Longtime Choctaw County resident, J.D. Burchfield, will be honored with a proclamation before the Mississippi House of Representatives, on Thursday, January 30 on the occasion of his 98th birthday, and in recognition of his distinguished service during World War II. Burchfield will turn 98 on Friday, January 31.
Burchfield, who had six sisters and one brother, was born on January 31, 1922, to James Homer & Ray Bell Burchfield in Attala County, where he graduated from Ethel High School in 1941. He was a student at Holmes Community College in 1942 when he was drafted into the United States Army and completed training at Camp Shelby in Hattiesburg, and Fort Cronkhite and Fort Ord in California.
Burchfield participated in three key battles in the Pacific Theater that were instrumental in the victory of the United States and Allied Forces over Japan. In May 1943, he fought in the Battle of Attu in the U.S. Territory of Alaska which was the only land battle of World War II fought on American soil, during which American forces retook the island from Japanese Imperial Army forces after 19 days of battle involving brutal hand-to-hand combat, with 549 soldiers killed in action and more than 1,200 injured.
In January and February 1944, he was deployed to the Marshall Islands and fought in the Battle of Kwajalein, during which American forces launched a successful twin assault on the main islands of Kwajalein in the south and Roi-Namur in the north, resulting in a key advancement in the Allied Forces’ island-hopping march to Japan. Three-hundred and forty-eight American soldiers were killed, 1,462 injured and 183 were listed as missing in the action.
Burchfield was wounded in the Battle of Leyte while he was deployed to the Philippines from October to December 1944. More than thirty-five hundred soldiers were killed in the battle, with almost twelve-thousand wounded and 89 listed as missing. This was the first and most decisive operation in the American reconquest of the Philippines.
Burchfield received treatment for his wound in a South Pacific medical facility before returning to the United States, in Seattle, Washington. From there he traveled to Camp Shelby and was finally reunited with his family in Attala County in November 1945.
After receiving an honorable discharge he enrolled in Mississippi State College and graduated in 1949.
Burchfield married Nettie James Myres in 1950, settling in Choctaw County and raising three sons, Mike, Phil and Tim, while working for the Farmers Home Administration for 35 years until his retirement in 1981. After retirement, he lived on his farm near Ackerman and later moved to Clinton, where he currently resides.
