Woody williams medal of honor biography
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Williams recalled a difficult struggle to advance across an airfield and then running into the concrete guard posts, which were reinforced by steel rods and impervious to aerial bombardment. “You don’t rationalize in my opinion. “Life is so precious, I believe anybody being shot at has a fear…that the fear is there, but if fear takes over you become useless,” said Williams.
He had devoted his life to serving others.
This Flamethrower Operator Was the Last Living Medal of Honor Recipient from World War II
Following boot camp in San Diego, plus some additional training, Williams shipped out to the island of Guadalcanal, which the United States had recently finished seizing from Japan.
During the Battle of Iwo Jima, Mr.
Williams displayed “valiant devotion to duty” and service above self as he “enabled his company to reach its objective”. We never did understand that.”
Williams himself found solace through his community, his family, and the church. On one occasion, he daringly mounted a pillbox to insert the nozzle of his flamethrower through the air vent, killing the occupants and silencing the gun; on another he grimly charged enemy riflemen who attempted to stop him with bayonets and destroyed them with a burst of flame from his weapon.
The situation was chaotic, but this much was clear: the Marines couldn’t advance until the surrounding pillboxes were taken out.
Williams was given a flamethrower and tasked to clear a path for his unit.
He famously replied, “I’ll try.”
“Now if I said that, OK,” Williams said during an interview at his home in Ona, West Virginia.
“We couldn’t see them.”
By re-taking Guam, which had been in Japanese hands since December 1941, the United States gained a base from which its B-29 bombers could reach Tokyo, explains Richard B. Frank, an Asia-Pacific War historian who accompanied Williams on a tour of Pacific battle sites. I didn’t even know why they were reading it. Quick to volunteer his services when our tanks were maneuvering vainly to open a lane for the infantry through the network of reinforced concrete pillboxes, buried mines, and black volcanic sands, Cpl.
Williams daringly went forward alone to attempt the reduction of devastating machinegun fire from the unyielding positions. He was never the same again and died at age 42.
“He just gave up. People were taking on jobs that they had never even dreamed they would be taking – a squad leader as a PFC. It didn’t matter what your rank was, if you could find somebody to work with you, you worked with them.”
It was on this day that Williams, having been made an acting sergeant, found himself in an NCO meeting – at the base of a bomb crater.
“They told us that probably we would never get off the ship,” Williams said. Williams saw his first combat in July 1944, participating in the Battle of Guam.
He recalled the initial few days of fighting as particularly brutal, as U.S. troops struggled to advance from the beachhead to the top of a ridge. Before he passed, he left us with clear orders to all be a part of the mission to never forget.
That’s all there was to it,” Williams said of his brother’s death. But he didn’t have to look far to understand how different his journey might have been. Contrary to previous battles in the Pacific, the Japanese let U.S. troops land relatively unmolested.