Hershel W. Williams obit

Hershel Williams, last surviving WWII Medal of Honor recipient, dies at 98

Legendary soldier was awarded medal for service at Iwo Jima.

 

 He was not on the list.

Hershel W. "Woody" Williams," the last of fewer than 500 soldiers awarded the Medal of Honor during World War II, died on Wednesday. He was 98.

Williams was awarded the distinguished medal for service during the Battle of Iwo Jima in February 1945, during which he took out several Japanese machine gun nests.

Born in 1924, Williams was 22 when awarded the medal. Several years ago described receiving it as a "lifesaver," as it "forced me to talk about the experiences that I had, which was a therapy that I didn’t even know I was doing."

The soldier served in the Marines for 20 years subsequent to World War II, eventually working for the remainder of his professional life at the Veterans Administration.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice on Wednesday said Williams would "go down in history" in his home state as "one of the greatest West Virginians who ever lived."

"[W]e salute him for everything he gave to our state and our nation," Justice said.

Williams, the youngest of eleven children, was born in Quiet Dell, Marion County, West Virginia, on October 2, 1923, and raised on a dairy farm in the area. At birth, Williams weighed 3+1⁄2 pounds and was not expected to live. His mother, Lurenna, decided to name him after the doctor who arrived at their farm several days after his birth. By the time he was 11, his father, Lloyd, had died of a heart attack and several of his siblings had died due to a flu pandemic.

Williams worked a series of odd jobs in the area, including as a truck driver for W.S. Harr Construction Company of Fairmont, West Virginia, and as a taxi driver. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, he was working in Montana as a Civilian Conservation Corps enrollee.

Williams received his recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, California. Upon completion, he was sent to the Camp Elliott training center in San Diego, where he joined the tank training battalion on August 21, 1943. The following month he was transferred to the training center's infantry battalion for instruction as a demolition man and in the use of flamethrowers. The training, Williams said, was technical and focused on the flamethrower's design: three tanks, two of which held a mix of diesel fuel and aviation gas, and a third tank that held compressed air. There was little training on the operational use of the weapon. "We had to learn that ourselves", he said.

Williams was assigned to the 32nd Replacement Battalion on October 30, 1943, and left for New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific on December 3 aboard the M.S. Weltey Reden. In January 1944, he joined Company C, 1st Battalion, 21st Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division at Guadalcanal. In July and August 1944, he was attached to Headquarters Company and participated in action against the Japanese during the Battle of Guam. In October, he rejoined Company C.