Rudolph Bianco Davila (April 27, 1916 – January 26, 2002), born in El Paso, Texas, was a United States Army officer, of Spanish-Filipino descent,[1][2] who received the Medal of Honor for his actions in Italy during World War II.

His company was under a heavy enemy attack and for an unknown reason his machine gunners were reluctant to risk putting their guns into action.

Realizing that his company was in danger, Davila crawled 50 yards to the nearest machine gun and fired over 750 rounds into the enemy strongholds in the foothills.

[1] He continued his education and earned a bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Southern California, and became a high school history teacher in Los Angeles.

In 1996, Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka secured a Congressionally mandated review of records for Asian-Americans who had earned the Distinguished Service Cross in World War II.

On June 21, 2000, President Bill Clinton, bestowed the Medal of Honor on Davila and 21 other World War II servicemen of Asian descent at a White House ceremony.

During the offensive which broke through the German mountain strongholds surrounding the Anzio beachhead, Staff Sergeant Davila risked death to provide heavy weapons support for a beleaguered rifle company.

Caught on an exposed hillside by heavy, grazing fire from a well-entrenched German force, his machine gunners were reluctant to risk putting their guns into action.

Crawling fifty yards to the nearest machine gun, Staff Sergeant Davila set it up alone and opened fire on the enemy.

Ordering a gunner to take over, he crawled forward to a vantage point and directed the firefight with hand and arm signals until both hostile machine guns were silenced.

His intrepid actions brought desperately needed heavy weapons support to a hard-pressed rifle company and silenced four machine gunners, which forced the enemy to abandon their prepared positions.