WWII hero talks history

By Mark Shaffer/The Ironton Tribune
Thursday, May 3, 2007 11:07 AM CDT


It’s not every day that history comes alive for students.

But on Wednesday, instead of reading about the Great Depression or World War II, the students of Dawson Bryant High School got to listen to Woody Williams who went through both.

Born in West Virginia, Williams grew up on a farm. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and was part of the bloody battle to take Iowa Jima.

Heather Dutey, who teaches current events at the school said there were very few Congressional Medal of Honor winners and to have one who lived so close

was “a phenomenal opportunity” for students.


“To hear first hand stories, rather than read it out of a text book, it just makes it come alive,” she said.

Derek Parsons, the school’s world history teacher, said his students were about to study World War II.

“I think it’s great that he’s here,” he said. “To have someone here who actually went through it, it’s more of a personal tale they can relate to.”

Williams grew up during the Depression and said he and his family were in a good enough position because they were farmers and had milk cattle.

“Things were very tough for everybody,” he said. “The Williams family were very fortunate because we lived on a farm. So we were never hungry, we were never without milk.”

As the Depression continued on, Williams joined the Civilian Conservation Corp, and was paid $21 per month as well as being fed and clothed while he built projects like stone guard rails and restored buildings.

Williams was in Montana when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He wanted to join the military but because he was under 18, he had to have his mother’s permission and she refused.

Once he turned 18, he try to join the United States Marine Corp but they refused because he was two inches shy of the 5 foot, 8 inch requirement. As the war went on and more men were needed, the height requirement was changed and Williams joined up. While trained like all Marines to be a rifleman, Williams became part of a demolition squad and was trained to operate a flamethrower. It was his squad’s job to burn out enemy bunkers.

It was on the Iowa Jima that Williams earned his Congressional Medal of Honor in February 1945.

Iowa Jima was strategically important. If the Americans could take the island, they could blockade the Japanese Navy and be within bombing range of Japan itself. For 36 day, a battle raged on the island.

Williams and his unit were trapped on the beach of Iowa Jima trying to destroy enemy bunkers were soldiers were shooting the Americans. The Japanese army had held the island long enough that they had a series of tunnels from bunker to bunker.

“It was like fighting ghosts,” said William, who is West Virginia’s only living medal of honor recipient.

By the time the fighting ended on March 26, there were 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead. Of the 20,000 Japanese defenders, only 1,083 survived.

When asked directly what he did to win his medal of honor, the animated Willams said he wasn’t a braggart and instead read the citation.

“The medal doesn’t really belong to me, I am just a caretaker,” he said. “It belongs to the men who protected me (and died), they gave everything they had. I wear it in their honor.”

According to the citation when he was awarded his medal, Williams “covered only by four riflemen, he fought desperately for 4 hours under terrific enemy small-arms fire and repeatedly returned to his own lines to prepare demolition charges and obtain serviced flamethrowers, struggling back, frequently to the rear of hostile emplacements, to wipe out 1 position after another.

“On one occasion, he daringly mounted a pillbox to insert the nozzle of his flamethrower through the air vent, killing the occupants and silencing the gun; on another he grimly charged enemy riflemen who attempted to stop him with bayonets and destroyed them with a burst of flame from his weapon.”

Williams was pragmatic about winning the medal.

“I was just doing the job for which I was trained,” he said.

Ellie