CWO4, USMC — World War II
Hershel Woodrow “Woody” Williams was born on October 2, 1923, in Quiet Dell, West Virginia, the youngest of eleven children raised on a dairy farm. He weighed only three and a half pounds at birth and was not expected to live, and his father died when he was eleven. Before the war he drove a truck and worked in a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Montana. Captivated by the Marine Corps dress blue uniform, he tried to enlist in 1942 but was turned away as too short at 5 feet 6 inches; when the height standard changed, he enlisted on May 26, 1943.
Trained as a demolition man and flamethrower operator, Williams joined the 1st Battalion, 21st Marines, 3rd Marine Division, fought in the Battle of Guam in 1944, and landed on Iwo Jima on February 21, 1945.
Two days later, on February 23, 1945 — the day the flag went up on Mount Suribachi — American tanks were stalled by a network of reinforced concrete pillboxes, and Williams volunteered to go forward. Covered by only four riflemen, Corporal Williams fought alone for four hours under intense small-arms fire, repeatedly returning to his own lines for fresh flamethrowers and demolition charges. He destroyed seven pillboxes, thrusting his flamethrower nozzle into firing slits and through one bunker’s air vent, and when enemy riflemen charged him with fixed bayonets, he stopped them with a burst of flame. His company reached its objective, and President Harry S. Truman presented him the Medal of Honor at the White House on October 5, 1945. He fought through the rest of the battle despite a leg wound on March 6.
Williams remained in the Marine Corps Reserve and rose to chief warrant officer 4 before retiring in 1969, then spent 33 years as a Department of Veterans Affairs service representative helping veterans and their families. The Navy named the expeditionary sea base USNS Hershel “Woody” Williams in his honor. He died on June 29, 2022, in Huntington, West Virginia, at age 98 — the last living Medal of Honor recipient of World War II — and his remains lay in honor in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.
Sources: Wikipedia · Congressional Medal of Honor Society