"World War II On Topic" is made possible by The Herzstein Foundation.

Jeremy Collins

Hi, I'm Jeremy Collins, the Director of Conferences & Symposia at The National World War II Museum in New Orleans. You're listening to World War II On Topic, Veteran Voices. Today's episode is brought to you by the Museum's Media Center and Education Department. Back in 2020, Seth Paridon had a special conversation with Medal of Honor recipient, and museum champion Herschel Woody Williams to commemorate the 75th anniversary of The Battle of Iwo Jima. Woody shares his experiences and memories of the brutal 36-day fight, as well as his post-war efforts to establish a memorial to gold star families in all 50 states.

Seth Paridon

All right. Woody, I want to thank you for being with us this morning, and I just got to ask you, how you doing, man?

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

Very well, Seth. Absolutely. A pleasure to be with you.

Seth Paridon

Outstanding. I wish we could do this in person, and we will do it in person again soon, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

Well, we'd have to stay six foot the part anyway.

Seth Paridon 

We would, but that's okay. Well, let's go ahead and get started. Why don't you tell all the people watching a little bit about yourself? Where were you born, where'd you grow up, that sort of thing.

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

Okay. I was born in a little community called Quiet Dell, Q-U-I-E-T Dell, West Virginia, which is near Fairmont, West Virginia. And my father started a dairy farm, and I was born off the dairy farm, but we got to the dairy farm when I was about five years old, and I was raised on the dairy farm. We had a number of milk cows. Back in those days, there were no grocery stores on the corner, so people had to depend on farmers to deliver produce to their homes. That was the only way they could get it. So we had a route, what we called milk route, and we would load, first our Model T Ford, and then the Model A Ford with produced milk, butter, cream, vegetables if they wanted them. And we would deliver those to individual houses.

The milk in those days came in glass bottles, and they could either get a pint or a quart. And during the summer months when we were out of school, we kids would deliver the milk to the houses. During the wintertime, my father and those that had already been through school, they had to do it. But we'd stand on the running board. And of course, that's an old term, nobody has running boards anymore. We'd stand on the running board of the pickup, and when we'd come to the house at one to quarter of milk that day or every day. We would grab the milk, run to the house, set it on the porch, or on the steps, grab the empty bottle, and run back to the pickup and go through our route that day. And we did that every morning, seven days a week because we had to deliver seven days a week. So that's how I grew up. And I stayed on the farm until I was about 16 years old.

Seth Paridon 

What happened when you were 16? Where'd you go?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

Well, my next brother up... by the way, there were 11 in our family, and I was the last to get here. And my brother next to me when he was 16, he was not particularly fond of farming. So he joined what was known in those days as the Civilian Conservation Corps. We called it the three Cs. And we had a number of those camps in West Virginia, so he joined one of those, and they were paying all the big sum of $21 a month at that time. So he went to a camp in West Virginia, and I'm about a year and a half, or not quite that, younger than he. So when I got to be 16, since he would come home every once in a while, and he'd have a little bit of money, I thought, "Well, I'm going to do that, so I can get some money." And of course my mother was not very happy with this young boy, but I went in when I was 16 thinking I would go to the same camp where he was.

Because I didn't know we had any others. And instead of that, they sent me to a different camp in West Virginia. Then eventually they sent me to a little town called Whitehall, Montana. I'll never get home. That's the end of me. There's no way I'll ever find my way back to West Virginia. That's where I was when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and there were about 265 of us in this camp. Young boys from many states, New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania. And most of them, of course, the East Coast.

But the CCCs were run by the military. They were run by the army. We had a commanding officer, and we had a first sergeant, and a master sergeant, and some clerks that did the office work, army boys. And they offered us the opportunity if we wanted to go straight into the army. I had two brothers that had already been drafted, they were drafted in 1941, and they were already sent to Europe. And I wasn't particularly fond of the Army uniform, I was more fond of the Marine Corps dressed blues uniform. So I decided I'm going to go to the one that has the nicest uniform. I didn't know about the Marine Corps, but I like the uniform.

Seth Paridon 

You are not the first Marine that's ever told me that, either, by the way. I just got to tell you, I've interviewed a lot of guys over my career here at the museum, and you are definitely not the lone ranger when it came to that. Well, so you joined the Corps to get a fancy blue suit. We understand that.

Hershel "Woody" Williams

That's right. You could find a girl in a blue suit, usually you couldn't with that old brown, and ugly thing that the army had to wear.

Seth Paridon 

No doubt. Well, when exactly did you join the Corps? When was this?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

I tried to go in and, well, just as soon as I got home from the CCCs, I still only 17 years old. I hadn't reached my 18 birthday yet. And my mother was still trying to run the farm because my dad had died when I was 11 years old. So, she was still trying to run the farm. And when I asked her if she would sign a paper, so I could go in the Marine Corps at 17, she said no, she needed me on the farm, and would not sign the paper.

Then, when I became 18 in October, so in November against her better wishes, I went to go into the Marine Corps. I didn't know anything about war, I didn't realize that I would even be leading the United States of America. My only thinking was at that time that all of us going into the military knowing nothing about what was happening overseas. Because we had no radio, we had no newspaper service, so we didn't know what was going on in the world. And I thought we just stayed in the United States. And I went in primarily to protect my freedom in our country, that's all I thought I was going to do. Never realizing that I would eventually end up in the South Pacific.

Seth Paridon 

Right. Well, tell me a little bit about your boot training. Marine Corps boot camp is infamous, especially during World War II. Being a farm boy, and having been in the CCCs, like you said, you had some experience with a rougher type of life, especially in the three Cs. But was what was bootcamp like for you though?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

Well, I and five other West Virginians in my group at that particular time, and we were not the only ones that this happened to. But the only two camps we had, or boot camps we had, was one in San Diego and Paris Island, South Carolina. So, the one in South Carolina was getting so many people wanting to be in the Marine Corps from the East coast that they couldn't handle all the people wanting in. They didn't have trained drill instructors to train them, didn't have housing to house them. So they began forming troop trains. They called it a troop train. And it started somewhere in the south. And the Z would come up through all the states of Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. It would pick up a few people that were going into the Marine Corps. And there were six of us in my little group that had been designated to go to San Diego, California for boot camp.

And of course we as West Virginia as we didn't even know they had a camp out there. In fact, we didn't know they had any camp anywhere. But we went to California, which is very unusual because most East Coast people go to Paris Island. So we ended up in California bootcamp. I didn't have any trouble with the bootcamp. And I think it would be because we were raised in such a way, that my dad before he died, was very firm in what he would tell you. And he wanted you to know that he would tell you only one time, he didn't want to have to repeat himself, and he would make that very clear to you. So we were used to taking orders, and doing whatever we were told to do. And when you got it in bootcamp, that's what you had to do. The drill instructor was telling you things that you were going to do, that you never dreamed that you would be doing.

But I didn't question that at all. He was the authority, he was the person that knew what he was doing. And fortunately, by the time I got in there in May 1943... I might add, that when I started, when I tried to get in November '42, they turned me down because I was too short at that time. I didn't growth any, they just changed the height requirements. So then in '43, they began taking individuals that were a little shorter than the normal. When I got to bootcamp in '43, a number of the drill instructors are individuals who had already been in combat. And had been brought back to the States, so they could train the new people with more realism than you could if you had never been in combat. And that was to our advantage greatly, because they could train us in a way that somebody who had never been there wouldn't even know what to do. I think by that.

Seth Paridon 

So these are guys who were in Guadalcanal, and places like that?

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

Correct. Yes.

Seth Paridon

What were some of the things that those guys combat veterans taught you that were beneficial to you later on?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

The primary thing that they taught us was we have got to win this war. We have got to win, or we're going to become a different country. And the only way you can win is to eliminate the other guy before he eliminates you. And you must do everything that you can within your power, not only to protect yourself, but to protect the man on your right, and the man on your left. You are responsible. You have a responsibility to those two individuals, as they do to you.

And that was a very basic thing that they taught us. And it built a relationship between people that I don't believe would've ever existed otherwise. Because it gave us a different concept of what our responsibility was in addition to winning, and doing everything we could to win. It gave us the responsibility of looking out for our fellow Marine. And I think that resulted in many instances where Marines actually sacrificed their lives for others, not for themselves. They did it to protect that individual on their right or their left. So that was, I think, extremely beneficial to all of us.

Seth Paridon 

And there's no higher calling than sacrificing yourself for those you love, that is for sure.

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

Yeah.

Seth Paridon 

Now, you were trained all Marine are trained as rifleman every, everybody knows that was. But did you get any specialized training in bootcamp, or did you get weapons training after bootcamp?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

After bootcamp, yes. When we graduated bootcamp, the first training that our group received, and it was a new thing at the time, was we began to get a lot of tanks in the Marine Corps. And nobody knew how to function with them. What do you do with them? If the tanks are leading a charge, what do you do as an individual accompanying that tank? So, we went to a place called Jack's Farm in California for a couple of months to teach us how we would work with tanks if we were called upon to do so.

And then, following that, we went into a very basic infantry training of how to fight in combat. And we did that for several months. Of course the conditioning hikes of 10, 20 miles, full pack, half pack, and all of that. That was to get you in shape so that you had enough strength, and energy, and knowledge that you could participate for long hours without giving up. So, on one of those 10 mile hikes, I got up one morning, and I had a high temperature. I had no idea what, because we didn't know how to take temperatures back in those days. We thought it had to be done by a professional, somebody with a thing that'd stick in your mouth.

But I woke up with a high temperature, feeling terrible, but I felt like I had to make that 10-mile hike. And I made it till noon, barely. But when we stopped for our lunch at noon, I passed out, and they called the ambulance and took my temperature, and I was running 105. And they slap me in an ambulance, and rushed me to the hospital on the base. And then they put ice around me to get my temperature down. A couple of days later, I recovered enough that the doctor said, "Well, we're going to have to take your tonsils out because they're terribly infected."

And a friend of one of my buddies in my platoon had come to visit me, and he had told me, he wasn't supposed to, but he did. That we were shipping out, and the day that we were leaving the United States to go to the Pacific. And I had that information, so I said to the doctor, "I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to leave because I want to go with my outfit." And he said, "We won't release you." And I said, "I'm going to go anyway." So he finally said, "Okay, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll let you go, but I'm going to give you a slip. And I want you, when you get aboard the ship, take it to the doctor, and it'll tell him that they need to remove your tonsils." Well, I don't know, whatever happened to that slip of paper, I still got my tonsils.

Seth Paridon

So you get aboard the ship... I like that, by the way. That's a good one. You get aboard ship, and are you going to Hawaii? Is that where you pick up the third division, or where do you go from there?

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

No, we go from California to a place called New Caledonia.

Seth Paridon

Okay.

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

And it was a French-owned island, and it was what they called a replacement center. As Marines were being shipped to the South Pacific, they would go to New Caledonia, and from there they would then be designated to go to whatever outfit they were going to serve with. So from New Caledonia, my group was designated to go with the 3rd Marine Division, which at the moment was having a fight on Bougainville. And we were to go to Bougainville to help them out because they'd lost so many people, both killed and wounded. And we were to join that battle. So they sent us to Guadalcanal first to outfit us, and get us all the equipment that we would need, because we didn't have any. And while we were there, the Marines on Bougainville overpowered the enemy, and sufficiently with that they could say that the island was secure. And the 3rd Marine Division then came to Guadalcanal, and that's where I joined them.

Seth Paridon

I have got you. So you're at boot really still, you're a Marine, but you've never seen anything other than California, and New Caledonia. How did those Bougainville veterans treat you when you got into that unit?

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

Very well. Marines had no difficulty in getting along with each other. There was that camaraderie that... well, I'm prejudice, I'll have to say that first of all. But I think there is a closeness between Marines because of the type of training that you receive, the emphasis that is put on your responsibility to each other. And so you just fit in, you just join, and you're a part of them, period.

Seth Paridon 

Yeah.

Hershel "Woody" Williams

But that's where we first got the flamethrower, we had never heard of the flamethrower, didn't know such a thing existed. And we got to Guadalcanal in December 1943. In January 1944, these huge wooden boxes or crates came to our company, and we had a number of them, I don't remember the number now, but had a great number of them. And we had no idea what was in them when they arrived. But we broke the crates open, and here's this piece of equipment that none of us had ever seen before. And it was a flamethrower, very strange looking piece of equipment. But it had a manual with it, that told us all the parts, and what fuel to use, and that sort of information. And how to take it apart and put it together, and how to service it, and what to use in it.

But it didn't have any instructions of how to use it in combat, what do you do with it? So, we had to figure that out by ourselves. And as a result of this new weapon, the company formed a new unit within the company called a Special Weapons Unit. And I was a rifleman, but I'd also been put in a squad where I had a Browning Automatic Rifle, a BAR, we called it, and I was the barman in the squad. And for whatever reason, they just selected six of us to be in this Special Weapons Unit, and I was one of those selected. So we began figuring out how to use it. And we had tested all kinds of stuff in it to see its effectiveness. It had with it when it arrived, a bag of powder, and some cellophane bag.

And it told how to mix that with gasoline, how much gasoline to mix with it, and it would turn it into a gel, almost like jello, except that it was sticky, real sticky. And it had phosphorus in it. So, we named it a phosphorus gel. Whether that was right or not, that was our own term we came up with. But we put that in the flamethrower, and of course put air on it, compressed air, which would force it out of the flamethrower. It was like shooting a water hose because it was just one steady stream. And the flamethrower with that stuff in it, or fuel, or whatever we used in them, they would weigh about 70 pounds. And it had what we called matches in the gun part of it, to set the fuel on flame as it came out of the weapon.

And this phosphorous gel, when we would shoot it, you couldn't name it because you're shooting from the hip, and it didn't last very long. And you couldn't get a whole lot of distance out of it because it was heavy gel. It had a lot of weight to it. So it wasn't really, in the opinion of my gunnery sergeant, very effective. So, he began experimenting with other kinds of fuel, gasoline and motor oil, and gasoline and kerosene, and gasoline and diesel fuel. And he finally came up with a mixture that diesel fuel and 82 octane gasoline, was pretty effective, but it still didn't have a great amount of heat to it. And where he got the idea? I have no idea, but he decided that if we had some airplane gasoline, which was about 130 octane, that we could mix with diesel fuel. It would be more effective, you'd have more heat, and you could get more distance out of the flamethrower.

So he went someplace, somehow got a 55 gallon drum of airplane gasoline. And that's what we started using and mixing, and that's eventually what we ended up with. And if you fired the flamethrower, it would only last 72 seconds. So you had to be very conservative in what you were doing in the way of length of firing it.

If you would fire it onto the ground about 15 yards in front of you, and roll it like a great big red fireball, you could roll it for another 15 or 20 yards, and it would still be burning. And the flame then would just engulf whatever you were shooting at, a pillbox, a person, a cave or whatever. And so that's what we finally ended up with.

Seth Paridon

And you were shooting in bursts, though, weren't you? Or you just holding it down?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

Two or three second bursts.

Seth Paridon

Like a machine gun, like an automatic equipment?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

Exactly right. Yeah. Otherwise, you're just wasting it. After it does its damage, why follow through with more flame? It's already done its damage. Because the minute it hits at burning of somewhere around, 3500 °F, there's nothing can survive that. So once it hit, you could stop your burst.

Seth Paridon

Right. No doubt. Before you get to Iwo, you went to Guam too, did you not? Before you went, Iwo Jima.

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

Yeah. We were on Guam of course, from, as I said in December. And the 3rd Division came in January. We were there until June on Guadalcanal, and then we shipped out, didn't know where we were going. But once we got aboard ship, they told us that we were going to be reserve to the 2nd Marine Division that was hitting Saipan. So we were way out in the ocean, didn't see anything, couldn't hear anything at Saipan. But we were there for several days, I don't remember the number, but quite some time. And they never did need us, they never did call us in. So we sailed then off Saipan back to the Marshall Islands, which had already been taken by Marines, and refurbished our ship because we'd eaten up everything on the ship. And refurbished our ship, and still didn't know where we were going to go.

When we got back aboard ship, then they told us that we were going to take Guam back from the Japanese. And most of us didn't know that the Japanese had even taken it. In 1942, we didn't have that information. But we were going to take Guam. So on July the 14th we landed at Guam, and of course, the Japanese occupied the island, and they were well reinforced. One of our advantages was that they couldn't dig caves to any degree on Guam because of the coral rock.

So the flamethrower really was not used to any degree on Guam. I never used one at all. I carried it for several days to start with, because we didn't know what kind of territory we were going to involve. Then finally, after about four or five days, the commanding officer decided we didn't need the flamethrower because now we're going into the jungle. And it was so thick, there were places that we were even issued machetes, so we could cut our ways through the jungle. So flamethrower just were not effective, or would not have been effective. So I never used one.

Seth Paridon 

So the first time you used it as a weapon was on Iwo Jima, which would've been what? This is July, so six months later?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

Yeah, that would've been February of '45.

Seth Paridon

Well, let's get to Iwo, Woody. Tell me, you guys were reserved for Iwo Jima too, but the casualties were so dang bad that you guys had to get a shore?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

Yes. On the way to Iwo Jima, on the ship, we got some briefings. They would call us up on top deck, and have us sit, and they would brief us a little bit about what was going on. And they brought out a board of a 4 x 8 board of some kind, that they had drawn the image of the shape of Iwo Jima, and they talked about Iwo Jima. Had very little intelligence about Iwo Jima because nobody had ever been on the island, but they did tell us how big it was, that it was about two miles wide, five miles long. Didn't have any idea how many Japanese were on the island, didn't know that they had miles and miles of tunnels. They didn't have that information, didn't know how many pillboxes they had on the island, but that we were the reserve to two other marine divisions. And they were going to hit first, they were going to go shore on the day of the attack.

I don't even remember that they told us what day that was. It was the 19th of February, but I don't think they told us that. But we were a reserve, and we'd probably not get off the ship, but we were there in case they needed us, just like at Saipan. And that it probably would last three to five days, and then we'd go back to Guam where we left our tent, and all of our belongings. So we were way out in the ocean again, we couldn't see anything. Occasionally we'd hear an explosion, I think it was the big guns on the battle wagons that we were hearing. But occasionally, from the top deck of the ship, you could hear an explosion. But we still didn't know what was happening on the island.

There was no broadcast telling us, giving us a rundown of what was taking place. But midnight of the first day over the loudspeaker of the ship, the word came that we were going to go shore, and that we would've chow at 0300. And I've never fully understood, and I've never had anybody that could adequately explain to me, why do you eat steak eggs just before you're going into combat. But that's what we had that morning. We'd never had steak and eggs with the navy before, but they gave us steak and eggs that morning. So we got off the ship just before dawn in the Higgins boats, and there were 30, 35 of us in the Higgins boat. But we had a storm someplace in the Pacific, and it wasn't storming where we were, but the waves from that storm were still coming through, and they were running about 10 feet waves.

So those Higgins boats were just going up and down like a cork. But we got off, went down ropes on the ship to get in the Higgins boats. And then they took us out in the middle of the ocean someplace, and started to run the viewing running around in a circle. And there were 12, 15 Higgins boats in a group. That was the wave, that's what they called first wave, second wave, third wave. We were going around in circles waiting for the people on the shore to signal that we should come in, or could come in. So we did that all day. Never did get the call from the shore to come in because the Marines were pinned to the beach, and there was no room for us. There were already so many Marines there, that there was no place for us to go.

So they took us back aboard ship that night, and went through the same rigmarole the next morning. I think we're the only group in the world that the Navy ever served steak and eggs twice in a row. I like to think that, anyway. But then we disembarked again before dawn, and went back to the rendezvous area. And then a little before noon, the Marines on the beach had been able to break through, and head to Mount Suribachi. That gave us room, so we would've some place to land when we got there. So we went in actually on the 21st of February. So, the battle was two days old when we got there.

Seth Paridon 

So your actions for which you were awarded that medal that's hanging around your neck right now, occurred two days later, on the 23rd?

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

That is correct. Yes.

Seth Paridon 

Can you tell us about that?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

Yes. The first airfield that we hit, of course you had to cross the airfield because it covered such a space that you had to go across it to advance. And going across the airfield, you had no protection. The only protection you might find would be a shell crater who we had bombed the airfield. And there would be a small hole in the ground, maybe 6 or 8 feet in diameter, but not very deep. And you'd run, and get in one of those holes. That was the only protection that you could find. So as we would jump up, and run from hole to hole, or try to cross the airfield, we lost a tremendous number of our Marines in our company. Because they were set up to protect the airfield, and these pillboxes were built in such a way that they had opened fire on all the airfield.

And they also were built in a pod of three, so that if you approach one pillbox, one of the others could also see you, so they could get you in a crossfire. So once we got across the airfield, then we began to try to advance to take those pillboxes, or at least eliminate the enemy within them. And as we would jump up, and run toward the pillbox, they had an open field of fire, and we didn't. All we had was the aperture in the front of the pillbox, and the pill boxes were built out of reinforced concrete. So a bazooka couldn't even dent them much. And a rifle didn't do anything, of course, to try to penetrate two foot of concrete. So the only target we had was this aperture in the front where they were shooting out of. So they got a great number of us as we would several times try to advance, and we'd have to back off, try again, back off, lose Marines every time.

So a little before noon of that day, my commanding officer had lost all of his officers except two. Most of our squad leaders were gone, we were chaotic, our formations were just chaotic. No more real organization within the group. But I was in headquarters company at that time, and my job as the corporal was to supply the six marines that were in that Special Weapons Unit with flamethrower or demolitions when they needed them. And when the commanding officer or the platoon leader would say, "We need this cave sealed, or we need a flamethrower on this pillbox." They would then come and get the material that they needed, whatever it was. And it was my job to make sure everything was ready to go when they needed it. But by that day, a little before noon, those six marines were no longer existent.

I didn't have any, I didn't know whether they had been killed, or wounded because it was so chaotic. There was no information being passed around to tell who was getting hit, who was getting killed. None of that ever funneled down to us. And my company commander called for a meeting of all of the non-commissioned officers. As a corporal, I was not one, I had to be a sergeant or above to be a non-commissioned officer. And so I wasn't going to go, didn't include me, I didn't think. But my first sergeant, who was still living at that time, told me, "You are to go." So I joined the group, and we formed in a great big shell crater that probably a battle wagon explosive had created. So that we could get down below ground level, so that they couldn't continue to shoot at us.

And we formed in that hole, and there, as I recall looking in my mind, I see around that hole 12,15 of we, Marines. And the company commander was talking to us trying to figure out, what we're going to do. Then, he asked me if I thought I could do something with the flamethrower. I was the only one left in my company, and I have no idea what I said. When we got back to Guam, some of the Marines in that had been in that group said that I had replied, "I'll try." So he gave me four Marines to give me from protection, and told me to pick four Marines. I picked four, picked two out of my own squad that I had been serving with. And I picked two other Marines, I had no idea who they were, where they were from or who they belonged to. It was just Marines.

And I picked those two, and set them up where I wanted to put them, so that they could shoot at the pillbox to give me some protection, as I would try to get to it with a flamethrower. So I went to work, that was my job, I wasn't doing anything special. I was doing what I'd been trained to do by other Marines. And had they not trained me, I shouldn't have done it. So, over a period of about four hours, much of which I do not remember, is just as blank as can be. But over a period of about four hours, I was able to eliminate the enemy within seven of those pillboxes. And in the process, those two marines that I'd selected, that I didn't know, sacrificed their lives, they were killed that day protecting me.

I didn't know that. I had no knowledge of that until after we got back to Guam. Still didn't know who they were, what outfit they belonged to, or anything else. And few of those instances during that four hours are so vivid in my mind. I'll never get rid of them. I'll take them with me when I go. And some I completely have no memory of. And I've always attributed that a little bit to fear, yet I realized I think I did then, and I certainly do now. That you can't maneuver, you can't operate under fear, it won't work. If fear takes over your being, you cannot function. But yet, I think I didn't want to remember it, or fear took it away, or whatever, but there's just much of it I don't remember.

Seth Paridon

Tell us, if you don't mind, if you'd like to, can you tell us about a couple of the things that you do remember from that incident?

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

One of them, of course, it's still very vivid in my mind. I was approaching the pillbox, I was crawling all my belly, and I was crawling up a ditch. And this is still very vivid in my mind after all these 75 years. I was crawling up this ditch, because I wanted to get close enough that I could fire the flame into the pill box where they were shooting out of the pillbox with a machine gun, they called it a Nambu. It was a 31 caliber machine gun, really. But they called it a Nambu. And it fired more rounds per minute than our 30 caliber did. And they were pretty smart in many, many ways. They made that thing a 31 caliber machine gun, which meant they could use our 30 caliber ammunition. So, if they could catch a marine that had a [?] on him with 30 caliber machine weapons or bullets, they could take that, and they could use that against us. We couldn't use their 31 in our weapon, it wouldn't work.

But they were shooting at me with this Nambu, and it reached a point where the Nambu bullets were ricocheting off of my flamethrower. And I can remember the noise, not only the noise but the vibration, but I kept crawling forward. And then I saw a little bit of smoke coming out of the top of this pillbox. It was a large pillbox, I can remember that. So they had piled sand up on top of the pillboxes to protect the pillbox if you dropped a bomb on it, or a piece of artillery on it. It would land in the sand, and not hit the structure itself, which would take the shock away. And when they did that, the sand, of course, they were throwing it up on the pillbox, and it was sloped off of the pillbox.

So I crawled up the side of the pillbox where that little curl of smoke was. Because I figured it was some opening up there, and maybe I could get my flame in the pillbox through that. And sure enough, when I got up there, here's this little pipes sticking up out of the top. Because they cooked, they ate, they lived in that pillbox, so they used charcoal as their fuel, and of course it had smoke to it. So they put that pipe in there to take the smoke out of the pillbox, and that, or something, was causing that smoke to come out. Probably smoke from the ammunition, but I don't know that. But I put the flame down, that little pipe that was in the top of it, and of course eliminated the enemy with him. So that's still very vivid.

One other occasion when I was approaching a pillbox, and I was almost close enough that I could farm a flamethrower, when they came charging out of the pillbox. Their back door to the pillbox was on the back side, and they came charging out. The number, I have no idea, and there was just bodies. That's all that's in my mind. I just see several bodies running toward me with rifles, and bayonets, and I hit them with a burst of flame, and of course they're gone. Those are the two most vivid things that stick in my mind that day.

Seth Paridon

Amazing. During that day, and then the succeeding days afterward, what was Iwo like for you after that? What was going on?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

After we broke through these seven pillbox areas, that gave us a route that we got through. And once we started funneling through there, we had the advantage instead of them. So, once we got behind the pillbox, then they couldn't escape. There was no place for them to go unless they came out the back door. And if they came out of the back door, or the back opening of the pillbox, they were running into Marines. So we had all the advantage after that. But we were still so chaotic in the way of organization, that I just selected five other guys, five other Marines.

Now, why I did this? I have no memory, whether somebody told me to do it, whether I did it on my own. I don't know, I do not recall. But there were six of us in this group, formed a squad, and we began advancing forward toward the north end of the island. That was our objective. Our mission was to take the island, and reach where the ocean hit the north end, and then we would have the island secured. So I just took those five other Marines, and off we go, and if we'd encounter the enemy, then we'd do our best to eliminate him, and keep on moving. So we finally ended up at the north end days afterward.

Seth Paridon 

By the way, just so you know. You got a lot of fans in the audience here. Everybody is telling you hi, and everything else. But I'm going to ask you this. So, this is a blanket question, and I already know the answer to it, but I'm just going to ask it to you anyway for the sake of the audience. What about the flag raising? Did you see it? Did you hear about it? What did you know about the flag raising on Iwo?

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

I knew nothing about it until, this was just before we crossed the airfield on the 23rd February. We're right at the edge of the airfield waiting for whatever orders we're going to get to move. And we had tried to dig some holes, foxholes, but we're in that soft sand or ashes, and it was almost impossible to dig a hole because of… Like digging holes in BBs, or loose corn. You could get some indentation, but you couldn't really form a foxhole. But that's where we were. And all of a sudden these marines around me began saying something, yelling something about a flag. And some of them got up, and began firing their weapons in the air, just shooting into the air. That's the first thing that I noticed. But they're all looking back over my back, or back over my shoulder toward Mount Suribachi.

I didn't even know anything about Mount Suribachi at that point in time. As far as I'm concerned, it was just a hill. Looked like a West Virginia hill, but it was just a hill. But I noticed this, and then I looked around, and here's Old Glory flying up on top of that hill. And so monkey see, monkey do, I began firing my weapon a few times just celebrating that's what we were doing. But it was one of those things that probably couldn't have happened at a more appropriate time to lift the spirits of the Marines.

Because when we landed on the beach just a couple of days before that, everything was blown up, scattered all over the beach. There were packs laying everywhere, there were all kinds of medical stuff strewn all over the sand. But the thing that sticks more with me than anything else, is when I got off of the Higgins boat, the first thing I saw were stacks of Marines rolled in ponchos right along the beach edge. Because we had no place to bury them. And yet we had lost such a tremendous number in the first few days. And that memory has never gone away.

Eventually, of course, we did take a bulldozer, or they did, the engineers, and dig a trench. And put them in trenches, covered them over, and temporary cemetery stretched the rope, and put a dog tag in front of each marine. And then eventually they built three different cemeteries on the island for each division. So each division could have their own buried in their own cemetery. But some of those memories will never go away.

Seth Paridon 

Okay. I can understand. Tell us, when did you hear that you were going to be awarded the Medal of Honor?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

In fact, Iwo Jima and following, I had never heard of the Medal of Honor. I didn't know such a thing existed. The only clue that I had that something was happening, was, I was sitting in my tent one day, and this individual didn't know him. He stuck his head in the tent opening, and said, is there a Williams in here? And my bunk was the first one on the right. And I said, "Yeah, I'm Williams." And he said, "Well, I'm from Salem, West Virginia." And we had no West Virginians in my outfit at all, but none, part I was concerned, as far as I'm concerned, I was the only West Virginia in the whole outfit. So he said, "I'm from Salem, West Virginia, and I am in regiment." In other words, the next unit up, the bigger unit up. And he said, "I just typed up something to get you a medal." And I said, "What medal?" And he said, "I don't know." And then he left. I never did see him again. Don't even know who he was. So I thought, at that point in time, it was my Purple Heart.

I had not received, or none of us had received our Purple Hearts from Iwo yet when that happened. And so I figured that, that must be the Purple Heart. I did know about a Purple Heart, because some of the individuals in our outfit had been, as I said, on Bougainville, so some of them had Purple Hearts. So I knew about those. But nothing else happened, didn't hear anything from anybody. I do remember some people coming around, and talking to other people in our company about what happened on Iwo Jima. But I was told it was to get the history of what had happened. So, in September of '45, my first sergeant called me to his tent, and told me that I should get in my khaki pants and shirt, and tie, had to wear a tie. And that I was going to go see the general.

Seth Paridon

And where were you at this time? You were on Guam still?

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

Yeah, I was on Guam.

Seth Paridon

Okay.

Hershel "Woody" Williams

And I said, "What for?" And I won't tell you what he said, but he said, "I don't know." But anyway, he said, "That's what I've told. Go get your khaki on." Well, we wore khaki every Saturday morning for inspection. So every Saturday morning we had to iron our khaki. We had one iron in the tent, and we had built a little table around the flagpole or the tent pole, so we could iron our khaki, and have the little crease in them and have all the wrinkles out. Then we'd have to stick them back in our sea bag. And I'd just wrinkle back up again, because we didn't have any lockers, or anything like that. So I went, and got my khaki out, and ironed him up, and went back to his tent. And when I got there, there was a Jeep waiting for me, and had a little marine drive in the Jeep.

So I got in the Jeep, and I'd never been to the general's area, that was off ground as far as we were concerned. So he drove me to the general's camp, which was quite a distance away, several miles away. And when I got there, there was a colonel standing out in front of the tent, and I got out of the Jeep, saluted the colonel on, and he said, "Here's what you do." Gave me my instructions. "When you walk into the general's tent, take your cover off. You don't wear a cover, and walk up to his desk door. He had a desk in there, stand his attention until he tells you what to do." So I walked in, and he had a red rug on his ground, it wasn't his floor, but he had a red rug on his floor. That amazed me. I remember that.

So I walked up to his desks, and said, "Corporal Williams reporting, sir." And he said, "Stand at ease." So he said, "You are going back to the United States, you're going to the White House." If he mentioned the words Medal of Honor, I didn't catch it. I'd never heard of it. So if he said it, I wouldn't know what he was talking about. But I don't even remember him saying anything about the Medal of Honor. The thing that kept running around in my mind, "I get to go home. I don't care what he says after that, I'm going back home." So he congratulated me, and she actually shook my hand, and then handed me a big envelope, and told me I was to report to Washington on October the 3rd. And that you were excused. I walked back up, got in the Jeep, and went back to the tip. That's all I knew.

They of course notified the first sergeant that I was to be at the airport. Had a wee little airport on Guam at that time, and it was still dirt, didn't have any pavement on it, it was just a dirt airport. That I was to report to the airport, and I'd catch a plane, and then I would be flying to Hawaii, and then from Hawaii I'd go to the States. That's all I knew. So I still didn't know what the middle order was. I wasn't even sure why I was going to Washington, although my order said that's where I was stand up on the 3rd. And to be truthful with you, I didn't know Marine Corps headquarters was in Washington, I didn't know where it was. I'm a corporal, corporals don't know anything.

But one of the vivid memories that still sticks with me, and gives me a tremendous respect for the Americans that were captured as prisoners of war, and survived that terrible period in their life. When I got to Hawaii, I was told by the first Sergeant there that the prisoners of war were being picked up in Japan, and being flown back to the States, and that they had first priority on any airplane. So it might be days before I could get out of there. And that was true. I was there about seven days before they could get a seat on an airplane. And finally, an airplane was flying from Hawaii to someplace in Michigan that I learned later. And we've been sitting in the waiting room for hours and hours, and it was wee hours of the morning, something around two o'clock. My first sergeant came to get me, and he said, "Come on, I got a seat for you on an airplane."

I walked out of the airport, and on Guam, we weren't even allowed to smoke a cigarette out of our tent because of the possibility that the Japanese could still see the end of the cigarette blaze. And all lights were turned off, kept dark. We had total blackout when it got dark. But here was this huge airplane, and all the bright lights shining on, it looked huge. If there's a word larger than huge, to me, it looked tremendous. And that was the plane I was going to get on. And it had steps, I remember going up, and I walked up the steps, when I stepped inside the airplane here I was a group of individuals.

There were supposed to be 50 on the airplane, and there were only 49, I didn't know that at that moment. But they were the happiest group of people I think I've ever seen in my life. Some of those guys been there for five years, and four years, three years. And they were so emaciated, their eye eyeballs, their eye sockets were sunk in, their bones were all showing, men had weighed 160, now weighed 80 and 90 pounds. It was just such a vision. But it was the happiest group of people, I believe because they're going home.

And finally, the plane took off, and I got the first seat, up front, and I'm sitting by a former prisoner of war that had been in a prisoner for several years. And I was of course curious about that, because I knew nothing about it, and I was asking him questions about it. He explained to me that, that group was working in a coal mine. And that you had to walk into the coal mine, and then you had to dig coal all day and walk back out, and they, on the way back up, if you couldn't make it, you were gone. He was explaining all that to me. But then he finally made a statement that I've used many times, and still remember very vividly, "You'll never really know what freedom is until you have lost it." That has stuck.

Seth Paridon 

I can imagine that. I think that's an untold story, I don't want to say untold, but that's not a very well-known story of World War II. Especially in the Pacific as the American prisoners... well, any allied prisoners of war, and the way they were mistreated, that's something that people should learn about, for sure. Woody, we're starting to run a little short on time, but let me ask you something, and I want to get to your cause too here in just a minute, but I just want to ask you one final question. That medal that hangs around your neck, what does that medal represent to you? What does that Medal of Honor mean to you personally?

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

Once I learned, and it was years later that I did. That these two Marines had sacrificed their lives protecting mine, even though I didn't know who they were, I said at that time, and continued to say afterward, "I wear it in their honor, not mine." They sacrifice more for this medal than I did. So it absolutely changes the life of any individual who receives it. You take on a personality, a responsibility, that you would never have had, had you not been awarded the Medal of Honor. And one of the things that makes me feel so grateful, is that my commanding officer, and four other Marines, were willing to put themselves out, do all the work, make all the effort that I would receive the Medal of Honor.

I would not be the possessor of this medal, if those individuals not been willing to do what they did to make it possible. So, I wear it in their honor, not mine. I was just doing that which Marines had trained me to do, and I couldn't have not done it any other way. So any time that I wear it, and I certainly do not wear it just to be wearing it. There's got to be a purpose for me to wear it. And when I wear it, I'm always very conscious of the fact that I have it because of what others did for me.

Seth Paridon 

Thank you. Now, you're getting onto a different but a similar topic, woody. You're very passionate about a project that you are currently involved in, and you're spearheading this project, I know. It's for the Gold Star families. Can you tell the people watching this, what is it? Tell us about this. What is this project, and why does it mean so much to you?

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

Well, just before going into the Marine Corps, I'd already quit my job. Because I thought when I enlisted, I'd just go. But there were so many people wanting into the Marine Corps, we had a waiting time, we had a waiting list of about three months. So we were only taking back at that time something like two Marines, or two people in the Marine Corps, from a county in West Virginia. So that's why this group that I was in was six. We were taken from three different counties, and before going in, since I quit my job, I needed something to do to earn some money because I didn't have any. And I began driving a taxi cab. I had a school friend that he and I go into grade school together, and he was a dispatcher for a cab company. And he got me a job driving a taxi from 6:00 in the evening till 6:00 in the morning.

And at that time, the country was beginning to receive notices of those being sacrificed in the combat. And the only way we had of telling the families at that time, was the war department would send a notice to the Western Union office. The Western Union office would put it on a telegram, and they would call the cab company for a cab driver to deliver that telegram to the family. So I'm working evenings, I've begun getting some of those telephone calls, and they'd call me in and say, "We got a telegram to be delivered to so-and-so." They didn't know what it was when they told me to deliver it, I didn't know what it was when I received it. It was an envelope, and it had a War Department address on it. But that didn't mean any particular thing to me until I delivered some of those. And they were the notice to the families that their loved one had been killed. Actually, I'm only 18 years old and very shy, very bashful.

And in my day, you would never dare try to comfort a lady that you didn't know, that was something you just didn't do. I wouldn't have done it anyway, because I was so shy. But there had been enough of those being received that the community in which I lived, when they saw the telegram, they already knew what it was. So you were supposed to get a signature that they'd gotten the telegram. So I'd knock on the door and ring the bell, and they'd come to the door, and I'd hand them the telegram with something to sign. And very often they'd break down, they knew what it was. That had a tremendous impact on me. It was so emotional and so sad. So that blasted forever.

And then I had a friend that he and I went to school together for seven years, walked back and forth every school day for seven straight years. He lived past my house, so he had to walk by my house, so we could get to the school. And Leonard Brown, he and I were very close, actually, I think closer than probably my own brothers because we hung out together more. And I wanted Leonard to go in the Marine Corps with me, and he said no, he wanted to go in the Army Air Forces. He liked the airplanes. So he went in his direction, and I went in mine, we never corresponded, didn't know where each other was.

I didn't know anything about him. But he became a nose gunner on a B-24 over the Philippines, and got hit with some [?], and severely wounded, and died four days later, and was buried in the Philippines. I didn't know any of that until I got home. When I got home, Mr. And Mrs. Brown, Mr. Brown particularly was a surrogate father to me because my father died, as I said, at 11. So I talked to Mr. Brown more than I talked to my brothers. They wouldn't pay attention to me, but Mr. Brown would listen to me. And so I went to see them shortly after I got home, and hanging in their window was a blue star and a gold star. I didn't know what they were, so I asked what they were. And one of them was for Leonard's brother Brian, who was still in the army. And the gold star was for Leonard, who never got to come home. So that left an impact.

And of course, Mrs. Brown was still grieving. This happened in 44, but she was still grieving in 45, hadn't gone away. And she couldn't hard talk about without crying. So that left an impact. And then, in later years, our country began recognizing to some small degree Gold Star mothers, and some organization was formed, and some communities erected something in tribute, or honor, of Gold Star mothers. And working with the Veterans Administration as a veterans' counselor after the war, and then during the Korean War, and during the Vietnam War. I was dealing with those families that lost a loved one in the Armed forces, combat or otherwise. So that was something that was almost constant during the war periods. So, that certainly left an impact upon my mind.

But I finally realized that our country, as great as we are, as compassionate as we are as a people, we have never done anything to honor the families of all of those who have sacrificed their lives in the armed forces. Now, we've done a great job in honoring veterans. We've got veterans memorials for veterans all over this country, and every form you can think of. But we did not have anything that honored the families, the extended families, the armed forces only deal with the immediate family. They don't deal with anybody else. So the aunts, and the uncles, and the grandmas and grandpas and cousins, and those people were never really involved in these losses because it was strictly immediate family.

And it finally came to me that we needed to do something in this country to honor those families. In West Virginia, we've got a memorial on our capital grounds that has better than 11,000 names on them, every one of those sacrificed their life in the armed forces in some fashion. And we had never done anything, never said anything, never paid any tribute, or nothing for those families.

And I decided we needed something to do that. And I was on a committee, we were working on a veteran's cemetery at the time, trying to figure out where to put what. I suggested that we do something like that in the cemetery, and they said, "Well, the committee said it's a great idea, come up with something." So I came up with a memorial, took it back, and they approved it. And we did the first Gold Star families memorial in the Donald C. Kinnard Vietnam Veteran Seven Purple Hearts in the whole United States of America. And we thought we were done, because we thought we had done for our people what we should have done a long time ago. But other places began to figure out, "Well, we haven't done anything either. We've never done anything, paid any tribute, said anything about all these sacrifices." So it began to grow, and other communities throughout the country began to saying, "Well, we need one of those in our community too."

So we formed a foundation to guide the thing along. And West Virginia right now has seven, in seven communities. We've got five more in the process someplace in West Virginia. Ohio has 10 and more coming. Texas had a bunch. So they're scattered all over the country from Hawaii to California, Florida to New York, and all over. So right now we have 60 communities in this country that have erected a memorial, Gold Star Family Memorial Monument to honor those loved ones, and to pay tribute to those families. There's 68 more of them in process somewhere in this country. And we're in 46 states, which says the American people have a big heart. They are a compassionate group of people, which goes back to our beginning, back to our days when that's what everybody was talking about in the early times of forming our country.

That's why we have all of these things that says God is our supreme being the father of our country, our own father, and American people have never forgotten that it's in our blood. So, eventually I know we'll get all of the 50 states that we have, and there will be many, many communities within those states that will direct these memorials to pay tribute to these people who sacrifice more than any of us. Regardless of what that sacrifice may have been, theirs was greater.

Seth Paridon

Woody, I'm going to ask you real quick, and we're going to take just two questions before we wrap it up. What can we do to help? Where can we go to help your cause here, is there a website? Is there someone we should email? What should we do?

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

We have a terrific website, and it's www.hwwmohf.org.

Seth Paridon

Okay.

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

So you go www.hww, that's for Hershel "Woody" Williams. And then of course Medal of Honor Foundation.

Seth Paridon 

Got it.

Hershel "Woody" Williams

So if they go to that, it's a great website that Chad Graham, the president of this foundation, has basically spearheaded, and got set up, and he runs the office. And does all the dealing with the communities, and the committees, and those communities.

Seth Paridon

Now, Woody, before we wrap it up, I need to ask you a couple of questions from the crowd here, and bear with me here. Okay, this one is from Jared. This is a good one. How big is your team when you're using a flamethrower?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

Normally, we would have one person using the flamethrower, period. In the early beginnings, we had what we called a pole charge man, who was to have a pole piece of lumber with explosive on the end of it. And we called him pole charge man because that's what we call it, was a pole charge. That if we burned out a cave, or a pillbox, he was to follow the flamethrower operator, and put the explosive in the cave or the pillbox, set it off, to make sure that everybody in there was gone. But we didn't always have a pole charge man, sometimes we didn't have one. So, I had one that started with me on that day, but he got hit in the helmet, a bullet hit him straight in the helmet just before we even got started. So he was out of the ballgame. I didn't have a pole charge man after that. I did it my own.

Seth Paridon

I have got you. One more question, and again, I already know the answer to this, but I think a lot of people want to hear it from you. Do you feel the job that you performed was an example of an ordinary person performing in an extraordinary manner?

Hershel "Woody" Williams

Yes, I do. Yet, I think every flamethrower operator, and every company had flamethrower operators. So every flamethrower operator, I'm sure, would feel the same way, that this is my job. I'm not doing anything other than my job. If I'm a machine gunner, I'm doing my job. If I'm a motorman, I'm doing my job. So as far as being, doing something that is beyond what you would normally be expected to do, I don't think any of us felt that way.

Seth Paridon

That's exactly what I knew you would say. Still, it's good to hear from your own mouth. Well, Woody, I want to thank you very, very, very much for coming on with us this morning. And like I said in the beginning, I wish it was face to face, but hey, this'll work for now, and we'll see again. And I want to thank everybody who's tuned in.

Hershel "Woody" Williams 

Thank you for giving me this opportunity, and listening to me all this time. And thank all the folks who are involved in this, and we greatly appreciate it because we must not forget our history. There is a saying, "If we forget our history, we have a tendency to repeat it."

Seth Paridon 

That is exactly the point.

Hershel "Woody" Williams

Let's never, ever forget it.

Jeremy Collins

Thanks for listening. We encourage you to visit nationalww2museum.org/podcasts for more episodes. That is national, W-W, the number two, museum.org/podcasts. Don't forget to check out the events tab on our homepage at nationalww2museum.org as well to catch some of these conversations and programs in real time.

The museum is marking a special year here in New Orleans, coming at the end of 2023. We will be unveiling our capstone addition to our campus Liberation Pavilion. The pavilion will cover the closing months of the war, and the post-war years, exploring the links between World War II and today.

Equally important, the museum has the privilege, and honor, of hosting the 2023 Congressional Medal of Honor Society's Annual Convention, taking place in New Orleans from October 31st to November 4th. The convention is one of our country's most prestigious and patriotic events, providing unique opportunities for the public to engage with Medal of Honor recipients. Learn more at cmohs.org.

This series is made possible by the Albert and Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation, which supports content like this from the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. Please remember to rate, and subscribe. It goes a long way to helping others find this series. I'm Jeremy Collins, signing off.