Medal of Honor
William Dean Hawkins, 1st Lt, USMC
Note: Our thanks to Blair Case for researching and providing us with this information
Information on William Dean Hawkins, El Paso Medal of Honor recepient
Citation:
HAWKINS, WILLIAM DEAN Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 19 .April 1914, Fort Scott, Kans. Appointed from: El Paso, Tex. Citation: For valorous and gallant conduct above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of a Scout Sniper Platoon attached to the Assault Regiment in action against Japanese-held Tarawa in the Gilbert Island, 20 and 21 November 1943. The first to disembark from the jeep lighter, 1st Lt. Hawkins unhesitatingly moved forward under heavy enemy fire at the end of the Betio Pier, neutralizing emplacements in coverage of troops assaulting the main beach positions. Fearlessly leading his men on to join the forces fighting desperately to gain a beachhead, he repeatedly risked his life throughout the day and night to direct and lead attacks on pillboxes and installations with grenades and demolitions. At dawn on the following day, 1st Lt. Hawkins resumed the dangerous mission of clearing the limited beachhead of Japanese resistance, personally initiating an assault on a hostile position fortified by S enemy machineguns, and, crawling forward in the face of withering fire, boldly fired pointblank into the loopholes and completed the destruction with grenades. Refusing to withdraw after being seriously wounded in the chest during this skirmish, 1st Lt. Hawkins steadfastly carried the fight to the enemy, destroying 3 more pillboxes before he was caught in a burst of Japanese shellfire and mortally wounded. His relentless fighting spirit in the face of formidable opposition and his exceptionally daring tactics served as an inspiration to his comrades during the most crucial phase of the battle and reflect the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country. Note. William Dean Hawkins appears to have been the only El Pasoan who was a resident of El Paso at the time he won the Medal of Honor. Although I moved to El Paso in 1980, I've read about him all my life. One Marine Corps source, which I haven't been able to locate, refers to him as "the Bravest of the Brave." I always thought it strange that he's never mentioned in El Paso. Colonel David Shoup, commanding officer of the 2nd Marines, said, "It's not often that you can credit a first lieutenant with winning a battle, but Hawkins came as near to it as any man could." As nice touch to the Hawkins story is that he was severely burned and disfigured as a child. The Army and Navy wouldn't take him, but the Marine Corps did-the reverse of Audie Murphy's being rejected by the Marines but accepted by the Army. The paragraphs below are quoted from Mantle of Herosim: Tarawa and the Struggle for the Gilberts, November 1943 Tarawa Day One "An infectious anxiety spread among the men in the assault waves. The awful sound of the naval cannonade combined with the Japanese fire seemed to be right on top of them. It appeared impossible that men could have survived the holocaust of steel and ire that had flayed the island over the past three hours, how could there still be Japanese firing at them, they wondered. Here trand the squad leaders raised their heads above the side of landing craft to check the distance yet to be covered, and, disconcerted, ducked down again. Up ahead close combat had commenced at the end of the six-hundred-yard Burns-Philp pier. With naval gunfire still roaring, a scout-sniper platoon led by twenty-nine year-old [1st) Lieutenant William D. Hawkins, of el Paso, Texas, assisted by assault engineers, was going in to silence enemy positions along the pier. "Hawk," as everybody knew him, had been commissioned in the field for "conspicuous courage and strong leadership" in the furious first month's fighting at Tulagi and Guadalcana. Later, still at Guadacanal, for days at a time behind enemy lines, he had led long-range reconnaissance patrols of the 2nd Marines's forward intelligence section. Since then he had trained his men until he believbed, "The thrity-four men in my platoon can lick any two hundred-man company in the world." Long-range patrols would not be necessary on Betio [the main, but tiny, island of the Tarawa Atoll], but there was plenty of other things to do. Machine-gun fire nests were slung beneath the pier on platforms and protected by sandbags, rifle positions were located among the shacks near the seaplane ramp at the end of the pier, and mine and bobby traps probably had been laid. Intelligence believed that the enemy positions could endanger the assault ford3s with enfilading fire on either side. One rumor had it that the Japanese had rigged explosive to the drums of gasoline stacked on the pier head, intending to blow up the pier to deny its use to the Americans, who needed it intact to supply the beachead. Hawkins and his men were supposed to land at the base of the pier fifteen minutes ahead of the first assault wave at 0845. Under the cover of the naval bombardment, they would knock out the enemy positions, clear the pier head, and drive down the finger to shore. Yet their three LCVPs were nowhere near the pier when they should have been. The adjustments to the timetable had led to chaos, and the current had slowed the LCVPs. By the time Hawkins got the landing craft on track, much time had been lost. The delay cost the commando force their naval gunfire cover, which had lifted at 0855. Not a shot was fired at them directly until they were near the objective. Then it was a different story. Small-arms and machine-fun fire flayed the high plywood sides and slanted steel bow ramps of the boats. Second Lieutenant Alan G. Leslie, of Milwaukee, Oregon, commanding a five-man team of combat engineers of the 18th Marines, approached from the west flank in the lead boat. The crew nudged the LCVP close enough for Leslie and his men to climb onto the pier, then back off and began circling. Some of the marine and naval officers doubted Leslie could accomplish his mission. A former enlisted man, he had only recently been made an officer. Warrant officer John F. Leopold recalled, "On the ship they were giving odds of ten to one against the he would come out alive." It was now 0857. The boat with Hawkins and his section approached from head-on. They would storm the pier itself after Leslie and the engineers had cleared the seaplane ramp. Hawkins leapt onto the pier. The commandos were twelve minutes late, but it was clear that the first assault waves also would no land on time. For now the forlorn entourage was alone. The fighting was wild and frantic. Again and again, Leslie's flame-thrower roared, spewing long streams of flaming liquid. An equipment shed and another small building shielding enemy riflemen were engulfed in fire. Mortar shell after mortar shell rained down from shore, and 13mm machine-guns raked the pier head. Out in the lagoon, the assault waves "were still about fifteen hundred yards offshore. Warrant Officer Leopold remembered, "when there was a tremendous explosion at the end of the Japanese pier. "Thank god!" someone yelled, "Leslie made it." A fuel dump near the seaplane ramp had blown up. Marinesin the landing craft cheered and slapped ewach other on the back. Off the pier head, the commandos waited, circling. Japanese popped up from their hiding places in protective niches under the pier, or in light landing barges moored along its side, and lobbed grenades and fired their arisakas. Hawkins and Leslie led the engineers across the broad planked esplanade, moving from cover the cover. They were peppered by splinters of wood from the pier flying all around them. Blasting the Japanese, the marines hurled demolition charges, thre grenades, and fired heir carbines. Hawkins used his "grease" gun with tremendous ferocity. The skirmish was a frenzied as it was brief. Some of the LCVPs didn't wait for Hawkins to give them the word to land. One boat maneuvered closer in, and Cpl. Leonce "French" Olivier, of Eunice, Louisiana, led three marines onto the pier to cover the assault with their rifles. No sooner had they taken cover and let go a few rounds than the Japanese pinned them down. As his messmates watched, horrified, Hawkins hurled himself down the pier, with all the grim, heroic determination that had earned him a commissioned in the Marine Corps and would make him a legend before his fighting was finished. Some suspected that he was fighting not only the Japanese but hateful memories-of growing up with the sever scars of a childhood burn accidents, and of losing work, of being rejected as a volunteer by the Army and than by the Navy because of his cosmetic disfigurement. Within him seethed a defiance, a determination to settle a score of his own for all the difficulties he ad had to cover come. "A marine sergeant recalled, "You see, Hawk loved trouble. If there was a tough job to do, he'd ask for it." Somehow he kept coming down the pier, twenty to thirty yards toward shore before he turned back. When the fighting died down the scene was incredible. The pier head itself was afire. The plank decking was burned and blasted. In all Hawkins, Leslie, and four engineers and four scout-snipers had knocked out at least six machine guns, and now there was not a live Japanese to be seen. The dead-perhaps twenty-five men-were lying all around. The furious fight to clear the end of the pier had lasted all of six minutes. The Marine commandos were the first Americans to invade a Japanese-held possession in the Central Pacific. [skip from page 145 to 165] By the end of the day casualties among the commandos would be almost a third. Hawkins himself would be one. But nightfall would finding him still fighting despite a shoulder wound from the shrapnel of a shattering mortar blast. [skip from 165 to 239 (second day)] Day Two [During the morning, Hawkins was again wounded by destroying several pillboxes. He's already easily qualified for the medal of honor when the action picks up later in the day.] . . . The indefatigable Lieutenant Hawkins led the commandos on yet another foray into The Pocket. This time they struck a complex of five bunkers and pillboxes lying beyond the three they had knocked out earlier. The action, however, proved far more costly. Despite the bursting grenades and machine-gun fire that engulfed the commandos in their attack, they did not waver. Hawkins led them forward. In total disregard for his own safety, Hawk crawled from a shell hole toward the first pillbox, in which two heavy machine guns were emplaced. "Don't worry about me," he told his men. "I'll take care of this one myself." He did. His men watched in horror when, only yards from the aperture of the pillbox, the officer took a slug dead center in his chest. He rolled a hand grenade through the aperture and killed all the Japanese inside the pillbox. Although his men pleaded, Hawkins again refused aid for his injuries despite the pain. "I came here to kill Japs, not to be evacuated," he argued, fighting off the accumulated shock of his three serious wounds. But this marked the onset of tragedy. Private first class Marcel J. Krzys, of Cleveland, was navigating past a bunker when he was shot through the head and killed. Earlier, in the drive up the beach, a mortar round had killed three other commandos. Although three more of the pillboxes soon fell, enemy fire was still intense, and the noise and carnage of grenades and machine guns all around was enormous. Now, as they came in sight of the fifth pillbox at the base of a sandy knoll. Hawkins told his men to hand back. Seemingly unaware for the moment of any pain from his wounds, Hawk insisted on eliminating the last pillbox himself. Hawkins plan was to clear the way for his assault by throwing grenades at the pillbox, rushing forward, and then throwing a grenade through the aperture. Time after time he had done it, with exception daring. This time, however, just as he had lobbed a half dozen grenades and stood up to charge, one of the Japanese 13mm heavy machine guns opened up. His men watch helplessly as the courageous lieutenant was "Practically torn apart." Sergeant Morris C. Owens, twenty-six years old, of Madison, Wisconsin, was nearby. A bullet struck Hawkin's uninjured shoulder, which shattered in the explosion, and severed an artery. As Owens watched, "The blood just gushed out of him." Several scout-snipers rushed forward grabbed Hawk, and propped him up against the back of the seawall. Others, in a rage, swept over the barricade and knocked out the enemy position. There was no question for whom they had done it. Hooper and three of the men got Hawk back to beach. Miraculously, the Texan hung on. They carried him to the former enemy bunker where Doc Brukardt had set up his hospital. By one count Hawkins was given twenty-five pints of blood in all. He told his men not to worry. "Boys," he said weakly, "I hate leaving you like this." Everyone was humbled by the man's amazing strength and will to live. But fight as he might, his wounds were too grievous. Hawkins died during the night [November 23] of sever shock and blood loss before he could be evacuated. William D. Hawkins was posthusmously awarded the Medal of Honor. In citing Hawkins for his self-sacrifice, Julian smith observed, "His relentless fighting spirit in the face of formidable opposition and his exceptionally daring tactics served as an inspiration to his comrades during the most crucial phase of the battle." The airfield for which the marines fought was later officially named Hawkins field, the first time this had been none for a marine rifleman. End Quote