USMC Cpl. Hershel Woodrow "Woody" Williams: The Medal of Honor Controversy

No Marine takes lightly the task of claiming that one of our own shouldn’t have received his Medal of Honor, and certainly not a Marine who has dedicated the last five years of his life as a military historian to preserving the memory and deeds of the Leathernecks on the field of battle. And yet, I find myself after these five years of detailed, in-depth research with the unenviable realization that one of the most famous living Marines today, Woody Williams, who is one of the last survivors of the Battle of Iwo Jima and the last living Pacific War/Marine Medal of Honor recipient alive, and a man who has ships, hospitals, military bases, bridges and streets named after him, does not deserve the Medal of Honor for the package put in for him.

When I started this research in 2015 I was on Iwo Jima with Woody, hearing his tales of heroism, all I wanted to do was to honor and praise this Marine. At the time, I had no clue that I would find out that Woody’s Medal of Honor process would be full of landmines and that historical records, historians, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Charles C. Krulak, and Marine Corps historian Col. Jon T. Hoffman, and a host of other scholars and military officers who read my research, would all come to a similar conclusion: Woody Williams should have NEVER received the Medal of Honor for the MOH package put in for him “documenting” his actions on Iwo Jima. Equally troubling was the awareness that William’s MOH was influenced by his own Sea Tales, which he told people on Guam after the conclusion of the Battle of Iwo Jima—this violates the MOH mandates.

Unfortunately, the irregularities don’t stop there. Here are some of the problems with Woody’s Medal of Honor process:

1.     Originally, Woody was put in for the MOH for taking out seven pillboxes and killing 21 Japanese soldiers. However, the only sources found to date giving these numbers is Woody himself, who reported this to two Marine Corps correspondents on Guam after the Battle of Iwo Jima. He enjoyed giving interviews and bragging about what he did. As the tales made the rounds, they took on a life of their own—and made it into the initial endorsement and historical record by way of his captain, who reported the “events” in good faith.

2.     As Woody’s package made it up through his chain-of-command, the lack of evidence from the affidavits became apparent and the initial story of seven pillboxes and 21 dead Japanese came into question. Fleet Marine Force Pacific commander USMC Lt. General Roy S. Geiger and his board noticed the problems and wanted more evidence. USN Admiral Chester Nimitz and his board agreed with Geiger, and Woody’s Medal of Honor package was put on hold until further evidence was gathered. Geiger even told the Commandant of the Marine Corps to not submit Woody’s package to President Harry S. Truman until the missing evidence was gathered.

3.     During this time, the gatekeeper for Navy and Marine Corps Medals of Honor, Rear Admiral Robert W. Hayler, who was in charge of the Navy Department for Awards and Decorations, started to receive political pressure from Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal to push Woody’s package through. President Truman wanted living Medal of Honor recipients to award at the Rose Garden on 5 October 1945, in order to get much needed press—possibly to further justify the atomic bombs, bolster his presidency and highlight the victory over Japan. There were still a few MOH cases under review and under such pressure from Truman, Hayler took Woody’s package away from Geiger and Nimitz and approved it (which he had the authority to do, but nonetheless, still a shocking move). In the end, the necessary evidence was never collected and Woody’s actions were, according to Commandant Krulak, only Silver Star, or maybe, at best, Navy Cross worthy, but definitely not Medal of Honor material, especially when similar cases are reviewed (which I do with countless Silver Star, Navy Cross and MOH case studies in my book “Flamethrower”).

4.     In the process of collecting evidence for Woody’s Medal of Honor package, his platoon leader, USMC Lt. Howard Chambers, who supposedly witnessed everything Woody did, refused to endorse his package and give an affidavit for his deeds. Although asked TWICE by none other than Lt. General Roy S. Geiger to submit an affidavit attesting to what he saw Woody do, he refused to endorse Woody and ignored Geiger. He is the only Marine I have documented who when asked to support a fellow Marine for a medal, especially for one of his subordinates, refused categorically to do so. Chambers knew Woody very well, having trained with him for six months before Iwo Jima. Chambers received a Silver Star leading the action Woody was part of and his platoon took out 32 emplacements and probably killed hundreds of Japanese (Chambers did this with only 20 men!). He knew of, and saw much of, what Woody did and he knew him intimately, but refused to endorse him.

5.     Even though Admiral Hayler took the medal process away from the Marine Corps and fast tracked Woody’s medal to get President Truman his living recipient for the ceremony at the Rose Garden, he, or his board, did have to admit that the evidence for Woody’s actions was unsubstantiated. As a result, they changed the citation dramatically and rewrote it. The final citation only talked about brave actions and removed the numbers of pillboxes and dead Japanese from the historical record. It is one of the most nuanced Medal of Honor citations from Iwo Jima this research has uncovered.

Woody gave a major interview for Man’s Magazine in 1966 and continued to brag to journalists and fellow Marines about how he had destroyed seven pillboxes and killed 21 Japanese in one pillbox alone (sometimes he reduced the number to 17). The story of eradicating seven pillboxes and killing dozens of Japanese never changed from 1945 until 1966. His tales encouraged people to think, as I did (and had written in early drafts of my book “Flamethrower”), that if Woody took out 21 Japanese in one pillbox, then he must have taken out numerous others in the remaining six pillboxes, perhaps killing 50 enemies or more (“what a badass!”). Woody did not know that Hayler and/or his board had removed these facts because they were unproven. When the 1966 Man’s Magazine article came out with incredible details all stemming from Woody’s testimony, some of Woody’s comrades who were there that day became upset with how he was bragging about his deeds and taking credit away from the platoon (Alexander Schlager and Joseph Rybakiewicz, to name two, who have been highlighted in earlier posts, were among those who were upset with Woody). I suspect some of them got in touch with Woody and told him to shut up because he was tarnishing the image of the Medal of Honor and taking credit for what others did. As a result, interviews Woody gave after 1966 went from Woody having perfect memory of most of his MOH deeds to hardly having any memory of anything he did that day. He said he cannot remember much of anything he did due to PTSD and that “people tell me I took out 7 pillboxes” or that “I killed 21 Japs.” When asked who told him these facts, he never can remember their names. Just as Admiral Hayler and his team ascertained in 1945 that these facts were unsubstantiated when they changed his citation deleting these figures, Woody was also scrubbing them from his narrative after 1966. Something had changed how he either could or would continue to tell his story.

6.     While Woody scrubbed these details from his own narrative, it is troubling to have documented the numerous events where he allowed his comrade Lefty Lee speak on his behalf about these events. In fact, as mentioned in an earlier post, Lefty Lee was a Stolen Valor case and wasn’t with Woody the day he performed the actions in his Medal of Honor citation. Lee had been taken off Iwo Jima two days earlier for shellshock and emotional collapse. Nonetheless, Woody encouraged Lefty to talk about witnessing Woody’s actions at public events for decades. When it was discovered that Lefty was lying about his experiences on Iwo Jima, he was asked “Where did you get all your information about Woody?” He admitted his sources were pre-1966 articles Woody had given that he had read that claimed these numbers, numbers that have since been proven never to have happened. Why did Woody use Lefty to tell stories he seems to have known were false—especially after the 1966 Man’s Magazine article situation? By encouraging Lefty to speak publicly about Woody’s MOH acts, Lefty’s lies became Woody’s truth (Lefty was the only comrade Woody had testify for him in public—none of his actual comrades have spoken for him in public). 

7.     One of the two events in Woody’s final citation was considered extremely courageous but exceedingly foolhardy by fellow veterans. During combat, Woody climbed on top of a pillbox and flamed it through a vent. I was able to find evidence for this. Fellow flamethrower and Iwo Jima veteran Don Graves said standing up in the middle of a battlefield with a flamethrower and climbing on top of a huge bunker was “idiotic.” Other veterans I spoke with agreed. However, it destroyed a pillbox and probably helped save lives and move the front forward, all very important facts to mention.

8.     The other event that made it into his citation is a story of him taking out some charging Japanese. However, when one studies how it made its way into the historical record, it seems once again, the only person documenting this was Woody. No witness statement for Woody’s MOH process documents this event. Woody often says he took out six charging Japanese soldiers with is flamethrower. The only document I have where this is mentioned is from Marine Corps Correspondent Dick Dashiell, who interviewed him while his Medal package was being considered (Dashiell was profiled in an earlier post). In fact, when interviewed about how many Japanese Woody killed, loaded with adrenaline-fueled testosterone, Woody declared to Dashiell, “I counted 21 of ‘em that tried to get away and I killed ‘em all with flames.” Not one witness verified this claim in the historical record. 

9.     In the end, although Woody is now a huge icon and hero for the Marine Corps, he is the only documented Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient from World War II who never received endorsements from the Fleet Marine Force Commander, Lt. General Roy S. Geiger and his board, Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Alexander A. Vandegrift, or Pacific Fleet Commander, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz and his board. Although Woody is a huge figure for the Marine Corps today, the Marine Corps of 1945 ultimately did not support his Medal and never sanctioned his package.

When Woody learned that I had discovered the true story of his Medal of Honor process, he slapped me with a federal lawsuit and used his Marine Corps and political contacts to launch a smear campaign. Instead of facing the truth of the historical record and confronting the problems of embellishments and outright fabrications, Woody used his political capital and resources to destroy my credibility as a Marine and historian.

If the Medal of Honor is truly a reflection of the sacrifice of those men and women who never came back from war, as Woody has often claimed, aren’t we duty bound to ensure that what it truly represents is maintained? If those who wear the Medal represents everyone whose stories are unknown, shouldn’t they be held to a higher standard as public figures? As Commandant Vandegrift told Woody the day he received the MOH, he should do nothing “to tarnish the Medal.”

In the end, had Woody’s campaign succeeded against me to suppress my research and had his bully tactics worked and forced me to go away and not reveal the truth, the heroic sacrifices of numerous Marines and Sailors/Corpsmen would have never been documented as they are now in “Flamethrower.” In the end, to quote the family of his comrade Alexander Schlager: “What Woody has done has indeed tarnished the Medal.”

In tomorrow’s post, I will go over our legal battle and what I have had to do in order to defend history and my research and further explore whether Woody knows that he got the medal by self-reporting and by allowing stories to get into the historical record that are unsubstantiated.

After intensively studying 20 Medal of Honor recipients from Iwo Jima, Woody is the only recipient who had such problems. Everyone else had clear evidence for what he did and incredibly detailed, and often lengthy, witness statements to back up their heroics. Knowing these facts, one can understand why Woody has launched a legal battle against me. I am the first American historian that I know of who has been sued by a Medal of Honor recipient in order to prevent the truth of history from being published. I am the only Marine in Marine Corps history who has thoroughly documented an enlisted man’s World War II biography only to have that very Marine sue me for what I have discovered. Is this the true meaning of Honor, Courage and Commitment that we Marines live by?

The need to silence the truth is troubling. Would we know our history if the people being documented could change what is written about them? What would we truly know about General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, President Bill Clinton, President John F. Kennedy, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Bernie Madoff, Major General Chesty Puller, or President Thomas Jefferson if all these men could control their narratives? Would we know the same history? Even knowing all the problems about Woody Williams’ Medal of Honor, I still consider him a hero and brave Marine. In spite of the way he embellished his deeds, it was done when he was very young after the incredible trauma of Iwo Jima, and does not tarnish the fact he served America bravely. It is the adult whose actions have been problematic by trying to silence me. It reminds me of what prominent Marine Corps historian Col. Jon T. Hoffman, stated about our heroes when writing history. He explains:

“There are those who believe such a reexamination of a military icon does a disservice to the institution because it removes some of the luster from the burnished image held up as an example to be emulated. There is a definite and vital benefit in recalling the shining moments when an organization and its members were at their best. But it is equally important to highlight those occasions when things went wrong, for failure, more often than not, is the breeding ground for lessons that can improve future performance.”

For more about Woody Williams, the Medal of Honor controversy, and the Battle of Iwo Jima, see my new book, “Flamethrower”: https://www.amazon.com/Flamethrower-Recipient-Williams-Controversial-Holocaust/dp/1734534109/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1592420887&sr=8-1