First Lieutenant
William Deane Hawkins was posthumously awarded the
Medal of Honor for valorous conduct above and beyond
the call of duty during the Tarawa campaign. He
was killed in action, November 21, 1943, on Betio
Island.
Lieutenant Hawkins was born April 18, 1914 in Fort
Scott, Kansas. His father was an insurance claims
adjuster; his mother, the daughter of a Missouri
doctor.
When
he was a baby, young Hawkins suffered an accident
which scarred him for life. A neighbor upset a can
of scalding hot water over him and it was a year
before his mother was able to cure the muscular
damage by massage, and the boy could walk again.
When
the boy was five, the family moved to El Paso, Texas;
when he was eight, his father died and his mother
had to seek outside employment. She was employed
as the secretary to a high school principal and,
later, as a teacher in the El Paso Technical Institute.
An
excellent student, young Hawkins skipped fifth grade
at LaMar and Alta Vista Schools and graduated from
El Paso High School when he was 16. He won a scholarship
to the Texas College of Mines, where he studied
engineering. During summer vacations, he delivered
magazines and sold newspapers, and worked as a bellhop,
ranch hand, and railroad laborer.
When
he was 21, he went to Tacoma, Washington, to work.
Here he was married and later divorced, and at 23
was an engineer for a Los Angeles title-insurance
company.
After Pearl Harbor was attacked, he enlisted in
the Marine Corps, January 5, 1942, and was assigned
to the 7th Recruit Battalion, Recruit Depot, San
Diego. He had tried unsuccessfully to enter both
the Army and the Navy Air Corps, but his scars prevented
his being accepted. Now, as a Marine, he joined
the 2d Marines, 2d Marine Division, completed Scout
Snipers' School at Camp Elliott, San Diego, and
on July 1, 1942 embarked on board the USS Crescent
City for the Pacific area.
A
private first class when he went overseas, he was
quickly promoted to corporal and then sergeant.
On November 17, 1942, he was commissioned a second
lieutenant while taking part in the Guadalcanal
campaign in the battle for the Solomons. On June
1, 1943, he was promoted to first lieutenant. Less
than six months later, he was killed in action leading
a scout-sniper platoon in the attack on Betio Island
during the assault on Tarawa.
During the two-day assault, Lieutenant Hawkins led
attacks on pill boxes and installations, personally
initiated an assault on a hostile position fortified
by five enemy machine guns, refused to withdraw
after being seriously wounded and destroyed three
more pill boxes before he was mortally wounded,
November 21, 1943.
Robert
Sherrod, then Editor of The Saturday Evening Post,
wrote the following about the Marine platoon leader:
"Hawkins had told me aboard the ship that he would
put his platoon of men up against any company of
soldiers on earth and guarantee to win. He was slightly
wounded by shrapnel as he came ashore in the first
wave, but the furthest thing from his mind was to
be evacuated. He led his platoon into the forest
of coconut palms. During a day and a half he personally
cleaned out six Jap machine gun nests, sometimes
standing on top of a track and firing point blank
at four or five men who fired back at him from behind
blockhouses. Lieutenant Hawkins was wounded a second
time, but he still refused to retire. To say that
his conduct was worthy of the highest traditions
of the Marine Corps is like saying the Empire State
Building is moderately high."
In recognition of his leadership and daring action
against enemy positions, the air strip on Betio
Island was named Hawkins Field in honor of the Marine
hero. With his unit Lieutenant Hawkins also shared
in the two Presidential Unit Citations awarded the
1st Marine Division (Reinforced) for heroic action
during the Guadalcanal and Tarawa campaigns.
UNITED
STATES MARINE CORPS
