Beyond the Call: Medal of Honor Stories

Welcome to Beyond the Call, where history, leadership, and heroism come alive. Today’s story explores Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class William David Halyburton Junior at Awacha Draw on Okinawa in 1945, a powerful account of courage and responsibility in combat. If you enjoy learning more about military history and extraordinary individuals, you can find more articles, podcasts, and resources at Trackpads dot com.

The island of Okinawa was already a place of exhaustion and attrition when Halyburton’s Marine company moved toward a ravine called Awacha Draw in May 1945. The southern half of the island was carved into ridges, gullies, and reverse slopes that hid interlocking Japanese positions. Every dozen yards of ground seemed to demand its own small battle. In one sector, the second battalion, fifth Marines, of the first Marine Division faced a particular challenge, a deep cut in the terrain that had been turned into a killing ground. Beyond the Call is the Monday feature of Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine. For Halyburton, that ravine would become the place where his training, faith, and sense of duty all converged.

On the morning of the attack, the company stepped off to cross the draw and seize the heights beyond. At first the slope looked like many others they had seen on Okinawa, rough but passable, with scattered brush and rock. Then the ridgeline ahead erupted as mortar shells crashed into the hillside and machine guns swept the open ground. Snipers added their own sharp reports, picking at any movement that broke cover. Within moments, the advance squad was pinned down and men began to fall, some motionless, others calling for help from exposed positions. The draw turned into a trap.

William Halyburton’s path to that hillside began in North Carolina years earlier. He was born in the small town of Canton in 1924 and later moved with his family to Wilmington, where he finished at New Hanover High School. Church life and close community ties shaped his early years, giving him a strong sense of service and responsibility. He went on to attend Davidson College, a quiet liberal arts campus far from the Pacific, where study and campus routine offered a very different future from the one he eventually walked into. The war kept pressing in through news of battles overseas and friends entering uniform. It narrowed his choices in a way every young person of that generation understood.

In August 1943, Halyburton left college and entered the United States Naval Reserve. At the Naval Training Center in Bainbridge, Maryland, he endured the usual mix of drills, inspections, and basic seamanship that turned civilians into sailors. He was selected for training as a hospital corpsman, a role that demanded both academic focus and emotional steadiness. At hospital corps school he learned how to stop bleeding, treat shock, splint broken limbs, and keep wounded men alive long enough to reach surgeons. Later field medical training with units supporting the Marine Corps taught him to do all of this under fire, moving with rifle companies and using terrain for cover. By late 1944 he had been promoted to pharmacist’s mate second class and assigned to a Marine rifle company in the Pacific.

When the first Marine Division landed on Okinawa on April first, 1945, Halyburton went ashore with the assault forces. The campaign quickly turned into one of the most brutal of the Pacific war, with Japanese defenders fighting from deeply prepared positions. Weeks into the advance, his company received orders to attack through Awacha Draw, a ravine that enemy forces had laced with weapons. On May tenth, the Marines began their ascent, spreading out to cross ground that still looked deceptively ordinary. Then the hidden defenses came alive, and the lead squad was torn apart by mortar, machine gun, and sniper fire. The company’s momentum stalled, and calls for a corpsman rose from the slope.

From his position, Halyburton could see several wounded Marines lying in the open under intense fire. Some had managed to reach shallow depressions or scraps of cover, but one man lay farther up the hillside, completely exposed. Any attempt to move toward him drew more fire from the enemy positions. Halyburton understood the choice in front of him. He could stay under what little cover he had and hope the fire lifted, or he could act immediately and try to reach the Marine whose life was slipping away with every passing second. He chose to move, and that choice defined everything that followed.

He broke from cover and ran into the draw, carrying his medical bag and the skills he had worked so hard to master. The same storm of mortar fragments and bullets that had cut down the advance squad now reached for him. Marines watching from nearby saw him move at a run rather than a crawl, intent on closing the distance before the enemy adjusted their fire again. He reached the wounded Marine and dropped to the ground beside him, beginning first aid in the dirt and chaos of the hillside. A short moment of decision had turned into a sustained act of care under fire.

As Halyburton worked, another burst of enemy fire struck and he was wounded. Many in his place would have tried to pull back toward shelter or call for others to help drag them to safety. Instead, he made a second, even more costly decision. He shifted his own body to place himself directly between the wounded Marine and the direction of incoming fire. He continued to bandage, reassure, and treat the man, using his own frame as a living shield while the hillside remained under heavy attack. He refused to leave the casualty unprotected.

The official Medal of Honor citation later described “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty” in that ravine. In practical terms, that phrase means he knowingly exposed himself to nearly certain death when other options existed. The citation speaks of an “open fire swept field,” a simple line that describes the absence of real cover, where every rise and hollow was already searched by enemy weapons. It notes that he “unhesitatingly dashed across the draw and up the hill” to reach the farthest casualty, underlining that he did not wait for orders or for the fire to slacken. This was immediate, voluntary action.

Another key phrase in the citation records that, after being wounded, he “instantly placed himself in the direct line of fire” and “staunchly continued his ministrations” until he sustained mortal wounds. Those words describe him turning toward danger so that any additional rounds would have to pass through him before striking the Marine he treated. They describe persistence, not just a single brave dash. Intrepidity in this context is not the absence of fear. It is the steady refusal to abandon another human being even when the cost is almost certainly one’s own life. That is the heart of his award.

On the tactical level, Halyburton’s actions meant that a Marine who might otherwise have died alone on that slope survived the battle. Keeping a single rifleman alive can preserve hard earned experience and cohesion within a squad. It also signals to everyone else in the line that their lives matter. In a place like Okinawa, where ravines and ridges claimed men every day, that kind of trust helped units endure unimaginable strain. At the moral level, his decision told his comrades that devotion to duty included the wounded who could no longer move for themselves. That message endures long after the terrain is simply a name on a map.

Halyburton’s story also offers a clear picture of leadership that does not depend on rank. As a corpsman, he did not command anyone in the formal sense. His influence came from competence, courage, and a sense of responsibility for those around him. He saw the wounded Marine on the hillside as his charge and accepted the risk that came with that responsibility. Modern service members and civilians alike can see in his actions a model of what it looks like to hold fast to a standard of care for others when fear, exhaustion, and self interest all push in the opposite direction. Quiet leadership can be the strongest kind.

Because he was killed in action on May tenth, 1945, Halyburton never experienced the return to civilian life that many of his peers hoped for. There was no postwar career, no family life unfolding over decades. Instead, his legacy took form in the honors and remembrances that followed. He received the Medal of Honor posthumously, placing his name among those whose actions met the nation’s highest standard for valor. His remains were brought home and laid to rest with full honor, and his story returned to the communities that had shaped him in North Carolina. His sacrifice became part of their collective memory.

In later years, the United States Navy named a guided missile frigate in his honor, carrying the name Halyburton across the world’s oceans. Memorials in his hometown and at schools he attended keep his story present for new generations. Marines and sailors studying the Okinawa campaign still encounter his citation as a vivid example of what selfless service under fire can look like. For the rest of us, his life is a reminder that behind every name carved into stone there was a person with a family, a hometown, and plans for a future that never arrived. Remembering him as a full human being, and not just as a medal citation, honors both his sacrifice and the Marine he saved.