"Hero" is a phrase used maybe a little bit too typically as of late. Final 12 months, CBS Information nationwide safety correspondent David Martin talked with the final surviving Medal of Honor recipient from the Second World Warfare: Hershel "Woody" Williams. Williams died Wednesday on the age of 98. We expect you may agree, he's, certainly, a real American hero. [This story was originally broadcast May 30, 2021]
Hershel "Woody" Williams is actually one-of-a-kind. On the age of 97 he's the final residing recipient of the Medal of Honor from World Warfare II. However it's the way in which he is lived all these years since that basically units him aside.
"I felt that I owed again greater than I might ever presumably give," he informed Martin.
He grew up on a farm in West Virginia throughout the Nice Despair. "There have been 11 born to my household," he mentioned. "Solely 5 of us survived to maturity."
After Pearl Harbor, he tried to enlist within the Marines, however was rejected as too quick. When the Marines began taking horrendous casualties preventing the Japanese throughout the Pacific, the peak restrict was eased — and he ended up a Marine.
Martin requested, "What was your first style of fight like?"
"Exceedingly scary," he replied.
In February 1945, an enormous invasion fleet gathered off the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima. "We did not know that that they had 22,000 Japanese on the island; we did not know that that they had miles of tunnel dug out in a volcano," Williams mentioned.
The Japanese held their hearth till after the Marines had landed, after which turned the seaside right into a slaughterhouse: "The seaside was simply stuffed with the whole lot you possibly can consider — vehicles and tanks simply blown up."
Greater than 6,000 Marines would die. Williams mentioned, "Simply stacked them up, yeah, like wire wooden."
Lastly, Marines made it to the highest of Mount Suribachi for essentially the most well-known flag elevating in American historical past.
Martin requested, "Do you know the flag had gone up?"
"No, I didn't," Williams mentioned. "I feel I had my head buried within the sand."
The flag was up, however the battle for Iwo Jima was removed from over: "There was no safety. We might run from shell crater to shell crater, if we might discover one, and eventually we hit this lengthy line of pillboxes, bolstered concrete pillboxes."
- The Battle of Iwo Jima ("Sunday Morning")
Japanese machine weapons contained in the pillboxes reduce down the advancing Marines, till Williams' commander turned to him: "He mentioned, 'Do you suppose you can do one thing with the flamethrower?'"
"What have been you imagined to do with the flamethrower?" Martin requested.
"Put flame within the pillbox. so that you'd annihilate all people inside that pillbox."
With protecting hearth from 4 riflemen, Williams crawled towards the primary pillbox with Japanese bullets ricocheting off his flamethrower.
"I search for on prime of this pillbox and I see a little bit little bit of blue smoke rolling out of the highest of it," Williams mentioned. "So, I crawled up ... acquired up on prime of that pillbox, and here is a pipe that's nearly the identical measurement as my flamethrower nozzle, so I simply caught it down and let it go. That was my first pillbox."
Williams is credited with taking out seven pillboxes in the middle of 4 hours.
That was February 1945. When Japan surrendered in September of that 12 months, Williams was on Guam killing time when he abruptly obtained a summons: "'You are gonna go see the overall.' And I mentioned, 'What for?'"
"Cannot be excellent news!" mentioned Martin.
"That is what I assumed!" Williams laughed. "I am scared to dying, however I am following orders, you recognize, so I stroll into the tent, stroll as much as his desk. And he mentioned, 'You are being ordered again to Washington.' I would by no means heard of the Medal of Honor. I did not know such a factor existed."
The boy from quiet Dell, West Virginia discovered himself on the White Home being offered the Medal of Honor by President Truman. "I by no means even dreamed of having the ability to see a President of america, and I am standing shaking arms with him. Now, you speak about a scared second! I used to be a wreck, I actually was!"
He acquired over the nerves, however by no means the duty that comes with the medal, particularly when he discovered that Corporal Warren Bornholz and Non-public First Class Charles Fischer, two of the riflemen who had offered protecting hearth throughout these 4 hours of flaming hell, had been killed.
"As soon as I discovered that, my entire idea of the medal modified. I mentioned, 'This medal doesn't belong to me; it belongs to them.' So, I put on it of their honor, not mine. They sacrificed their lives to make that potential."
Williams discovered what that sacrifice meant to their households at an early age. Earlier than he joined the Marines, he delivered Western Union telegrams informing moms that their sons had been killed in motion. "Once I handed her the envelope, effectively, she simply collapsed," he recalled. "As an 18-year-old boy, I did not know what to do. I did not do something. I left. You understand, I did not know what to do."
"You have finished a reasonably good job of creating up for it," Martin mentioned.
"Nicely, it left a long-lasting impression on my thoughts. Made me notice what it prices simply to have our freedom and be who we're," he mentioned.
He labored for the Division of Veterans Affairs for 33 years. Afterwards, he arrange the Woody Williams Basis to assist Gold Star households, and designed a monument of their honor. "We're in all 50 states," he mentioned.
"Does that require numerous journey in your half?"
"We attempt to attend each dedication and each groundbreaking."
Earlier than COVID hit, this 90-something can be on the highway greater than 200 days a 12 months.
Martin requested, "Why do you drive your self like that? At your age, all people would perceive should you begged off."
"That is my approach of creating certain that our Gold Star members of the family will not be forgotten," Williams replied.
This previous April, Charles Coolidge, the one different residing Medal of Honor recipient from World Warfare II, handed away.
Martin mentioned, "Now you are the final man standing."
"Yeah."
"Does that add to the sensation of duty?"
"Sure, it does. It does."
"Do you ever marvel why you've got been given so lengthy to stay?"
"Possibly I am making someone else's life a little bit higher, a little bit extra significant," he replied.
"Woody" Williams has led essentially the most significant life potential, though he places it in another way: "I am simply completely essentially the most lucky particular person you can lay your eyes on," he mentioned.
For more information:
- Hershel Woody Williams Medal of Honor Basis
- Woody Williams Basis
- Congressional Medal of Honor Society: Hershel Woodrow "Woody" Williams
Story produced by Mary Walsh. Editor: Joseph Frandino.