance. After 35 minutes, F Troop reached its objective and began digging in.
Knight went forward to reconnoiter the reverse slope and found a horseshoe formation of pillboxes and foxholes on the right flank. According to his Medal of Honor citation, he moved at least 10 feet ahead of his men and attacked, destroying two pillboxes and killing the occupants of several foxholes with grenades and carbine fire.
While assaulting a third position, an enemy grenade wounded Knight and blinded him. He walked back to 2nd Lt. Leo C. Tynan, his artillery observer, and took half of Tynan’s carbine ammunition. While advancing toward the remaining pillboxes, he admitted to Tynan, “I can’t see.”
Despite the wound, Knight regrouped his men by arm signals and pressed forward. He threw a grenade into two more enemy positions before a second enemy grenade knocked him down. As he remained on the ground, he continued shouting encouragement to his men.
His brother Curtis, ran forward to take over command but was shot just under the heart. Knight ordered his men to get Curtis to an aid station, then began crawling toward another enemy position. A bullet then struck and killed him.
Every officer in F Troop was killed or wounded. Tynan took command and led the troop through the rest of the fight, earning the Silver Star. Knight was later buried on the hill after his men secured it from the Japanese.
The CBI’s Only Medal of Honor
On Feb. 9, the Japanese hold in the region finally broke as Allied forces drove them out of Burma. The MARS Task Force suffered 115 killed and 938 wounded during the campaign before being ordered to China to train the Nationalist Chinese Army.
On Feb. 18, British Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia Command, designated the position where Knight fell as “Knight’s Hill.”
“In more than four years of combat, I have seen many officers fight and die, but Lt. Knight’s action in leading his troop to its objective against strong enemy concentrations is to me the finest example of courage, valor and leadership of any officer I have ever commanded,” Col. William Osborne, the 124th’s regimental commander, said of Knight. “It is officers of Jack Knight’s caliber and the troops that follow his kind of leadership that are winning the war, not colonels and generals.”
Newton, remarking on the three brothers who had all served in his troop, later said, “I knew they had it in them.”
Knight was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for continuing to lead his troop’s assault after being blinded, destroying the enemy positions and pressing the attack right up until he was killed. He was the only American soldier recommended for the award in the entire CBI theater, a frontline of WWII most Americans today have never heard of.
Knight’s Medal of Honor was presented to his father on June 25, 1945, by Maj. Gen. Bruce Magruder at Camp Wolters, Texas, according to the Texas State Historical Association. Curtis survived his wounds and returned home after the war. Knight’s remains were returned from Burma and buried at Holders Chapel Cemetery in Cool, Texas.
Knight was inducted into the Texas Military Hall of Honor in 1980 and posthumously awarded the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor in 1999. On Veterans Day 2014, Weatherford College dedicated a building in his name. The MARS Task Force’s lineage lives on through the 75th Ranger Regiment, while the 124th Cavalry remains in the Texas Army National Guard.
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