William David Halyburton Jr.

He gave his life shielding a wounded Marine from enemy fire.

William David Halyburton Jr. was born at Canton, North Carolina, on 2 August 1924 and grew up in Wilmington. He attended New Hanover High School, played sports and was active in his church. Interested in the ministry, he planned his studies around that calling, but the Second World War interrupted the course he had expected his life to take.

In August 1943 he joined the hospital corps of the Naval Reserve. He trained at Bainbridge and completed specialist medical preparation before serving in naval medical establishments. More than a year of training preceded his assignment to the Pacific. His job with the Marines was to give immediate care where men were wounded, often without the protection available in a hospital.

Halyburton served with the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, during the Okinawa campaign. On 10 May 1945 the company advanced through a strategically important draw into heavy Japanese fire. An advance squad became pinned down in an exposed field, taking casualties from mortars, machine guns and snipers.

His official Medal of Honor citation describes Halyburton moving across the draw and up the slope toward the wounded man farthest from safety. While he administered first aid, another bullet hit his patient. Halyburton deliberately placed his own body between the Marine and the incoming fire and continued treating him. He remained there until he received mortal wounds himself. The citation recognizes the decision to keep protecting a helpless patient despite the direct threat to his own life (official citation: https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/william-d-halyburton).

Halyburton was twenty when he died. There was no later civilian career or return to the studies he had intended to pursue. His two brothers, Bob and Joe, also served in the Navy during the war. On 8 May 1946, Rear Admiral John Shafroth presented his posthumous Medal of Honor to them at Bayfront Park in Miami.

His remains were eventually interred in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Honolulu. He had entered the Navy as a young man planning a life in the ministry. His final service instead took place beside an infantry patient on an exposed Okinawan hillside, where he continued giving medical help until he was mortally wounded.